he main reason that it is overlooked/undervalued is because the style that came after it, Gothic, while still medieval/pre-Renaissance, is objectively a significantly more advanced form of architecture
Hijack away. I agree, and I love Gothic architecture, in particular the perpendicular style of the so-called ´wool churches´ in East Anglia like Blythburgh church (either beautifully restored or miraculously intact, not sure but it´s a stunner), and one of the joys of standing in a Gothic cathedral is just marvelling at their technical expertise. People in the Middle Ages were clever, very clever. But given their limited repertoire, Romanesque builders created huge spaces with powerful, almost theatrical patterns of dark and light. It is different, not necessarily inferior. Look at it this way, the Parthenon is reckoned one of the jewels of western art. It was built using essentially the same technical principles as Stonehenge.
I only really started learning about Romanesque building during Covid lockdown - I had nothing much to do except read (it´s an ill wind as they say). The other discovery was Romanesque sculpture, again often dismissed as inferior or technically less accomplished. That is definitely a misunderstanding. Romanesque sculpture is expressive and subtle in a way we don´t really understand when we set it up against classical or renaissance sculpture, but look at some of the sculptures in my video and think of them as modern or contemporary. Many of them are hauntingly beautiful.
There is also a kind of feeling I can´t describe, German probably has a very long word for it, but it´s the feeling of knowing a secret or belonging to a kind of secret club, added to which there is the thrill of the hunt simply because a lot of Romanesque architecture is either buried under later work (e,g, Santiago cathedral) or in remote locations.
Lecture over. Really, thanks for the response.
I am also working on a similar video of Moorish, Mudéjar and Sephardic buildings, but I shall wait before imposing it on an unwitting public.
Cheers.