churches were simply built to allow villagers in their respective areas to be able to worship the God they believed in. Starting with the Romanesque style, and later the Gothic style architecture, churches began to become massive monuments built to house sculptures, be early tourism destinations, and simply allow the people in growing cities to all worship at one central location. Romanesque and Gothic architecture certainly sound different from their names, but the similarities are much more numerous than one may think.
Romanesque architecture came before Gothic starting in the late 1000s when architects started to, almost out of nowhere, favor stone buildings and roofs as opposed to easily flammable wood structures. This seems relatively obvious but fires back in those times were exponentially more devastating as they are today, with the lack of technology and understanding. This fear of wood structures burning caused Romanesque architects to construct stone, low ceiling cathedrals that were made possible because of the wide spread prosperity in Europe at that time. This stone architecture caused there to not be much light permissible into the cathedrals as shown at the Cathedral of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, France. Also visible in this cathedral are the very calculated and geometrical compound piers which, according to Pitt University, are types of piers that are composed not of single members but have shafts, half-columns, or pilaster strips attached to them. These piers, along with magnificent stone relics and reliefs, allowed for the common person to come into the cathedral and fully experience the wonderment of their God, even being illiterate; as many people were back in the 1000s. .
Many of these features are shared in the later, Gothic architectural style that started in the late 1200s. Gothic cathedrals share the same grandeur as Romanesque cathedrals because of a continued time of prosperity in Europe.