Fig. 17.—Vézelay, La Madeleine.
in 1104. Its nave is divided into a series of rectangular bays by transverse arches of semicircular section, and over each bay is placed a groined vault very slightly domed at the crown. To insure the stability of these vaults, the builders relied on the weight of the walls, which were carried up somewhat above the window heads, and on simple salient buttresses. To these exterior supports were added interior arches half imbedded in the walls above the clerestory windows [(Fig. 17)], furnishing one of the earliest examples of the use of wall ribs or formerets. The web of the vault does not, however, follow their extrados, but gradually breaks away from it toward the crown, with the apparent object of thus concentrating even more pressure upon the piers by stilting the wall line of the vault surface.[118] Even these precautions were not deemed sufficient, so iron tie-rods were employed, but these rusted and broke,[119] the vaults settled badly,[120] and if it had not been for the addition of exterior flying buttresses, which had meanwhile come into general use, the vaults would most certainly have fallen. Although not a structural success, Vézelay did prove of advantage in turning the builders away from the tunnel vault,—and this, too, in Bourgogne where it had been most highly developed,—to a new type which presented problems whose solution was to lead to Gothic architecture. Vézelay was, however, but little imitated in the Romanesque era, perhaps because of the almost contemporary development of the ribbed vault in Lombardy, Normandy, and the Ile-de-France. A few churches, such as Anzy-le-Duc (Saône-et-Loire)[121] did employ groined vaults over the nave but on a smaller scale and frequently with more pronounced doming.
A more important and independent group of groined vaulted churches is to be found in Normandy. In this school, the churches were usually covered with wooden roofs though the aisles were occasionally groined. But there are three churches in which the choir also has groined vaults. These are, La Trinité or the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen (Calvados) (cir. 1066), Saint Nicolas at Caen (cir. 1080), and Saint Georges-de-Boscherville at Saint Martin-de-Boscherville (Seine-Inférieure) (late eleventh and early twelfth century). The choir of the third of these churches, though later in date than the others, is more primitive in type, for it is covered by interpenetrating vaults, in which, however, the deep lunettes above the windows rise so nearly to the crown that the result resembles groined rather than tunnel vaulting.
In both the other examples true groined vaulting is used, but at La Trinité it is in practically square bays, and carried by walls running down to the ground,[122] making it easier of construction than that at Saint Nicolas[123] where the bays are rectangular and the choir has true side aisles. This church is similar in structural principles to La Madeleine at Vézelay—except that the wall ribs are omitted,—and these two churches may be said to represent the highest point reached by groined vaulting with practically flat crowns during the Romanesque period.
Other examples might be cited, ranging from such an unusual church as Saint Loup-de-Naud (Seine-et-Marne) in the Ile-de-France,—which is of uncertain date,[124]—to churches as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, among which are Severac-le-Château (Aveyron) and Saint Pons-de-Mauchiens (Hérault).[125] Occasionally, also, groined vaults were used in the crypt as at Saintes (Charente-Inférieure),[126] even when tunnel vaults were used in the upper part of the church, a peculiarity explained by the fact that underground it was easy to dispose of the thrusts which could not so readily be offset in the nave.