Romanesque Roof | 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 | Romanesque Roof
Professor Lynn Courtenay

The primary evidence for the successive, main-span roofs that formerly covered the nave of Jumièges exists on the west face of the crossing tower. Here, the scars and creasings indicate immediately that there have been three roofs, each with a different pitch: ca. 20, 39, 53 degrees respectively. Of these three, the lowest (and least weathered creasing) is probably the most recent and may relate to the inserted timber vault of ca. 1692. The highest roof is also not original, since its steeper pitch and flat section of gutter places it stylistically in the Gothic period.

But more importantly, this 'gothic' roof cuts into the lower portions of the Romanesque windows of the lantern tower. This then leaves the middle scar as the only choice for the romanesque nave—an assertion confirmed by what is generally known about roofs in northern Europe of this time, and especially by: 1) its correspondence in pitch with the stepped outline formed by the comparatively larger (earlier) masonry blocks on the east face of west gable, and, 2) the comparable inclinations of the roof scars for the tribune galleries seen on the crossing and the east face of the western towers.

All archaeological evidence indicates that the earliest roof above the nave had a pitch of about 39 degrees, certainly an inclination typical of roofs of this period that generally range between 40 to 50 degrees. In addition to evidence on the crossing tower and west gable already cited, a series of large, rectangular sockets and intermittent corbels are spaced across the inner faces of the west towers.


France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame, crossing		France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame, North tower detail		France, Jumièges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame, South tower

These are likely romanesque tie-beam sockets seen at a corresponding level on the inner faces of both the north and southwest towers (see detailed views). Their size and placement thus indicates rectangular housings for timbers ca. 26 cm x 31 cm in section and spaced about one meter apart, centre-to-centre. Since all of the aligned sockets are the same size, and at a level that corresponds to the base of the romanesque gable wall, one can infer that the original roof comprised a series of uniform tie-beam trusses. If these trusses over sailed the clerestory walls to permit drainage, their total span would have been approximately 14 meters. This is a system of construction consistent with what we know about similar early roofs from the 11th and 12th centuries in northern Europe, the earliest of which is the roof of St. Denis in Liège, dated by dendrochronology to 1015–1020.

In the eastern bay of the nave of Notre-Dame, on the west face of the crossing tower, evidence for axial timbers exists, but the precise archaeological interpretation in the context of the romanesque roofing system is ambiguous. Where the masonry offset occurs at the base of the roof gable (see my detail of the crossing tower, east face) there are eight, splayed cement-covered coggings intended perhaps to house axial timbers running from the last transverse tie beam of the nave to the crossing tower. This interpretation, however, is tentative since the spacing of the slots is uneven. Nonetheless, contextual evidence for panelled ceilings (discussed earlier) with longitudinal members is compelling, particularly since axial timbers and indications of for ceiling boards remain in the 12th century roofs of the transepts of St. Georges at Boscherville.

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