Foliated Animal Ornamentation of Romanesque Stave Churches (1000–1250) and Its Reception from Mediterranean Material Culture

Though the Vikings were seafaring warriors who settled in many parts of Europe (850-1050), after the advent of Christianity (11C) in their homeland, they made an important contribution to European medieval architecture by constructing the wooden stave churches (1000-1250). The Ringerike style of animals and plants used to ornament these churches originated in Ottoman and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The Urnes style that came next was characterized by interwoven, stylized animals fashionable in the British Isles. Romanesque art of the North reached beyond indigenous designs to adopt foreign influences from Christian cultures. For instance, Urnes church (1130) links Christian and Viking architecture in an art form in which foliated animal ornamentation flourished. Strzygowski maintained that the Urnes portal animals came from pre-Christian times in Iran along the Indo-Aryan migration routes, bringing the animal ornament to the Mediterranean countries during Hellenistic and early Christian periods. Müller argues that the acnthus form arrived in Scandinavia from Irish interlacing plant ornamentation. Hauglid posits the borrowing of the Carolingian acanthus leaf in Scandinavian arts before 900. Acanthus is a Mediterranean plant, and its conventionalised representation adorned Corinthian capitals. The motif denotes life, immortality, and veneration of the arts in Mediterranean countries. Its thorns can signify pain, sin, and punishment in Christianity. However, the ornamental acanthus remained popular due to its visual effect. During the Hellenistic period, it was used imaginatively on funerary stele and spread to the Roman Empire, but it also became part of Buddhist art and developed into Islamic arabesque forms. It was Romanesque capitals where acanthus capitals presented a spiritual allegory of the monastery. My paper discusses foliated animal ornamentation in Viking's representative Romanesque stave churches. It traces its reception from Mediterranean material cultural heritage, while it compares Romanesque portal designs in the Mediterranean and Scandinavia in forms and meanings.