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The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900. By Charles B. McClendon. (New Haven: Yale University Press. Pp. xii, 264 with 175 b/w and 35 color plates. $65.00.)
This accessible and well-illustrated book provides a thoughtful overview of the history of architecture between the later Roman period and A.D. 1000. Dedicated to the memory of Richard Krautheimer, it in fact brings to mind Krautheimer's seminal volume on the architecture of the Byzantine world as well as Kenneth Conant's companion volume on Carolingian and Romanesque architecture. Indeed, in many ways this is a shorter, updated version of these two great volumes squeezed comfortably into 208 handsomely illustrated pages.
Part one reviews the legacy of "late antiquity," the Roman response to the cult of relics, Romanitas and the barbarian West, and the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England. Part two focuses principally upon the Carolingian era and its aftermath in six chapters which include a review of the eighth century, the impact of Rome...