The twenty-five essays in this volume are the result of the third in the British Archeological Association’s biennial series of International Romanesque Conferences – organised in collaboration with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and the research project Artistas, patronos y público: Cataluña y el Mediterráneo (siglos XI-XV) – Magistri Cataloniae (MICINN HAR2011–23015). The conference was held over three days from 7–9 April 2014 in the lecture theatre of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. For 2014 we settled on the theme ROMANESQUE PATRONS AND PROCESSES, and the aim was to examine patronage, design and instrumentality in their broadest senses across Latin Europe between c. 1000 and c. 1200. Thus, in addition to papers on individual patrons (both clerical and lay), the initial call for papers encouraged submissions which dealt with institutional patronage. Did institutional patronage differ from individual patronage, and was it understood by contemporaries as being different? To what extent is the individual by whom an artefact was apparently commissioned acting as an individual? The conference also addressed the people and processes involved in commissioning buildings or works of art – the mechanics of design – authorship – intermediaries and agents – and the extent to which patrons are designers. Changes in the patterns of patronage are fundamental to understanding the procedures involved in the development of a work of art, crystallised in how long-running commissions cope with changes of patron, or other types of alteration: decisions to move site, changes of plan, simplification, failure or abandonment, in addition to changes of use. What are the limits to patronal influence?
Such was the promise of the conference, helped by what we saw as the innate potential in bringing scholars together to discuss these themes surrounded by the collections of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. The papers that were finally delivered in Barcelona were hearteningly varied in subject and approach, touching on the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, while ranging across media to include discussions of artistic techniques, patronal emulation, textuality, liturgical models, regional identity and the deployment of materials. This geographical variety was also reflected in the 90 people who attended the conference and made their way to Catalonia from the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Norway, Russia, US and Japan, twelve of them postgraduate students to whom the British Archaeological Association awarded scholarships covering the cost of the conference, visits and accommodation. The discussion did not end with the final conference dinner. As most scholars had travelled considerable distances to attend the conference, there were two additional days of visits on the 10–11 April, enabling the majority of those who attended the conference to spend further time together and visit a variety of Romanesque monuments at Sant Pere de Rodes, Girona, Tarragona and Santes Creus.
For their help in making the conference possible and illuminating its progress we would particularly like to thank the director of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Pepe Serra, who was supportive through the planning stage of the conference and was generous to a fault in all he provided at the conference itself. Above all, we would like to extend heartfelt thanks to Gemma Ylla-Català, who effectively combined the roles of conference secretary and chief orchestrator of logistics, and remained unflappable and superbly effective throughout. Grateful thanks are due to the Conference team and steering group, namely Manuel Castiñeiras and Jordi Camps as convenors, and Rosa Maria Bacile, Lindy Grant, John McNeill and Richard Plant as the London end of the steering group. We are also immensely grateful to those who gave site presentations during the Thursday and Friday visits, namely Manuel Castiñeiras, Jordi Camps, John McNeill, Veronica Abenza Soria, Laura Bartolomé, Rose Walker, Gerardo Boto, Marta Serrano Coll, Esther Lozano, Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo and Tom Nickson. Twenty-five out of the thirty papers and poster presentations given at the conference are published here, and though not all the papers were specifically intended for publication enough were for this volume to reflect the character of the conference.
Bringing out this set of conference transactions has taken longer than it should, and in the course of it the editors have incurred innumerable debts. Many of these relate to the conference itself, and the editors would like to express their gratitude to the small Steering Group which ultimately brought the conference into being, to the Advisory Panel (see p. vii) and, of course, to the contributors. Grateful thanks are also due to Tony Carr for the extraordinary elan he has again brought to the task of providing an index, and to Autumn Spalding for seeing this volume through production with exemplary speed, professionalism and good humour. Finally, without the resourcefulness, patience and keen generosity of John Osborn there would be no International Conference series. The editors, the British Archaeological Association, and the wider world of Romanesque scholarship are profoundly in his debt.
John McNeill and Richard Plant