A significant fact in connecting these churches which are wooden roofed, with the vaulted churches of Auvergne, lies in their geographical distribution. While the earliest examples such as Fulda lie in the Carolingian region, the latter examples, Jumièges, Vignory and Montiérender lie but slightly north of Auvergne, while Chatel-Montagne is actually in this province.[75] What is more natural to suppose, then, than that the vaulted churches of Auvergne were based upon these earlier churches, and that the nave arcade in two stages was retained even when both aisles and nave were covered with vaults? Furthermore, it would then be perfectly natural that the builders should have built these vaults in two stories corresponding to the two stages of arches, since they would have promptly recognized the great advantage gained by this system, which stiffened the interior and exterior walls for the added weight which the high vaults brought to bear upon them, without injuring to any extent the appearance of the church.[76] This seems all the more plausible when the fact is considered that the churches of Auvergne generally have broader aisles than those of Poitou or Provence. This may also have been a heritage from the early churches with two-storied arcades and wooden roofs just mentioned,[77] and in any case it further explains the system of aisle vaults in two stories. For, while the vaults of narrow aisles might be raised a considerable distance from the ground without danger from excessive thrusts, in wide aisles they would have exerted such thrusts and pressures on piers and walls as to have rendered their support most difficult, particularly when they carried directly the tiles of the roof as in Auvergne.
The School of Auvergne continued
As to the actual vaulting system of the Auvergnate churches, it is as follows. In the nave, heavy tunnel vaults resembling those of Provence in that they usually carried the roof.[78] Otherwise the churches are more like those of Poitou in the form of the piers, the almost universal absence of a clerestory, and the employment of vaults of semicircular section with transverse arches, as in the early churches of the second class in that school. In the triforium, the builders realized the advantage gained by the use of a half tunnel vault as an offset to the nave thrusts and as a means of best filling the space beneath a single gable roof,[79] and this is therefore the universal method. At times this vault is borne on full semicircular transverse arches,[80] and at others on those which follow its curve.[81] In the side aisles, groined vaults were employed because they were the only kind which could be built without cutting into either the triforium or the side wall windows. In form they closely resemble those of Poitou and were provided with transverse arches.
Churches of the Auvergne School
The church of Notre Dame-du-Port at Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme)[82] [(Fig. 12)] (cir. 1100) has the Auvergnate characteristics just described. Its great fault lies in the darkness of the interior, a darkness more pronounced than that of the churches of Provence or Poitou because of the width and lowness of the aisles with the consequent distance of the lateral windows from the nave and the fact that they cannot be cut very high above the floor. The windows of the triforium are also small,[83] and their light is almost entirely confined to the gallery by its floor and by the smallness of the arches opening into the nave. This fault was remedied in the choir, where the light was most needed, by doing away with the triforium, and placing a clerestory beneath the half dome of the apse.[84] As a further improvement a lantern was placed over the crossing.[85]
