Timber Construction: Primary Sources | Jumieges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame | Briefing | Professor Lynn Courtenay

Early Roofing Systems in Northern Europe

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France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame | Timber Construction: Primary Sources
Professor Lynn Courtenay

Contemporary sources [link to Courtenay Primary Resources, one page with 4 primary sources] largely in the form of monastic chronicles, lives (vitae) of saintly religious leaders, or accounts of the deeds (gesta) of the nobility provide precious verbal fragments of the hundreds of medieval ceilings and timber roofs now lost; however, when we combine this evidence with later surviving examples of about 1200 to 1240, manuscript illuminations, archaeological evidence of the support conditions of masonry walls and fenestration, we can discern that timber roofs and ceilings were perhaps the primary covering for most great churches in northern Europe from the early Middle Ages to the second half of the 12th century and long after that time in Italy.

For example, Thangmar's frequently-quoted account of the life and works of the famous Abbot of St. Michael's at Hildesheim, Bishop Bernward (Bp. 992–1022) mentions Bernward's having added "radiant paintings [on] the walls and the ceiling" of the Cathedral church. Moreover, the great Ottonian Abbey, so famous for its magnificent bronze doors, remains unvaulted, and although the present Tree of Jesse ceiling likely dates to the 13th century, portions of a perhaps earlier timber roof structure have survived and have been recorded (see bibliography).

In the Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium a similar description of painted walls and ceilings exists for two of the large conventual buildings of the Merovingian abbey of Fontenelle (later Saint Wandrille) not far from Jumièges.

France, Normandy in the 11th century

Likewise, Leo of Ostia's vivid account of the new construction of Montecassino by Abbot Desiderius (abbot, 1072–87) focuses in considerable detail on Desiderius' involvement in the work and the building procedures, and it should not be overlooked that Leo also tells us that a decorated timber ceiling covered this highly influential church! Thus, documentary evidence from Fontenelle, Montecassino, and Hildesheim suggest contextual evidence for the viability of a decorative ceiling at Jumièges and other great churches of northern Europe. Moreover, this primary source suggests the critical importance of monastic affiliations that connected regions of western Europe and linked ideologically and administratively reform centers like Dijon in Burgundy, Hirsau in Germany, and Fécamp in Normandy with Benedictine houses in Italy, where the Norman dukes looked for educated spiritual leaders, who would bring with them enlightened ideas concerning liturgy, customs, art and architecture.

While unaltered survivals of the Romanesque timberwork are exceedingly rare (and we must note that Jumièges was re-modeled several times), churches known from documentation or archeological evidence reinforce the importance of the long-lived hegemony of the timber-roofed basilican plan transported to the north of Europe initially by the Romans and later by the spread of Benedictine monasticism, and revived and transformed by Carolingian rulers and reformers. One may also reflect upon building technology prior to the late 11th century and consider that in contrast to their stone vaulted counterparts, ceiled or open-roofed churches would have been much brighter on the interior because of their comparatively larger and more closely-spaced clerestory windows, as well as the structural advantage of less massive walls than required by masonry vaults.

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