Clermont, the Abbey Church at Vezelay, are all said to be twelfth-
century. Even San Marco at Venice was new in 1020.

Yet in 1020 Norman art was already too ambitious. Certainly nine
hundred years leave their traces on granite as well as on other
material, but the granite of Abbot Hildebert would have stood
securely enough, if the Abbot had not asked too much from it.
Perhaps he asked too much from the Archangel, for the thought of the
Archangel's superiority was clearly the inspiration of his plan. The
apex of the granite rock rose like a sugar-loaf two hundred and
forty feet (73.6 metres) above mean sea-level. Instead of cutting
the summit away to give his church a secure rock foundation, which
would have sacrificed about thirty feet of height, the Abbot took
the apex of the rock for his level, and on all sides built out
foundations of masonry to support the walls of his church. The apex
of the rock is the floor of the croisee, the intersection of nave
and transept. On this solid foundation the Abbot rested the chief
weight of the church, which was the central tower, supported by the
four great piers which still stand; but from the croisee in the
centre westward to the parapet of the platform, the Abbot filled the
whole space with masonry, and his successors built out still
farther, until some two hundred feet of stonework ends now in a
perpendicular wall of eighty feet or more. In this space are several
ranges of chambers, but the structure might perhaps have proved
strong enough to support the light Romanesque front which was usual
in the eleventh century, had not fashions in architecture changed in
the great epoch of building, a hundred and fifty years later, when
Abbot Robert de Torigny thought proper to reconstruct the west
front, and build out two towers on its flanks. The towers were no
doubt beautiful, if one may judge from the towers of Bayeux and