Struggle as Image and Symbol in Spanish Romanesque Parish Porticoes

• Published in: Arts (Basel) 2024-12, Vol.13 (6), p.186
• Main Author: Salgado Pantoja, José Arturo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Architecture; Centuries; Christian architecture and function; Christianity; civic-liturgical spaces; episcopal authority; images of struggle; porticoes; Rites, ceremonies and celebrations; Romanesque; Romanesque art; Sacraments
• ISSN: 2076-0752; 2076-0752
• DOI: 10.3390/arts13060186

The extensive bibliography on medieval architecture highlights that parish church porticoes are one of the most singular features of the Spanish Romanesque tradition. These structures, which regulated the transition to the Aula Dei, provided villagers with a safe space for conducting liturgical ceremonies and rituals, administering sacraments, and burying the dead. However, parish porticoes soon took on other uses of a secular nature. Thanks to their social role and privileged location, they became ideal spaces for admonishing and instructing the faithful through well-chosen visual repertoires. This article explores these functional and iconographic aspects through the lens of struggle: on the one hand, the earthly confrontation between ecclesiastical authorities and village communities as to the functions of the porticoes, and on the other, the allegorical struggle depicted in their reliefs, whose admonitory motives can be linked to the attributes and meaning of the architectural framework.