Pre-Romanesque art and architecture

The pre-Romanesque period in European art spans the years from the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom around 500 AD (or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late-8th century) to the beginning of the Romanesque period in the 11th century. While the term is typically used in English to refer primarily to architecture and monumental sculpture, this article will briefly cover all the arts of the period.

The primary theme during this period is the introduction and absorption of classical Mediterranean and Early Christian forms with Germanic ones, which fostered innovative new results. This in turn led to the rise of Romanesque art in the 11th century. In the outline of Medieval art pre-Romanesque was preceded by what is commonly called the Migration Period art of the "barbarian" peoples: Hiberno-Saxon in the British Isles and predominantly Merovingian on the Continent.

In most of western Europe, the Roman architectural tradition survived the collapse of the Roman empire. The Franks of the Merovingian polity continued to build large stone buildings like monastery churches and palaces.

The unification of the Frankish kingdom under Clovis I (r. 481–511) and his successors corresponded with a period of building churches, and especially monastery churches, as these were now the power-houses of the Merovingian church. Two-hundred monasteries existed south of the Loire when St Columbanus, an Irish missionary, arrived in Europe in 585. Only 100 years later, by the end of the 7th century, over 400 monasteries flourished in the Merovingian kingdom alone. The building plans often continued the Roman basilica tradition.

Many Merovingian plans have been reconstructed from archaeology. The description in Bishop Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks of the basilica of Saint-Martin, built at Tours by Saint Perpetuus (bishop 460–490) at the beginning of the period and at the time on the edge of Frankish territory, gives cause to regret the disappearance of this building, one of the most beautiful Merovingian churches, which Bishop Gregory states had 120 marble columns, towers at the east end, and several mosaics: "Saint-Martin displayed the vertical emphasis, and the combination of block-units forming a complex internal space and the correspondingly rich external silhouette, which were to be the hallmarks of the Romanesque".

The Merovingian dynasty gave way to the Carolingian dynasty in 752 AD, which led to Carolingian architecture from 780 to 900, and to Ottonian architecture in East Francia (the Holy Roman Empire) from the mid-10th century until the mid-11th century. These successive Frankish dynasties were large contributors to Romanesque architecture.