Reply To: Pilgrimage Churches

[Gabe]

So the most obvious effect of Romanesque period pilgrimages was that there were more people traveling to and visiting churches. Naturally this meant that churches had to grow larger and more sophisticated to accommodate them. To accomplish this however wasn’t so simple. Architecture in Europe had been largely stagnant since the fall of Rome, but the need to construct new Churches that could meet the needs of the Romanesque Pilgrim Period meant that techniques such as sweeping arches and huge domes had to be rediscovered and applied. Pilgrims were travelers, so many churches built wings with beds for the pilgrims. The layout of Romanesque churches with an ambulatory and radiating chapels with reliquaries was designed so that pilgrims could move through, stopping and praying at each relic in turn, without getting in each other’s way.