ABSTRACT
The common-tiebeam roof with four vertical struts is the commonest surviving type of late-Romanesque roof in northern France and Belgium, perhaps equaling or outnumbering all other common-tiebeam designs put together. The Romanesque phases were distinguished not only in date but also in the jointing of the trusses: the earlier roof has plain or slightly barefaced-dovetail halvings, and the struts are halved to the tiebeams, and most of the halvings are on the west face. The roofs of the twelfth-century suburban collegiate church of St. Bartholomew at Liege have been the subject of repeated archaeological investigation. The revival of hoisting machinery in the twelfth century led to the development of both fixed and movable types of hoist. The study of St. Bartholomew’s, well east of Brabant, however, formed part of a more comprehensive general work of 1952 by the canon’s nephew, Baron Raymond Lemaire, which referred to an original trussed-rafter roof in the nave.
