Romanesque may first be sensed in new structural developments.. Sophisticated but unsatisfactory

attempts to vault the great basilican naves safely, with elements of

Roman, Byzantine, or Eastern origin, impelled progressive Romanesque

engineers, from about 1090 onward, to invent a new type of ribbed

groin-vaulted unit bay, using pointed arches to distribute thrust and

improve the shape of the geometric surfaces. Fifty years of

experimentation produced vaulting that was light, strong, open,

versatile, and applicable everywhere--in short, Gothic vaulting. A whole

new aesthetic, with a new decorative system--the Gothic--was being

evolved as early as 1145. The spatial forms of the new buildings

sometimes caused acoustic difficulties, which may help to account for

the concomitant development of the new polyphonic music that

supplemented the traditional Romanesque plainsong. Romanesque

architecture became old-fashioned, but its heavy forms pleased the

Cistercian monks and, likewise, other conservative patrons in Germany,

Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Thus, buildings that were

essentially Romanesque in spirit continued to be built, even when such

extraordinary Gothic works as the Amiens cathedral were under

construction (begun 1220). (see also Index: Gothic architecture, music,

history of)

The development of proto-Romanesque in the Ottonian period culminated in

the true Romanesque style represented by five magnificent churches on

the international pilgrimage routes leading from central France to the

reputed tomb of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain:

Saint-Martin at Tours (a huge once wooden-roofed basilica that was

rebuilt on the new model beginning about 1050), Sainte-Foy at Conques (

c. 1052-1130), Saint-Martial at Limoges (c. 1062-95), Saint-Sernin at

Toulouse (1077 or 1082-1118), and the new cathedral at Santiago de

Compostela itself (c. 1075-1211). This was a real family of buildings;

each one had a splendid apse with ambulatory (a sheltered place to walk)

and radiating chapels, a transept and nave with aisles and galleries, an

imposing tower system, and beautiful sculptures. Each one was entirely

vaulted, typically, with barrel vaults over the nave, quadrant vaults

(four-part vaults, formed by two intersecting arches) over the

galleries, and groin-vaulted aisles. A little later, at the Cluniac

priory of Saint-+tienne (Nevers, Fr.), such a church was boldly built

with clerestory (part of the nave, choir, and transept walls above the

aisle roofs) windows under the high vault.