Editing Norman architecture (section)

==Origins==
These [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] styles originated in [[Normandy]] and became widespread in northwestern Europe, particularly in England, which contributed considerable development and where the largest number of examples survived. At about the same time, [[Hauteville family|a Norman dynasty]] that ruled in [[Sicily]] produced a distinctive variation–incorporating [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] and [[Saracen]] influences–also known as Norman architecture (or alternatively Sicilian Romanesque).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reilly |first=Lisa |title=The Invention of Norman Visual Culture: Art, Politics, and Dynastic Ambition |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2020 |isbn=9781108488167 |location=Cambridge |language=en-uk}}</ref> 

The term Norman may have originated with eighteenth-century [[antiquarian]]s, but its usage in a sequence of styles has been attributed to [[Thomas Rickman]] in his 1817 work ''An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation''. In this work he used  the labels "Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular". The more inclusive term ''romanesque'' was used of the [[Romance languages]] in English by 1715,<ref>[[OED]] "Romanesque": in French a letter of 1818 by [[Charles-Alexis-Adrien Duhérissier de Gerville]] seems to be the first</ref> and was applied to architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from 1819.<ref>OED same entry; in French by Gerville's friend [[Arcisse de Caumont]] in his ''Essaie sur l'architecture du moyen âge, particulièrement en Normandie,'' 1824.</ref>  

Although [[Edward the Confessor]] built the original [[Westminster Abbey]] in Romanesque style (now all replaced by later rebuildings), its construction predates the Norman Conquest: it is still believed to have been the earliest major Romanesque building in England. No other significant remaining Romanesque architecture in Britain can clearly be shown to predate the Norman Conquest. However, historians believe that many surviving "Norman" elements in buildings–nearly all churches–may well in fact be Anglo-Saxon elements.