They evoke the grandeur of the East, of Roland, Alexander the Great, and recall Rome the Great, Thebes, and Troy.
In the field of architecture, there is a definition and thus the development of certain themes from the Carolingian period, rooted in the tradition of Roman classicism. This is especially true with regard to construction techniques, that is, the manner of building pillars, vaults, arches, etc. At the same time, elements are applied—particularly in decoration—drawn both from antiquity and from Byzantine and Irano-Syrian sources; the latter penetrated France especially through Spain. Thus, from Catalonia there came to France a certain oriental manner of constructing vaults, such as that of the church of St. Philip, known as Tournus. The essential characteristics of French Romanesque architectural taste reveal themselves differently according to the regions, even though a sense of austere, heavy grandeur is constant, and the use of vaulting over pillars is extremely widespread, especially in the side aisles. This is seen in Normandy, in the ancient ruined abbey church of Jumièges, in that of the Trinity, and in St. Stephen at Caen. In Poitou, on the other hand, the buildings have a more restrained tone, as in the church of Notre-Dame and that of St. Hilary at Poitiers, the latter with seven aisles and five domes. Contemporaneously, in Burgundy, the great architectural school that flourished in the gigantic structures of the ancient abbey of Cluny foreshadows the advance of Gothic taste in the extremely slender lines of the central naves. Meanwhile, in Auvergne, the use of red, white, and black stones gave a quite distinctive, often festive, tone to the constructions, as seen in Notre-Dame at Clermont, Notre-Dame du Puy, and St. Paul.