Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
9-2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Art History
Advisor
Cynthia Hahn
Committee Members
Lauren Mancia
Warren Woodfin
Philippe Cordez
Subject Categories
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture
Keywords
Romanesque, shrine complex, crusade, Reconquista, medieval art, object narrative, archival voicelessness, sacred space, reliquary, votive
Abstract
Reframing Romanesque, this dissertation challenges the long-accepted premise that historicism is the main, shared ideological force behind the dramatic aesthetic and material shifts characteristic of the years between 1099 and 1144. Instead, it approaches Latin Christian shrines as complex, intentionally composed spaces produced by the interlinking of the desire for territorial expansion and local control with historical temporalities and theological justifications for the “restoration” of these territories. Shrines between the Iberian Peninsula and southern Francia not only benefited from the material influx of the expansionist project (epitomized by crusade and Reconquista) by receiving new relics, as well as other sacred and precious materials, but also staged arguments promoting this expansionist ideology through the efforts of significant and powerful local individuals––shrine concepteurs.
By crafting a strategically installed sacred space, shrine concepteurs communicated new stories and made arguments to viewers by carefully overlapping epigraphic inscriptions and written texts, as well as reconceiving of relics, cult artefacts, iconographies, and ritual repertoires to argue for greater independence or political control. This fundamentally reenvisioned their local cult and community histories. Oviedo, Conques, and Santiago de Compostela––three of the most consequential sites shaping the notion of Romanesque across the Pyrenees––serve as case studies in this project, offering new insights into distinct components of the changing function of the shrine complex. This study thus revises our vision of key Romanesque artworks: the Arca Santa of Oviedo, the Majesty of Sainte Foy, and the Romanesque iron grills of Conques, as well as the twelfth-century Compostela ciborium and the origin of the shell as a sign of Saint James.
Viewers were not passive receptacles for concepteur’s object narratives or expansionist rhetoric––they answered back, installing and manipulating the presentation of objects and stories in shrine space. Thus, over the following pages, a story of domination and resistance plays out on the macro and micro-scales of historical narrative to reveal the complex contributions of many archivally voiceless, yet integral participants in the shrine complex. Their lives can still be spoken for through the objects and materials that remain, standing as testaments and suggesting their resilience. Shrines thus emerge from this project as more than centers of pilgrimage and devotion; they were powerful instruments advancing an expansionist ideology, offering sites of community negotiation, control, and resistance in the present.
Recommended Citation
Racaniello, Kris N., "The Romanesque Shrine Complex as Territorial Expansion: Oviedo, Conques, Compostela (1099–1144)" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6920
