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Islamesque: The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe's Medieval Monuments
Who really built Europe's finest Romanesque monuments? Abbots and bishops presiding over holy sites receive mentions aplenty throughout history, while their highly skilled creators remain anonymous. But the buildings speak for themselves.
In this groundbreaking book, Middle East cultural historian Diana Darke explores the evidence embedded in medieval monasteries, churches and castles across Europe, from Mont Saint-Michel and the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Durham Cathedral and the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela. Tracing the origins of key decorative and architectural innovations during this pre-Gothic period--acknowledged as the essential foundation of all future European construction styles--she sheds new light on the mystery masons, carpenters and sculptors behind these masterpieces.
Her discoveries are dramatic. At a time when Christendom lacked such expertise, Muslim craftsmen, with their advanced understanding of geometry and complex ornamentation styles, dominated the high-end construction industry in Islamic Spain, Sicily and North Africa, spreading their knowledge and techniques across Western Europe. Challenging Euro-centric assumptions about the continent's built heritage, Darke uncovers the profound influence of the Islamic world in 'Christian' Europe, and argues that 'Romanesque' architecture, a fiction first invented by nineteenth-century French art historians, should be recognised as what it truly Islamesque.
480 pages, Hardcover
Published January 7, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 25, 2025
I started this book very optimistically, but quickly found it downright irritating and rather tedious.
Everybody accepts that the Islamic world was far ahead of medieval Europe in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, sculpture and general standards of living. Everybody accepts that our medieval churches and cathedrals were heavily influenced and largely constructed by Muslim stone-masons, carpenters and sculptors, who were at that time so much more skilful than their Western contemporaries.
So it's difficult to know why Diana Darke wrote this book, unless it was to claim that Muslim architects and craftsmen were the only people responsible, and that the local architects and craftsmen never learned anything over many centuries.
She ignores the fact, for example, that the interlaced knot had been used in Rome, and that the Celtic knot might therefore have been influenced by that rather than by Islamic art - or even have been an independent development. She ignores the role of Byzantium. She ignores the fact that there are blind arches in the Pantheon. And it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that different cultures can come up with similar designs and solutions in parallel (e.g. the Green Men), or that artists can be inspired by what they might see briefly, and go away and develop their ideas.
She really over-states her case at times. Writing about a church in Stafford, she claims that a group of Muslim craftsmen were brought in to build it (which may have been the case) and were sent to live quite some distance away in a village called Biddulph Moor, which, she claims, derives its name from the presence of these Muslim craftsmen, even though at that time they would have been called "Saracens" rather than "Moors", and even though the village is actually.... up on the moor.
She states her opinions as facts - some particular work is so excellently done that it can "clearly", "obviously" only have been done by the Muslim craftsmen. So, if we accept that these craftsmen produced excellent work, she deduces that all excellent work must have been done by them and not by anybody else.
Her tone is often very dismissive of whatever doesn't fit her thesis, for example the guide-book of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, while the guide-book of a priory in Norfolk is given as evidence, because it cites a legend which she agrees with. Likewise, some of her "evidence" comes from writings in the late 19th century and once even from a novel written in 1980.
My recommendation is not to read this book, to look elsewhere for the extremely well-documented but less propagandistic evidence of who built our medieval churches and cathedrals, and then simply go and enjoy the beauty.
Everybody accepts that the Islamic world was far ahead of medieval Europe in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, sculpture and general standards of living. Everybody accepts that our medieval churches and cathedrals were heavily influenced and largely constructed by Muslim stone-masons, carpenters and sculptors, who were at that time so much more skilful than their Western contemporaries.
So it's difficult to know why Diana Darke wrote this book, unless it was to claim that Muslim architects and craftsmen were the only people responsible, and that the local architects and craftsmen never learned anything over many centuries.
She ignores the fact, for example, that the interlaced knot had been used in Rome, and that the Celtic knot might therefore have been influenced by that rather than by Islamic art - or even have been an independent development. She ignores the role of Byzantium. She ignores the fact that there are blind arches in the Pantheon. And it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that different cultures can come up with similar designs and solutions in parallel (e.g. the Green Men), or that artists can be inspired by what they might see briefly, and go away and develop their ideas.
She really over-states her case at times. Writing about a church in Stafford, she claims that a group of Muslim craftsmen were brought in to build it (which may have been the case) and were sent to live quite some distance away in a village called Biddulph Moor, which, she claims, derives its name from the presence of these Muslim craftsmen, even though at that time they would have been called "Saracens" rather than "Moors", and even though the village is actually.... up on the moor.
She states her opinions as facts - some particular work is so excellently done that it can "clearly", "obviously" only have been done by the Muslim craftsmen. So, if we accept that these craftsmen produced excellent work, she deduces that all excellent work must have been done by them and not by anybody else.
Her tone is often very dismissive of whatever doesn't fit her thesis, for example the guide-book of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, while the guide-book of a priory in Norfolk is given as evidence, because it cites a legend which she agrees with. Likewise, some of her "evidence" comes from writings in the late 19th century and once even from a novel written in 1980.
My recommendation is not to read this book, to look elsewhere for the extremely well-documented but less propagandistic evidence of who built our medieval churches and cathedrals, and then simply go and enjoy the beauty.
June 16, 2025
Wonderful but more suitable for those specializng in the field of architecture.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews