Editing Gothic architecture (section)

== Name ==
{{Further|Name of the Goths}}
Medieval contemporaries characterised the style in [[Latin]] as {{Lang |la|opus Francigenum}} ("French work" or "[[Franks|Frankish]] work"), as {{Lang |la|opus modernum}} ("modern work"), or as {{Lang |la|novum opus}} ("new work"). [[Italian language|Italian]]-speakers  could call it {{Lang |it|maniera tedesca|}} ("German style").<ref>{{Citation|last=Bogdanović|first=Jelena|title=opus Francigenum |year=2010 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662624.001.0001/acref-9780198662624-e-4321|work=The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages|editor-last=Bjork|editor-first=Robert E.|publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780198662624.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-866262-4 |access-date=2020-04-09 |archive-date=10 April 2020 |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20200410194839/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662624.001.0001/acref-9780198662624-e-4321|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>Bannister Fletcher, p. 524</ref>

The term "Gothic architecture" originated as a [[pejorative]] description. [[Giorgio Vasari]] used the term "barbarous German style" in his ''[[Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects|Lives of the Artists]]'' (1550) to describe what is now considered the Gothic style,<ref name=vas>[[Giorgio Vasari|Vasari, G]]. ''The Lives of the Artists''. Translated with an introduction and notes by J.C. and [[Peter Bondanella|P. Bondanella]]. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]] (Oxford World's Classics), 1991, pp. 117 & 527. {{ISBN|9780199537198}}</ref> and in the introduction to the ''Lives'' he attributes various architectural features to the [[Goths]], whom he held responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, and for erecting new ones in this style.<ref>Vasari, Giorgio. (1907) ''[https://archive.org/details/vasariontechniqu1907vasa Vasari on technique: being the introduction to the three arts of design, architecture, sculpture and painting, prefixed to the Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects]''. [[Gerard Baldwin Brown|G. Baldwin Brown]] Ed. Louisa S. Maclehose Trans. London: Dent, pp. b & 83.</ref> When Vasari wrote, Italy had experienced a century of building in the [[Vitruvius|Vitruvian]] architectural vocabulary of [[classical order]]s revived in the [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]] and seen as evidence of a new [[Golden Age]] of learning and refinement. Thus the Gothic style, being in opposition to classical architecture, from that point of view was associated with the destruction of progress and of sophistication.<ref>Lepine, Ayla & Laura Cleaver. ''Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture.'' Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 162.</ref> The assumption that classical architecture was better than Gothic architecture was widespread and proved difficult to counter.<ref>Gombrich, Ernst H. "The Renaissance Conception of Artistic Progress and its Consequences", in ''Gombrich on the Renaissance Volume 1: Norm and Form''. London: Phaidon, 1985, p. 1.</ref> Vasari was echoed in the 16th century by [[François Rabelais]], who referred to [[Goths]] and [[Ostrogoths]] (''Gotz'' and ''Ostrogotz'').{{efn|"Gotz" is rendered as "Huns" in [[Thomas Urquhart]]'s English translation.}}<ref>{{Cite web |title =Gothic Architecture – Loyola's Historic Architecture – Department of History – Loyola University Maryland |url =https://www.loyola.edu/academics/history/architecture/cga |url-status=live |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20200809210915/https://www.loyola.edu/academics/history/architecture/cga |archive-date =9 August 2020 |access-date=2020-05-24 |website=www.loyola.edu}}</ref>

The polymath architect [[Christopher Wren]] (1632-1723) disapproved of the label "Gothic" for pointed architecture. He compared it to [[Islamic architecture]], which he called the '[[Saracen]] style', pointing out that the pointed arch's sophistication was not owed to the Goths but to the [[Islamic Golden Age]]. He wrote:<ref>{{Cite journal |year=1925 |editor-last=Bolton|editor-first=A. T.|title=St Paul's Cathedral|journal=The Wren Society|publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=II |pages=15–20}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=This we now call the Gothic manner of architecture (so the Italians called what was not after the Roman style) though the Goths were rather destroyers than builders; I think it should with more reason be called the Saracen style, for these people wanted neither arts nor learning: and after we in the west lost both, we borrowed again from them, out of their Arabic books, what they with great diligence had translated from the Greeks.|author=Christopher Wren|title=''Report on St Paul's''|source=}}

Wren was the first to popularize the belief that it was not the Europeans, but the "[[Saracens]]" who had originated the Gothic style. (The term 'Saracen', still in use in the 18th century, typically referred to all Muslims, including Arabs and Berbers.) Wren mentions Europe's architectural debt to the Saracens no fewer than twelve times in his writings.<ref>Darke, Diana. ''Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe.'' London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers, 2020. p. 7</ref> He also decidedly broke with tradition in his assumption that Gothic architecture did not merely represent a violent and bothersome mistake (as Vasari had suggested). Rather, Wren saw that the Gothic style had developed over time along the lines of a changing society, and that it was thus a legitimate architectural style in its own right.<ref>Lepine, Ayla & Laura Cleaver. ''Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture''. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 164.</ref>

It was no secret that Wren strongly disliked the building practices of the Gothic style. When he was appointed Surveyor of the Fabric at Westminster Abbey in the year 1698, he expressed his distaste for the Gothic style in a letter to the Bishop of Rochester:<ref>{{Cite web |last =pixeltocode.uk |first =PixelToCode |title =Sir Christopher Wren |url =https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/sir-christopher-wren |access-date =2023-07-30 |website =Westminster Abbey |language=en}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Nothing was thought magnificent that was not high beyond Measure, with the Flutter of Arch-buttresses, so we call the sloping Arches that poise the higher Vaultings of the Nave. The Romans always concealed their Butments, whereas the Normans thought them ornamental. These I have observed are the first Things that occasion the Ruin of Cathedrals, being so much exposed to the Air and Weather; the Coping, which cannot defend them, first failing, and if they give Way, the Vault must spread. Pinnacles are no Use, and as little Ornament.|author=Christopher Wren|title=''Parentalia''|source=}}

The chaos of the Gothic left much to be desired in Wren's eyes. His aversion to the style was so strong that he refused to put a Gothic roof on the new [[St Paul's Cathedral | St. Paul's]], despite pressure to do so.<ref>Darke, Diana. ''Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe''. London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers, 2020. p. 36.</ref> Wren much preferred symmetry and straight lines in architecture, which is why he constantly praised the classic architecture of 'the Ancients' in his writings.{{No source|date=January 2025}}

Even though he openly expressed his distaste for the Gothic style, Wren did not blame the Saracens for any apparent lack of ingenuity. Quite the opposite: he praised the Saracens for their 'superior' vaulting techniques and their widespread use of the pointed arch.<ref>Darke, Diana. ''Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe.''London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers, 2020. p. 4.</ref> Wren claimed the inventors of the Gothic had seen the Saracen architecture during the [[Crusades]], also called the [[Religious war]] or Holy War, originated in the Kingdom of France in the year 1095:

{{Blockquote|text=The Holy War gave the Christians, who had been there, an Idea of the Saracen Works, which were afterwards by them imitated in the West; and they refined upon it every day, as they proceeded in building Churches.|author=Christopher Wren|title=''Parentalia''|source=}}

Several chronological issues arise from this statement, which is one of the reasons why Wren's theory is rejected by many. The earliest examples of the pointed arch in [[Europe]] date from before the [[First Crusade]] of 1096-1099; this is widely regarded as proof that the Gothic style could not have possibly been derived from Saracen architecture.<ref>Raquejo, Tonia. "The 'Arab Cathedrals': Moorish Architecture as Seen by British Travellers". ''The Burlington Magazine'', 128, no. 1001 (August 1986), p. 556.</ref> Several authors have nevertheless claimed that the Gothic style had most likely filtered into Europe in other ways, for example through Spain or Sicily.  Spanish architecture influenced by the Moors could have favoured the emergence of the Gothic style long before the Crusades took place. This could have happened gradually through merchants, travelers and pilgrims.<ref>Darke, Diana. ''Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe''. London: C. Hurst & Co Publishers, 2020. p. 207.</ref>

According to a 19th-century correspondent in the London journal ''[[Notes and Queries]]'', "Gothic" was a derisive misnomer; the pointed arcs and architecture of the [[Late Middle Ages|later Middle Ages]] differed radically from the rounded arches prevalent in [[late antiquity]] and in the period of the [[Ostrogothic Kingdom]] (493 to 553) in Italy:
<blockquote>
There can be no doubt that the term 'Gothic' as applied to pointed styles of ecclesiastical architecture was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. But, without citing many authorities, such as [[Christopher Wren]], and others, who lent their aid in depreciating the old mediaeval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude, it may be sufficient to refer to the celebrated Treatise of Sir [[Henry Wotton]], entitled ''The Elements of Architecture'', ... printed in London so early as 1624. ... But it was a strange misapplication of the term to use it for the pointed style, in contradistinction to the circular, formerly called Saxon, now Norman, Romanesque, &c. These latter styles, like [[Lombard architecture|Lombardic]], Italian, and the [[Byzantine architecture|Byzantine]], of course belong more to the Gothic period than the light and elegant structures of the pointed order which succeeded them.<ref name="Ref_b">''[[Notes and Queries]]'', No. 9. 29 December 1849</ref>
</blockquote>
[[File:Vista de Teruel desde la torre de la iglesia del Salvador, España, 2014-01-10, DD 82.JPG|thumb|Pointed arches in the 14th-century [[tower of the church of San Salvador]] at [[Teruel]] in Aragon]]