A Group of Catalan Fourteenth Century Churches

Abstract

Nothing is more characteristic of Catalan Gothic churches than their lack of a settled vocabulary of details. The region was of no more than moderate extent even by mediaeval standards; it enjoyed a high degree of racial and political unity, and evolved in architecture its peculiar and homogeneous types of plan and elevation, together with consistent habits of decoration. Yet detail remained relatively diverse. There was, for one tiling, no moment when a single repertory of profiles prevailed, unless it be after 1400 or so, when “prismatic” mouldings were usual. Anomalous or capricious forms, particularly for vaulting ribs, were inevitably commoner in the small or provincial buildings, and more frequent in the thirteenth century than in the fourteenth. But since great freedom in this respect occurs even in important monuments such as the cathedrals of Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, and Tortosa, it is plain that the habit was not confined to early or remote or minor work. Just as the main course of the Catalan Gothic was so happily conditioned by vigorous Romanesque antecedents, so profiles were apt to owe much to older forms; and this tendency is quite apparent in the four churches grouped together in the present study.