Gothic Architecture During the Middle Ages

Gothic architecture a new style developing from an old style of architecture with similar characteristics and in a way different. Architects wanted to build bigger buildings with stronger walls something that could not be found elsewhere. The old buildings did not have windows they were dark places that in order to get light they needed many candles. Not even the candles could give the right amount of light the buildings needed. The middle ages architects wanted big windows on the buildings and this new style made their wish come true. Architecture during the Middle Ages became a new style with new problems to solve and a new kind of extraordinary buildings to build.

The world was changing, and Europeans’ perceptions of it as reflected in art and architecture too. A style termed Romanesque from about 1000 onward had dominated; this gave way to the Gothic in about 1150 which spread throughout the continent and originated in France and it spread during the next four centuries. The names appeared later, aspects of Romanesque style resembled Roman architecture particularly its use of round arches and vaults. In Gothic architecture there is a little in the delicate beauty to suggest the Gothic tribes that destroyed the Roman Empire. The deceptive name was used by historians as a way of identifying the entire medieval period with barbarism (Knight 111-112). A great new style of architecture called “Gothic” by modern art historians revolutionized church building. Gothic architecture in large structures such as cathedrals approached the buildings very differently (Hanawalt 91-92). Within a few years of 1100, no later than 1110 this fine masonry had reached England. Not only were the stones of lager size but they were better cut, implyin...

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...haracteristic. Architecture during the Middle Ages became a new style with new problems to solve and a new kind of extraordinary buildings to build.

Works Cited

Honawalt, Barbara A. “Gothic Architecture.” The Middle Ages An Illustrated History. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Barber, Richard. “Gothic Architecture.” The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe. New York:

Viking Penguin Inc., 1984.

Donald, Matthew. “Gothic Architecture.” Chronicles of the middle Ages. Ed. Graham Speake.

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“Gothic Architecture.” The Flowering of the Middle Ages. Ed. Joan Evans. New York:

Bonanza Books, 1996.

Knight, Judson. “Gothic Architecture.” Middle Ages Almanac. Ed. Judy Galens. Detroit:

UXL, 2001.

Macdonald, Fiona. “Gothic Architecture.” A Medieval Cathedral. Ed. Vicki Power. New

York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1999.