Francis Miltoun
The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine

APOLOGIA

The Rhine provinces stand for all that is best and most characteristic of the ecclesiastical architecture of Germany, as contrasted with that very distinct species known as French pointed or Gothic.

For this reason the present volume of the series, which follows the Cathedrals of Northern and Southern France, deals with a class of ecclesiastical architecture entirely different from the light, flamboyant style which has made so many of the great cathedral churches of France preëminently famous.

Save Cologne, there is no great cathedral, either in Germany or the Low Countries, which in any way rivals the masterpieces of Paris, Reims, or Amiens, or even Lincoln or York in England.

Strasburg and Metz are in a way reminiscent of much that is French, but in the main the cathedrals and churches of the Rhine are of a species distinct and complete in itself.

Any consideration of the Rhine cities and towns, and the ecclesiastical monuments which they contain, must perforce deal largely with the picturesque and romantic elements of the river's legendary past.

Not all of these legends deal with mere romance, as the world well knows. The religious element has ever played a most important part in the greater number of the Rhine legends. For demonstration, one has only to recall the legends of "The Architect of Cologne," of "Bishop Hatto and His Mouse Tower on the Rhine," and of many others relating to the devout men and women who in times past lived their lives here.

In the Low Countries also, – at Liège, where we have "The Legend of the Liègeois," and at Antwerp, where we have "The Legend of the Blacksmith," – and indeed throughout the whole Rhine watershed there is abundant material to draw from with respect to the religious legend alone.

As for the purely romantic legends, like "The Trumpeter of Sackingen" and "The Lorelei," there is manifestly neither room nor occasion for recounting them in a work such as this, and so, frankly, they are intentionally omitted.

In general, this book aims to be an account of the great churches in the Rhine valley, and of that species of architectural style which is known as Rhenish.

There is a fund of interesting detail to be gathered in out-of-the-way corners in regard to these grand edifices and their pious founders, but not all of it can be even catalogued here. The most that can be attempted is to point out certain obvious facts in connection with these ecclesiastical monuments, not neglecting the pictorial representation as well.

Tourists have well worn the roads along both banks of the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence, but above and below is a still larger and no less interesting country, which has been comparatively neglected.

Not all the interest of the Rhine lies in its castled crags or its vine-clad slopes, and not all the history of the middle ages emanated from feudal strongholds. The Church here, as in France, played its part and played it gloriously.

In this discussion of the Rhine churches from Constance to Leyden, the reader will be taken on what might, with considerable license, be called an "architectural tour" of the Rhine, and will be allowed to ramble along the banks of the river, looking in and out of the various religious edifices with which its cities and towns are crowded.

The valley of the Rhine is no undiscovered land, but it served the purpose of the author and the artist well, for it presents much variety of architectural form, and an abounding and appealing interest by reason of the shadows of the past still lingering over these monuments in stone.

I
INTRODUCTORY

There is no topographical division of Europe which more readily defines itself and its limits than the Rhine valley from Schaffhausen to where the river empties into the North Sea.

The region has given birth to history and legend of a most fascinating character, and the manners and customs of the people who dwell along its banks are varied and picturesque.

Under these circumstances it was but to be expected that architectural development should have expressed itself in a decided and unmistakable fashion.

One usually makes the Rhine tour as an interlude while on the way to Switzerland or the Italian lakes, with little thought of its geographical and historical importance in connection with the development of modern Europe.

It was the onward march of civilization, furthered by the Romans, through this greatest of natural highways to the north, that gave the first political and historical significance to the country of the Rhine watershed. And from that day to this the Rhenish provinces and the Low Countries bordering upon the sea have occupied a prominent place in history.

There is a distinct and notable architecture, confined almost, one may say, to the borders of the Rhine, which the expert knows as Rhenish, if it can be defined at all; and which is distinct from that variety of pre-Gothic architecture known as Romanesque.

It has been developed mainly in the building of ecclesiastical edifices, and the churches and cathedrals of the Rhine valley, through Germany and the Netherlands, are a species which, if they have not the abounding popular interest of the great Gothic churches of France, are quite as lordly and imposing as any of their class elsewhere. The great cathedral at Cologne stands out among its Gothic compeers as the beau-ideal of our imagination, while the cathedral at Tournai, in Belgium – which, while not exactly of the Rhine, is contiguous to it – is the prototype of more than one of the lesser and primitive Gothic cathedrals of France, and has even lent its quadruple elevation to Notre Dame at Paris, and was possibly the precursor of the cathedral at Limburg-on-Lahn.

From this it will be inferred that the builders of the churches of the Rhine country were no mere tyros or experimenters, but rather that they were possessed of the best talents of the time.

There is much of interest awaiting the lover of churches who makes even the conventional Rhine tour, though mostly the tourist in these parts has heretofore reserved his sentiments and emotions for the admiration of its theatrical-looking crags and castles, the memory of its legends of the Lorelei, etc., a nodding acquaintance with the castle of Heidelberg, and a proper or improper appreciation of the waterside beer-gardens of Cologne. For the most part the real romance and history of the Rhine, as it flows from its source in the Grisons to the North Sea, has been neglected.

There are a large number of persons who are content to admire the popular attractions of convention; sometimes they evoke an interest somewhat out of the ordinary, but up to now apparently no one has gone to the Rhine with the sole object of visiting its magnificent gallery of ecclesiastical treasures.

No one glows with enthusiasm at the mention of these Rhenish churches as they do for the Gothic marvels of France. It is, of course, impossible, in spite of Cologne, Speyer, and Strasburg, that they should supplant Reims, Amiens, Chartres, or Rouen in the popular fancy, to say nothing of real excellence; for these four French examples represent nearly all that is best in mediæval church architecture.

The Reformation in Germany, with its attendant unrest, accounts for a certain latitude and variety in the types of church fitments, as well as – in many cases – an unconventional arrangement or disposition of the fabric itself.

One thing is most apparent with regard to German churches in general, – the fittings and paraphernalia, as distinct from the constructive or decorative elements of the fabric, are far more ornate and numerous than in churches of a similar rank elsewhere. It is true that the Revolution played its part of destruction along the Rhine, but in spite of this there is an abundance of sculpture and other ornament still left.

Thus one almost always finds elaborate choir-stalls, screens, pulpits, and altar-pieces, of a quantity and excellence that contrast strongly with the severe outlines of the fabric which shelters them.

In connection with the architectural forms of the ecclesiastical buildings of a country must invariably be considered such secular and civic establishments as represent the state in its relation to the Church, and along the Rhine, as elsewhere on the continent of Europe, the past forms an inseparable link which still binds the two. Here, not only the public architecture, but the private, domestic architecture takes on forms which, varied though they are, belong to no other regions. They are, moreover, only to be judged at their true value when considered as a thing of yesterday, rather than of to-day.

That portion of the Rhine which is best worth knowing, according to the ideas of the conventional tourist, is that which lies between Cologne and Mayence. This is the region of the travel-agencies, and of the droves of sightseers who annually sweep down upon the "legendary Rhine," as they have learned to call it, on foot, on bicycle, and by train, steamboat, and automobile.

Above and below these cities is a great world of architectural wealth which has not the benefit of even a nodding acquaintance with most new-century travellers.

To them Strasburg is mostly a myth, though even the vague memory of the part it played in the Franco-Prussian war ought to stamp it as something more than that, to say nothing of its awkwardly spired, but very beautiful and most ancient cathedral.

Still farther down the river one comes to Düsseldorf, that most modern of German cities. At Neuss, a short distance from Düsseldorf, is the church of St. Quirinus, which will live in the note-books of architectural students as one of the great buildings of the world.

It is a singularly ample river-bottom that is drained by the Rhine from its Alpine source to the sea, and one which offers practically an inexhaustible variety of charming environment; and here, as elsewhere, architecture plays no small part in reflecting the manners, customs, and temperaments of the people.

Of the value of the artistic pretensions of the people of Holland we have mostly obtained our opinions from the pictures of Teniers, or from the illustrated post-cards, which show clean-looking maidens bedecked in garments that look as though they had just been laundered. To these might be added advertisements of chocolate and other articles which show to some extent the quaint windmills and dwelling-houses of the towns. Apart from these there is little from which to judge of the wealth of architectural treasures of this most fascinating of countries, whose churches, if they are bare and gaunt in many ways, are at least as sympathetic in their appealing interest as many situated in a less austere climate. To realize this one has but to recall the ship-model-hung Kerk at Haarlem; the quaint little minaret which rises above the roof tops of Leyden; or, the grandest of all, the Groote Kerk of Rotterdam, which, on a cloud-riven autumn day, composes itself into varying moods and symphonies which would have made Whistler himself eager and envious of its beauty and grandeur.

In so far as this book deals only with the churches and cathedrals of the Rhine, and follows the course of the Neder Rijn and the Oud Rijn through Holland, there are but three Dutch cities which bring themselves naturally into line: Arnheim, Utrecht, and Leyden.

So far as Americans are concerned, there is a warm spot in their hearts for Old Holland, when they remember the brave little band of Pilgrims who gathered at Leyden and set sail from Delfthaven for their new home across the seas. This was but three hundred years ago, which, so far as the antiquity of European civilization goes, counts for but little. It is something, however, to realize that the mediæval architectural monuments of these places are the very ones which the Pilgrims themselves knew. It is true, however, that their outlook upon life was too austere to have allowed them to absorb any great amount of the artistic expression of the Dutch, but they must unquestionably have been impressed with the general appropriateness of the architecture around them.

Below Düsseldorf the topography and architectural features alike change rapidly, and the true Rhenish architecture of heavy arches, with an occasional sprinkling of fairy-like Gothic, really begins. Neuss, Essen, and all the Westphalian group of solidly built münsters speak volumes for German mediæval church architecture, while up the Rhine, past Düsseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, Königswater, Remagen, Sinzig, Andernach, Coblenz, and all the way to Mayence, and on past Schaffhausen to Basel are at least three score of interesting old churches as far different from those elsewhere as could possibly be imagined, and yet all so like, one to another, that they are of a species by themselves; all except the cathedral at Cologne, which follows the best practice of the French, except that its nave is absurdly short for its great breadth, and that its ponderous towers stand quite alone in their class.

In general, then, the cathedrals and churches of the Rhine form a wonderful collection of masterpieces of architectural art with which most well-informed folk in the world to-day should have a desire for acquaintanceship.

These often austere edifices, when seen near by, may not appeal to the popular fancy as do those of France and England, and they may not even have the power to so appeal; but, such as they are, they are quite as worthy of serious consideration and ardent admiration as any structures of their kind in existence, and they have, in addition, an environment which should make a journey among them, along the banks of the Rhine from its source to the sea, one of the most enjoyable experiences of life.

The Rhine loses none of its charms by intimate acquaintance; its history and legends stand out with even more prominence; and the quaint architectural forms of its cities are at least characteristically convincing.

Remains of every period may be found by the antiquary, from the time when the Roman eagle was triumphant throughout the dominion of the Franks to feudal and warlike times nearer our own day.

In addition, there are ever to be found evidences of the frugality and thrift of the Germans which preserve the best traditions of other days.

The love of the Rhineland in the breast of the Teuton is an indescribable sentiment; a confusion of the higher and lower emotions. It is characteristic of the national genius. We have been told, and rightly: "You cannot paint the Rhine, you cannot even describe it, for picture or poem would leave out half of the whole delicious confusion. The Rhine, however, can be set to music," and that apparently is just what has been done.

Everywhere one hears the music of the fatherland. Whether it is the songs and madrigals of the Church, or of the German bands in the Volksgarten, it is always the same, a light, irrepressible emotion which does much toward elucidating the complex German character.

Nowhere more than at Cologne is this contrast apparent. It is the most delightful of all Rhine cities. Usually tourists go there, or are sent there – which is about what it amounts to in most cases – in order to begin their "Rhine tour."

Before they start up-stream, they stroll about the city, pop in and out of its glorious cathedral, and perhaps one or another of its magnificent churches, – if they happen to be on their line of march to or from some widely separated points, – make the usual purchase of real eau de Cologne, – though doubtless they are deceived into buying a poor imitation, – and wind up in a river-side concert-garden, with much music and beer-drinking in the open.

This is all proper enough, but this book does not aim at recounting a round of these delights. It deals, if not with the Teutonic emotions themselves, at least with the expression of them in the magnificent and picturesquely disposed churches of both banks of the Rhine, from its source to the sea.

II
THE RHINE CITIES AND TOWNS

Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon all played their great parts in the history of the Rhine, and, in later days, historians, poets, and painters of all shades of ability and opinion have done their part to perpetuate its glories.

The Rhine valley formed a part of three divisions of the ancient Gaul conquered by the Romans: La Belgica, toward the coast of the North Sea; Germanica I., with Moguntiacum (Mayence) as its capital; and Germanica II., with Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) as its chief town. The Rhine was the great barrier between the Romans and the German tribes, and, in the time of Tiberius, eight legions guarded the frontier. The political and economic influences which overflowed from the Rhine valley have been most momentous.

The Rhine formed one of the great Roman highways to the north, and it is interesting to note that the first description of it is Cæsar's, though he himself had little familiarity with it. He wrote of the rapidity of its flow, and built, or caused to be built, a wooden bridge over it, between Coblenz and Andernach.

In the history of the Rhine we have a history of Europe. A boundary of the empire of Cæsar, it afterward gave passage to the barbarian hordes who overthrew imperial Rome. Charlemagne made it the outpost of his power, and later the Church gained strength in the cities on its banks, while monasteries and feudal strongholds rose up quickly one after another. Orders of chivalry were established at Mayence; and knights of the Teutonic order, of Rhodes, and of the Temple, appeared upon the scene. The minnesinger and the troubadour praised its wines, told of its contests, and celebrated its victories. The hills, the caves, the forests, the stream, and the solid rocks themselves were tenanted by superstition, by oreads, mermaids, gnomes, Black Huntsmen, and demons in all imaginable fantastic shapes.

Meantime the towns were growing under the influence of trade, – the grimy power that destroyed the feudal system. The Reformed religion found an advocate at Constance in John Huss even before Luther fulminated against Rome; printing was accomplished by Gutenberg at Mayence; and now steam and electricity have awakened a new era.

Cæsar, Attila, Clovis, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, Rudolph of Hapsburg, the Palatine Frederick the First, Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon have been victorious upon its banks. What more could fate do to give the stream an almost immortality of fame?

Little by little there were established on the banks of the river populous posts and centres of commerce. The military camps of Drusus had grown into settled communities, until to-day are found along the Rhine the great cities of Basel, Strasburg, Speyer, Worms, Mayence, Coblenz, Cologne, and Düsseldorf, and between them are dotted a series of cities and towns less important only in size, certainly not in the magnitude of their interest for the traveller or student, nor in their storied past.

Of the more romantic, though perhaps not more picturesque, elements of vine-clad slopes – where is produced the celebrated Rheinwein– the rapid flow of Rhine water, and the fabled dwelling-places of sprites and Rhinemaidens, there is quite enough for many an entertaining volume not yet written.

After traversing several of the cantons, the Rhine leaves Switzerland at Basel, on its course, through Germany and Holland, to the sea. Its chief tributaries are the Neckar, Murg, Kinzig, Aar, Main, Nahe, Lahn, Moselle, Erft, Ruhr, and Lippe. Its waters furnish capital salmon, which, curiously enough, when taken on their passage up the stream, are called lachse; but, when caught in autumn on their way down to the sea, are known as salmon. It affords also sturgeon, pike, carp, and lampreys. Its enormous rafts of timber have often been described, and should be seen to be appreciated. They often carried half a village of people, and were of great value. To-day these great rafts, however, are seldom seen.

In summer, when the tourist visits the river, its course is comparatively calm and orderly; it is only in spring, when the snows melt rapidly in Switzerland, that "Father Rhine" is to be beheld in all his might; for then the waters often rise a dozen feet above their common level. Its depth from Basel to Strasburg averages ten to twelve feet; at Mayence, twenty-four feet; at Düsseldorf, fifty feet.

To Basel, through the Lake of Constance from Grisons, the Rhine forms a boundary between Switzerland and the German States. From Basel to Mayence it winds its way through the ancient bed of the glaciers; and from Mayence to Bingen it flows through rocky walls to Bonn, where it enters the great alluvial plain through which it makes its way to the ocean.

The valley of the Rhine has been called the artery which gives life to all Prussia. The reason is obvious to any who have the slightest acquaintance with the region. The commerce of the Rhine is ceaseless; day and night, up and down stream, the procession of steamboats, canal-boats, floats, and barges is almost constant.

From the dawn of history both banks of the Lower Rhine had belonged to Germany, and they are still inhabited by Germans. Ten centuries or more have elapsed since the boundaries of the eastern and western kingdom of the Franks were fixed at Verdun, and, though the French frontier had frequently advanced toward Germany, and at certain points had actually reached the Rhine, no claim was advanced to that portion which was yet German until the cry of "To the Rhine" resounded through the French provinces in 1870-71.

Of course the obvious argument of the French was, and is, an apparently justifiable pretension to extend France to its natural frontier, but this is ill-founded on precedent, and monstrous as well. Against it we have in history that a river-bed is not a natural delimitation of territorial domination.

The Cisalpine Gauls extended their powers across the river Po, and the United States of America first claimed Oregon by virtue of the interpretation that a boundary at a river should give control of both banks, though how far beyond the other bank they might claim is unestablished.

Until the Lake of Constance is reached, with its fine city of the same name at its westerly end, there are no cities, towns, or villages in which one would expect to find ecclesiastical monuments of the first rank; indeed, one may say that there are none.

But the whole Rhine watershed, that great thoroughfare through which Christianizing and civilizing influences made their way northward from Italy, is replete with memorials of one sort or another of those significant events of history which were made doubly impressive and far-reaching by reason of their religious aspect.

The three tiny sources of the Rhine are born in the canton of Grisons, and are known as the Vorder-Rhein, the Mittel-Rhein, and the Hinter-Rhein.

At Disentis was one of the most ancient Benedictine monasteries of the German Alps. It was founded in 614, and stood high upon the hillside of Mount Vakaraka, at the confluence of two of the branches of the Rhine. Its abbots had great political influence and were princes of the Empire. They were the founders of the "Gray Brotherhood," and were the first magistrates of the region.

The abbey of Disentis was, in 1799, captured and set on fire by the French, but later on it was reëstablished, only to suffer again from fire in 1846, though it was again rebuilt in more modest style.

St. Trons was the former seat of the Parliament of Grisons. Its chief ecclesiastical monument is a memorial chapel dedicated to St. Anne.

On its porch one may read the following inscription:

"In libertatem vocati estis
Ubi spiritus domini, ibi libertas
In te speraverunt patres
Speraverunt et liberasti oes."

Coire was the ancient Curia Rhætiorum. It is the capital of the Canton of Grisons, and was the seat of a bishop as early as 562. The Emperor Constantine made the town his winter quarters in the fourth century.

The church of St. Martin, to-day belonging to the Reformed Church, is an unconvincing and in no way remarkable monument, but in what is known as the Episcopal Court, behind great walls, tower-flanked and with heavily barred gateways, one comes upon evidences of the ecclesiastical importance of the town in other days.

The walls of the ancient "ecclesiastical city" enclose a plat nearly triangular in form. On one side are the canons' residences and other domestic establishments, and on the other the cathedral and the bishop's palace.

In the episcopal palace are a number of fine portraits, which are more a record of manners and customs in dress than they are of churchly history.

The small cathedral and all the other edifices date from an eighth-century foundation, and are in the manifest Romanesque style of a very early period.

Within the cathedral are a number of funeral monuments of not much artistic worth and a series of paintings by Holbein and Dürer. As an art centre Coire would appear to rank higher than it does as a city of architectural treasures, for it was also the birthplace of Angelica Kauffmann, who was born here in 1741.

Ragatz is more famous as a "watering-place" – for the baths of Pfeffers are truly celebrated – than as a treasure-house of religious art, though in former days the abbey of Pfeffers was of great renown. Its foundation dates from 720, but the building as it exists to-day was only erected in 1665. The church, in part of marble, contains some good pictures. The abbey was formerly very wealthy, and its abbot bore the title of prince. The convent is to-day occupied by the Benedictines, to whom also the baths belong.

From this point on, as one draws near the Lake of Constance, the Alpine character of the topography somewhat changes.

The Lake of Constance was known to the Romans as Brigantinus Lacus or the Lacus Rheni. It has not so imposing a setting as many of the Swiss or Italian lakes, but its eighteen hundred square kilometres give the city of Constance itself an environment that most inland towns of Europe lack. The Lake of Constance, like all of the Alpine lakes, is subject at times to violent tempests. It is very plentifully supplied with fish, and is famous for its pike, trout, and, above all, its fresh herring.

From Basel the Rhine flows westward under the last heights of the Jura, and turns then to the north beneath the shelter of the Vosges, and, as it flows by Strasburg, first begins to take on that majesty which one usually associates with a great river.

At the confluence of the Main, after passing Speyer, Worms, and Mannheim, the Rhine first acquires that commercialism which has made it so important to the latter-day development of Prussia.

At the juncture of the Main and Rhine is Mayence, one of the strongest military positions in Europe to-day. Here the Rhine hurls itself against the slopes of the Taunus and turns abruptly again to the west, aggrandizing itself at the same time, to a width of from five hundred to seven hundred metres.

Shortly after it has passed the last foot-hills of the Taunus, it enters that narrow gorge which, for a matter of 150 kilometres, has catalogued its name and fame so brilliantly among the stock sights of the globe-trotter.

No consideration of the economic part played by the Rhine should overlook the two international canals which connect that river with France through the Rhône and the Marne.

The first enters the Rhine at Strasburg, a small feeder running to Basel, and the latter, starting at Vitry-le-François, joins the Marne with the Rhine at the same place, Strasburg.

On the frontier of the former département of the Haut-Rhin, one may view an immense horizon from the south to the north. From one particular spot, where the heights of the Vosges begin to level, it is said that one may see the towers of Strasburg, of Speyer, of Worms, and of Heidelberg. If so, it is a wonderful panorama, and it must have been on a similar site that the Château of Trifels (three rocks) was situated, in which Richard Cœur de Lion was imprisoned when delivered up to Henry VI. by Leopold of Austria.

To distract himself he sang the songs taught him by his troubadour, to the accompaniment of the harp, says both history and legend, until one day the faithful Blondel, who was pursuing his way up and down the length of Europe in search of his royal master, appeared before his window.

Some faithful knights, entirely devoted to their prince, had followed in the wake of the troubadour, and were able to rescue Richard by the aid of a young girl, Mathilde by name, who had recognized the songs sung by Blondel as being the same as those of the royal prisoner in the tower of the château. When the troubadour was led to the door of the prince's cell, he heard a voice call to him: "Est-ce toi, mon cher Blondel?" "Oui, c'est moi, mon seigneur," replied the singer. "Comptez sur mon zèle et sur celui de quelques amis fidèles – nous vous deliverons."

The next day the escape was made through an overpowering of the guard; and Richard, in the midst of his faithful chevaliers, ultimately arrived in England.

Blondel had meanwhile led the willing Mathilde to the altar, and received a rich recompense from the king.

As the Rhine enters the plain at Cologne, it comes into its fourth and last phase.

Flowing past Düsseldorf and Wesel, it quits German soil just beyond Emmerich, and enters the Low Countries in two branches. The Waal continues its course toward the west by Nymegen, and through its vast estuary, by Dordrecht, to the sea.

The Rhine proper takes a more northerly course, and, as the Neder Rijn, passes Arnheim and Utrecht, and thence, taking the name of Oud Rijn, fills the canals of Leyden and goes onward to the German Ocean.

Twelve kilometres from Leyden is Katwyck aan Zee, where, between colossal dikes, the Rhine at last finds its way to the open sea. More humble yet at its tomb than in the cradle of its birth, it enters the tempestuous waters of the German Ocean through an uncompromising and unbeautiful sluice built by the government of Louis Bonaparte.

For more than eleven hundred kilometres it flows between banks redolent of history and legend to so great an extent that it is but natural that the art and architecture of its environment should have been some unique type which, lending its influence to the border countries, left its impress throughout an area which can hardly be restricted by the river's banks themselves.

We know how, in Germany, it gave birth to a variety of ecclesiastical architecture which is recognized by the world as a distinct Rhenish type. In Holland the architectural forms partook of a much more simple or primitive character; but they, too, are distinctly Rhenish; at least, they have not the refulgence of the full-blown Gothic of France.

Taine, in his "Art in the Netherlands," goes into the character of the land, and the struggle demanded of the people to reclaim it from the sea, and the energy, the vigilance required to secure it from its onslaughts so that they, for themselves and their families, might possess a safe and quiet hearthstone. He draws a picture of the homes thus safeguarded, and of how this sense of immunity fostered finally a life of material comfort and enjoyment.

All this had an effect upon local architectural types, and the great part played by the valley of the Rhine in the development of manners and customs is not excelled by any other topographical feature in Europe, if it is even equalled.

Coupled to the wonders of art are the wonders of nature, and the Rhine is bountifully blessed with the latter as well.

The conventional Rhine tour of our forefathers is taken, even to-day, by countless thousands to whom its beauties, its legends, and its history appeal. But whether one goes to study churches, for a mere holiday, or as a pleasant way of crossing Europe, he will be struck by the astonishing similarity of tone in the whole colour-scheme of the Rhine.

The key-note is the same whether he follows it up from its juncture with salt water at Katwyck or through the gateway of the "lazy Scheldt," via Antwerp, or through Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne.

Sooner or later the true Rhineland is reached, and the pilgrim, on his way, whether his shrines be religious ones or worldly, will drink his fill of sensations which are as new and different from those which will be met with in France, Italy, and Spain as it is possible to conceive.

From the days of Charlemagne, and even before, down through the fervent period of the Crusades, to the romantic middle ages, the Rhine rings its true note in the gamut, and rings it loudly. It has played a great part in history, and to its geographical and political importance is added the always potent charm of natural beauty.

The church-builder and his followers, too, were important factors in it all, for one of the glories of all modern European nations will ever be their churches and the memories of their churchmen of the past.

III
THE CHURCH IN GERMANY

There have been those who have claimed that the two great blessings bestowed upon the world by Germany are the invention of printing by Gutenberg, which emanated from Mayence in 1436, and the Reformation started by Luther at Wittenberg in 1517. The statement may be open to criticism, but it is hazarded nevertheless. As to how really religious the Germans have always been, one has but to recall Schiller's "Song of the Bell." Certainly a people who lay such stress upon opening the common every-day life with prayer must always have been devoted to religion.

The question of the religious tenets of Germany is studiously avoided in this book, as far as making comparisons between the Catholic and Protestant religions is concerned.

At the finish of the "Thirty Years' War," North Germany had become almost entirely Protestant, and many of the former bishops' churches had become by force of circumstances colder and less attractive than formerly, even though many of the Lutheran churches to-day keep up some semblance of high ceremony and altar decorations. It is curious, however, that many of these churches are quite closed to the public on any day but Sunday or some of the great holidays.

In the Rhine provinces the Catholic faith has most strongly endured. In the German Catholic cathedrals the morning service from half-past nine to ten is usually a service of much impressiveness, and at Cologne, beloved of all stranger tourists, nones, vespers, and compline are sung daily with much devotion.

The ecclesiastical foundation in Germany is properly attributable to monkish influences. Between the Rhine and the Baltic there were no cities before the time of Charlemagne, although the settlements established there by the Church for the conversion of the natives were the origin of the communities from which sprang the great cities of later years.

The monkish orders were ever a powerful body of church-builders, and north of the Alps in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, even though they were the guardians of literature as well as of the arts, the monks were possessed of an energy which took its most active form in church-building.

Whatever may have been the origin of the later Romanesque church-building, whether it was indigenous to Lombard Italy or not, it was much the same in Spain, France, England, and Germany, though it took its most hardy form in Germany, perhaps with the cathedral of Speyer (1165-90), which is one of the latest Romanesque structures, contemporary with the early Gothic of France. In Italy, and elsewhere along the Mediterranean, the pure Romanesque was somewhat diluted by the Byzantine influence; but northward, along the course of the Rhine, the Romanesque influence had come to its own in a purer form than it had in Italy itself.

Here it may be well to mention one pertinent fact of German history, in an attempt to show how, at one time at least, Church and state in Germany were more firmly bound together than at present.

The Germanic Empire, founded by Charlemagne in the year 800, was dissolved under Francis II., who, in 1806, exchanged the title of Emperor of Germany for that of Emperor of Austria, confining himself to his hereditary dominions.

In the olden times the Germanic Empire was in reality a league of barons, counts, and dukes, who, through seven of their number, elected the emperor.

These electors were the Archbishops of Mayence (who was also Primate and Archchancellor of the Empire), Trèves, and Cologne; the Palatine of the Rhine, Arch-Steward of the Empire; the Margrave of Brandenburg, Arch-Chamberlain; the Duke of Saxony, Arch-Marshal; and the King of Bohemia, Arch-Cupbearer.

In no part of the Christian world did the clergy possess greater endowments of power and wealth than did those of the Rhine valley.

The Archbishop of Cologne was the Archchancellor of the Empire, the second in rank of the electoral princes, and ruler of an immense territory extending from Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle; while the Archbishops of Mayence and Trèves played the rôle of patriarchs, and were frequently more powerful even than the Popes.

All the bishops, indeed, were invested with rights both spiritual and temporal, those of the churchman and those of the grand seigneur, which they exercised to the utmost throughout their dioceses.

St. Boniface was sent on his mission to Germany in 715, having credentials and instructions from Pope Gregory II. He was accompanied by a large following of monks versed in the art of building, and of lay brethren who were also architects. This we learn from the letters of Pope Gregory and the "Life of St. Boniface," so the fact is established that church-building in Germany, if not actually begun by St. Boniface, was at least healthily and enthusiastically stimulated by him.

Among the bishoprics founded by Boniface were those of Cologne, Worms, and Speyer, and it may be remarked that all of these cities have ample evidences of the round-arched style which came prior to the Gothic, which followed later. If anything at all is proved with regard to the distinct type known as Rhenish architecture, it is that the Lombard builders preceded by a long time the Gothic builders.

Charlemagne's first efforts after subduing the heathen Saxons was to encourage their conversion to Christianity. For this purpose he created many bishoprics, one being at Paderborn, in 795, a favourite place of residence with the emperor.

Great dignity was enjoyed by the Bishop of Paderborn, certain rights of his extending so far as the Councils of Utrecht, Liège, and Münster. The abbess of the monastery at Essen, near Düsseldorf, was under his rule; and the Counts of Oldenberg and the Dukes of Clèves owed to him a certain allegiance; while certain rights were granted him by the cities of Cologne, Verdun, Aix-la-Chapelle, and others.

These dignities endured, in part, until the aftermath of the French Revolution, which was the real cause of the disrupture of many Charlemagnian traditions.

After the Peace of Lunéville, in 1801, the electorates of Cologne, Trèves, and Mayence were suppressed, together with the principalities of Münster, Hildesheim, Paderborn, and Osnabrück, while such abbeys and monasteries as had come through the Reformation were dissolved.

Besides Charlemagne's bishoprics, others founded by Otho the Great were suppressed.

Upon the restoration of the Rhenish provinces to Germany in 1814, the Catholic hierarchy was reëstablished and a rearrangement of dioceses took place. A treaty with the Prussian state gave Cologne again an archbishopric, with suffragans at Trèves, Münster, and Paderborn, and Count Charles Spiegel zum Desenburg was made archbishop. Other provinces aspired to similar concessions, and certain of the suppressed sees were reërected.

The Lutherized districts, north and eastward of the Rhine, were very extensive, but the influence which went forth again from Cologne served to counteract this to a great extent.

The Catholic hierarchy in Germany is made up as follows:

The religious population of Germany to-day is divided approximately thus: Protestants, 63 per cent; Catholics, 36 per cent; Jews, 1 per cent.

The reign of the pure Gothic spirit in church-building, as far as it ever advanced in Germany, was at an end with the wars of the Hussites and the Reformation of Luther. During these religious and political convulsions, the Gothic spirit may be said to have died, so far as the undertaking of any new or great work goes.

Just as we find in Germany a different speech and a different manner of living from that of either Rome or Gaul, we find also in Germany, or rather in the Rhenish provinces, a marked difference in ecclesiastical art from either of the types which were developing contemporaneously in the neighbouring countries.

The Rhine proved itself a veritable borderland, which neither kept to the strict classicism of the Romanesque manner of building, nor yet adopted, without question, the newly arisen Gothic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Architecture and sculpture in its earliest and most approved ecclesiastical forms undoubtedly made its way from Italy to France, Spain, Germany, and England, along the natural travel routes over which came the Roman invaders, conquerors, or civilizers – or whatever we please to think them.

Under each and every environment it developed, as it were, a new style, the flat roofs and low arches giving way for the most part to more lofty and steeper-angled gables and openings. This may have been caused by climatic influences, or it may not; at any rate, church-building – and other building as well – changed as it went northward, and sharp gables and steep sloping lines became not only frequent, but almost universal.

The Comacine Masters, who were the great church-builders of the early days in Italy, went north in the seventh century, still pursuing their mission; to England with St. Augustine, to Germany with Boniface, and Charlemagne himself, as we know, brought them to Aix-la-Chapelle for the work at his church there.

The distinctly Rhenish variety of Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture came to its greatest development under the Suabian or Hohenstaufen line of emperors, reaching its zenith during the reign of the great Frederick Barbarossa (1152-90).

The churches at Neuss, Bonn, Sinzig, and Coblenz all underwent a necessary reconstruction in the early thirteenth century because of ravages during the terrific warfare of the rival claimants to the throne of Barbarossa.

Frederick, one claimant, was under the guardianship of Pope Innocent III., and Philip, his brother, was as devotedly cared for by the rival Pope, Gregory VIII. Finally Innocent compromised the matter by securing the election of Otho IV., of Brunswick.

With that "hotbed of heresies," Holland, this book has little to do, dealing only with three centres of religious movement there.

Holland was the storm-centre for a great struggle for religious and political freedom, and for this very reason there grew up here no great Gothic fabrics of a rank to rival those of France, England, and Germany. Still, there was a distinct and most picturesque element which entered into the church-building of Holland in the middle ages, as one notes in the remarkable church of Deventer. In the main, however, if we except the Groote Kerk at Rotterdam, St. Janskerk at Gouda, the archbishop's church at Utrecht, and the splendid edifice at Dordrecht, there is nothing in Holland architecturally great.

IV
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF RHENISH
ARCHITECTURE

It cannot be claimed that the church-building of one nation was any more thorough or any more devoted than that of any other. All the great church-building powers of the middle ages were, it is to be presumed, possessed of the single idea of glorifying God by the building of houses in his name.

"To the rising generation," said the editor of the Architectural Magazine in 1838, "and to it alone do we look forward for the real improvement in architecture as an art of design and taste."

"The poetry of architecture" was an early and famous theme of Ruskin's, and doubtless he was sincere when he wrote the papers that are included under that general title; but the time was not then ripe for an architectural revolution, and the people could not, or would not, revert to the Gothic or even the pure Renaissance – if there ever was such a thing. We had, as a result, what is sometimes known as early Victorian, and the plush and horsehair effects of contemporary times.

In general, the churches of Germany, or at least of the Rhine provinces, are of a species as distinct from the pure Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance as they well can be. Except for the fact that of recent years the art nouveau has invaded Germany, there is little mediocrity of plan or execution in the ecclesiastical architecture of that country, although of late years all classes of architectural forms have taken on, in most lands, the most uncouth shapes, – church edifices in particular, – they becoming, indeed, anything but churchly.

The Renaissance, which spread from Italy just after the period when the Gothic had flowered its last, came to the north through Germany rather than through France, and so it was but natural that the Romanesque manner of building, which had come long before, had a much firmer footing, and for a much longer period, in Germany, than it had in France. Gothic came, in rudimentary forms at any rate, as early here as it did to France or England; but, with true German tenacity of purpose, her builders clung to the round-arched style of openings long after the employment of it had ceased to be the fashion elsewhere.

This, then, is the first distinctive feature of the ecclesiastical edifices erected in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the new Gothic forms were elsewhere budding into their utmost beauty.

One strong constructive note ever rings out, and that is that, while the Gothic was ringing its purest sound in France and even in England, at least three forces were playing their gamut in Germany, producing a species quite by itself which was certainly not Gothic any more than it was Moorish, and not Romanesque any more than was the Angevin variety of round-arched forms, which is so much admired in France.

One notably pure Gothic example, although of the earliest Gothic, is found in Notre Dame at Trèves, with perhaps another in the abbey of Altenburg near Cologne; but these are the chief ones that in any way resemble the consistent French pointed architecture which we best know as Gothic.

The Rhenish variety of Romanesque lived here on the Rhine to a far later period, notably at Bonn and Coblenz, than it did in either France or England.

German church architecture, in general, is full of local mannerisms, but the one most consistently marked is the tacit avoidance of the true ogival style, until we come to the great cathedral at Cologne, which, in truth, so far as its finished form goes, is quite a modern affair.

In journeying through Northeastern France, or through Holland or Belgium, one comes gradually upon this distinct feature of the Rhenish type of church in a manner which shows a spread of its influence.

All the Low Country churches are more or less German in their motive; so, too, are many of those of Belgium, particularly the cathedral at Tournai and the two fine churches at Liège (Ste. Croix and the cathedral), which are frankly Teutonic; while at Maastricht in Holland is almost a replica of a Rhenish-Romanesque basilica.

At Aix-la-Chapelle is the famous "Round Church" of Charlemagne, which is something neither French nor German. It has received some later century additions, but the "octagon" is still there, and it stands almost alone north of Italy, where its predecessor is found at Ravenna, the Templars' Church in London being of quite a different order.

Long years ago this Ravenna prototype, or perhaps it was this eighth-century church of Charlemagne's, gave rise to numerous circular and octagonal edifices erected throughout Germany; but all have now disappeared with the exception, it is claimed, of one at Ottmarsheim, a fragment at Essen, and the rebuilt St. Gérêon's at Cologne.

These round churches – St. Gérêon's at Cologne, the Mathias Kapelle at Kobern, and, above all, Charlemagne's Münster at Aix-la-Chapelle, and others elsewhere, notably in Italy – are doubtless a survival of a pagan influence; certainly the style of building was a favourite with the Romans, and was common even among the Greeks, where the little circular pagan temples were always a most fascinating part of the general ensemble.

It would hardly be appropriate in a book such as this to attempt to trace the origin of Gothic, as we have come to know that twelfth and thirteenth century variety of pointed architecture, which, if anything, is French pointed. It has been plausibly claimed that, after its introduction into France and England, it developed into the full-blown style of the fourteenth century, which so soon fell before the Renaissance in the century following.

In Germany the process, with differences with regard to its chronology, was much the same.

It has been the fashion among writers of all weights of opinion to break into an apparently irresistible enthusiasm with regard to Gothic architecture in general, and this, so far as it goes, is excusable. Most of us will agree that "the folk of the middle ages had fallen in love with church-building, and loved that their goldsmith's work, and ivories, their seals, and even the pierced patterns of their shoes should be like little buildings, little tabernacles, little 'Paul's windows.' Some of their tombs and shrines must have been conceived as little fairy buildings; and doubtless they would have liked little angels to hop about them all alive and blow fairy trumpets."

In the building of the great cathedrals it must certainly be allowed that there is an element that we do not understand. Those who fashioned them worked wonder into them; they had the ability which children have to call up enchantment. "In these high vaults, and glistening windows, and peering figures, there was magic even to their makers."

Gothic art must ever, in a certain degree, be a mystery to us, because we cannot entirely put ourselves in the place of the men of those times. "We cannot by taking thought be Egyptian or Japanese, nor can we again be Romanesque or Gothic," nor indeed can we explain entirely the motif of Burmese architecture, which, appearing as a blend of Chinese and Indian, stands out as the exotic of the Eastern, as does the Gothic of the Western, world.

Only in these latter two species of architectural art does stone-carving stand out with that supreme excellence which does not admit of rivalry, though one be pagan and the other Christian.

Germany, above all other nations of the middle ages in Europe, excelled in the craftsmanship which fashioned warm, live emotions out of cold gray stone, and to-day such examples of this as the overpowering and splendid cathedrals at Cologne, Ratisbon, Strasburg, and Münster rank among the greatest and most famous in all the world, in spite of the fact that their constructive elements were reminiscent of other lands.

The distinction between French and German building cannot better be described than by quoting the following, the first by James Russell Lowell on Notre Dame de Chartres, and the second by Longfellow on the cathedral at Strasburg:

CHARTRES

"Graceful, grotesque, with every new surprise of hazardous caprices sure to please, heavy as nightmare, airy, light as fun, imagination's very self in stone."

STRASBURG

".. A great master of his craft,
Ervin von Steinbach; but not he alone,
For many generations laboured with him,
Children that came to see these saints in stone,
As day by day out of the blocks they rose,
Grew old and died, and still the work went on,
And on and on and is not yet completed."

The first is typical of the ingenuity and genius of the French, the second of the painstaking labour of the Teuton; what more were needed to define the two?

"In Germany and throughout all the territory under the spell of Germanic influence the growth of Gothic was not so readily accomplished as in France," says Gonse.

"At best such Gothic as is to be seen at Bacharach, Bonn, Worms, etc., is but a variety, so far as the vaulting goes, of superimposed details on a more or less truthful Romanesque framework. At Mayence, Roermond, and Sinzig, too, it is the domical vault which still qualifies the other Gothic essentials, and so depreciates the value of the Gothic of the Rhine valley when compared with that of the Royal Domain of France."

The range of mediæval art and architecture has been said to run between the fourth century and the fourteenth, or from the peace of the Church to the coming of the Renaissance.

This is perhaps definite enough, but the scope is too wide to limit any special form of art expression, so that one may judge it comparatively with that which had gone before or was to come after.

Mostly, mediæval art groups itself around the two distinct styles of Byzantine and Gothic, and they are best divided, one from the other, by the two centuries lying between the tenth and the twelfth.

In truth, the architecture of Germany, up to the end of the tenth century, was as much Byzantine as it was Romanesque, and the princes and prelates alike drew the inspiration for their works from imported Italians and Greeks, a procedure which gave the unusual blend that developed the distinct Rhenish architecture.

The Popes themselves gave a very material aid when they sent or allowed colonies of southern craftsmen to undertake the work on these great religious edifices of the Rhine valley.

The grander plan of the cathedrals at Speyer, Worms, Mayence, Basel, and even Trèves are all due somewhat to this influence, and for that reason they retain even to-day evidences of these foreign and even Eastern methods, though for the most part it is in the crypt and subterranean foundations only that this is found.

Carlovingian architecture was perhaps more indigenous to Germany than to any other part of the vast Empire. "This extraordinary man," as the historians speak of Charlemagne, did much toward developing the arts.

In the southeast, the Grecian Empire was already become decrepit in its influences, and a new building spirit was bound to have sprung up elsewhere. "If Charlemagne," says Gibbon, "had fixed the seat of his empire in Italy, his genius would have aspired to restore, rather than violate the works of the Cæsars." He confined his predilections to the virgin forests of Germany, however, and he despoiled Lombardy to enrich his northern possessions; as witness the columns which he brought from Ravenna and Rome wherewith to decorate his palace and church at Aix-la-Chapelle.

No country has preserved finer or more numerous examples of Romanesque architecture than Germany. The Rhine was so powerfully under Roman sway that it adopted as a matter of course and without question quite all of the tenets and principles of the Romanesque; not only with respect to ecclesiastical structures, but as regards civil and military works as well.

On the Rhine, as in Lorraine, Lyonnaise, and Central France, the Romanesque endured with little deviation from Latin traditions till quite the end of the thirteenth century.

Later, in the Gothic period, Germany returned the compliment and sent Zamodia of Freiburg and Ulric of Ulm to lend their aid in the construction of the grand fabric at Milan; and John and Simon of Cologne to Spain to erect that astonishingly bizarre cathedral at Burgos.

Beginning with the revival of the arts in Italy, the Renaissance German architects, in other countries than Germany, were apparently few in number and not of their former rank.

Not alone did Italy aid Germany in the erection of ecclesiastical monuments, but France as well, with the Norman variation of the Romanesque and the later developed Gothic, sent many monkish craftsmen to lend their aid and skill. Their work, however, was rather the putting on of finishing touches than of planning the general outlines.

German architecture on the Rhine then was but a development and variation of alien importations, which came in time, to be sure, to be recognized as a special type, but which in reality resembled the Lombardic and the Romanesque in its round-arched forms, and the Gothic of France in its ogival details. German architecture in time, though not so much with respect to churches, even went so far as to imitate the rococo and bizarre ornamentation fathered and named by the Louis of France.

Germany was a stranger to the complete development of Gothic architecture long after it had reached its maturity elsewhere; so, too, it was quite well into the fifteenth century before the slightest change was made toward the interpolation of Renaissance details, and even then it was Renaissance art, more than it was Renaissance architecture, which was making itself felt.

The Renaissance came to Germany through the natural gateway of the north of Italy; although it spread perhaps to some extent from France into the Rhine district.

In truth, German Renaissance has ever been heavy and ugly, though undeniably imposing. In both the ecclesiastical and the secular varieties it lacked the lightness and grace which in France, so far as domestic architecture went, soon developed into a thing of surprising beauty.

What the Renaissance really accomplished in Germany toward developing a new or national style is in grave doubt, beyond having left a legacy of bizarre groupings and grotesque and superabundant ornament. In France the case was different, and, while in ecclesiastical edifices the result was poor and banal enough, there grew up the great and glorious style of the French Renaissance, which, for civic and private buildings of magnitude, has never been excelled by the modern architecture of any land.

In Germany proper, as well as in Switzerland, one finds house-fronts and walls covered with paintings, which is certainly one phase of Renaissance art. But the brush alone could not popularize the new style, and in religious edifices, at least, the Renaissance, as contrasted with the earlier Romanesque, never attained that popularity along the Rhine that it did in France or England, or even in Belgium.

Civic architecture took on the new style with a certain freedom, but religious architecture almost not at all. Possibly the "Thirty Years' War" (1618-48) had somewhat to do with stunting its growth; certainly no church-building was undertaken in those years, and they were the very ones in which, elsewhere, the Renaissance was making its greatest headway.

Another very apparent reason is that, as the major part of the population became Protestant, the need of a beautiful church edifice itself, as a stimulus to the faith, had grown less and less. There was a steady growth, perhaps one may as well say a great development, in civil architecture throughout Germany at this time, but, to all intents and purposes, from the early seventeenth century onward, the founding and erecting of great churches was at an end.

If one would study the Renaissance in Germany he must observe the town halls of such cities as Cologne, Paderborn, or Nuremberg, or the great châteaux or castles, such as are best represented by ruined Heidelberg.

Of religious architecture Renaissance examples are practically lacking; the most convincing details along the Rhine being seen in the western tower of the cathedral at Mayence.

At Hildesheim, at Nuremberg, and at Prague there are something more than mere "evidences" of the style, and throughout Germany, as elsewhere, there are many sixteenth and seventeenth century accessories, such as altars, baldaquins, tombs, and even entire chapels, which are nothing but Renaissance in motive and execution. But there are no great Renaissance ground-plans, façades, or clochers, which are in any way representative of the style which crept in to ring the death-knell of Gothic in France and England.

Perhaps it is for this reason alone that the great Gothic cathedral at Cologne was completed at a late day with no base Renaissance interpolation in its fabric.

V
THE ACCESSORIES OF GERMAN CHURCHES

Up to the tenth century the German basilicas were but copies of the Roman variety. Even the great cathedral at Trèves, with its ground-plan a great square of forty metres in extent, was but a gross imitation of the Romanesque form of the sixth century.

Later, in the eighth century, came the modified Byzantine form which one sees at Aix-la-Chapelle.

With the eleventh century appeared the double-apsed basilicas, but, from this time on, German ecclesiastical art divorced itself from Latin traditions, and from the simple parallelogram-like basilica developed the choir and transepts which were to remain for ever.

The crypt is a distinct and prominent feature of many German churches. On the Rhine curious and most interesting examples are very frequent, those at Bonn, Essen, München-Gladbach, Speyer, Cologne (St. Gérêon's), Boppart, and Neuss being the chief. All of these are so constructed that the level of the pavement is broken between the nave and choir, producing a singularly impressive interior effect.

Speyer has the longest, and perhaps the largest, crypt in all Germany.

Where the edifice has remained an adherent of Catholicism, the crypt often performs the function of a place of worship independent of the main church, it being fitted up with one or more altars and frequently other accessories.

As the crypt, instead of being only an occasional attribute, became general, squared, or even more rude, capitals replaced the antique and classical forms which Christian Italy herself had adopted from pagan Greece.

These squared or cubic capitals are particularly noticeable at Neuss, at München-Gladbach, in St. James at Cologne, and in the old abbey of Laach.

Towers came to be added to the west fronts, but the naves often remained roofed with visible woodwork, though, by the end of the century, the stone-vaulted nave had appeared in the Rhine district, and the pillars of pagan birth had given way to the columns and colonnettes of Latin growth.

What is known as the German manner of church-building had more than one distinguishing feature, though none more prominent than that of the columns of the nave and aisles. The naves were in general twice the width of their aisles, and the bays of the nave were made twice the width of those of the aisles. Hence it followed that every pier or column carried a shaft to the groin of the aisle vault, and every alternate one a shaft to the nave vault; and so grew the most distinct of all German features of Romanesque church-building, alternate light and heavy piers in the nave.

It is on the Rhine, too, that one comes upon occasional examples of rococo architectural decoration, a species which sounds as though it might originally have been Italian, but which was originally French. At its best it is seldom seen on the exterior, but on inside walls and porticoes, notably at Bruchsal on the Rhine, one sees a frankly theatrical arrangement of ornate details.

By the twelfth century the particular variety of Romanesque architecture which had developed, and still endures, in the Rhine valley had arrived at its maturity.

The thirteenth century saw the interpolation and admixture of Gothic, which elsewhere, in France in particular, was making such great strides.

Towers multiplied and became lighter and more graceful, and great Gothic arched windows gave place to round-headed ones, though scarcely ever to the entire exclusion of the latter variety.

The species of cross-bred style which forms the link between the Romanesque and Gothic abounds along the Rhine, and examples are frequently encountered.

The semicircular apsides, with a decorative band beneath the cornices of the exterior galleries, are also a distinctly Rhenish detail. They are to be seen in St. Peter's at Bacharach, at St. Castor's at Coblenz, St. Martin's at Cologne, the cathedral at Bonn, in St. Quirinus at Neuss, and again at Limburg.

The Rhenish bell-towers are a variety distinct from the towers and spires usually met with, and often terminate suddenly, as if they were unfinished.

Finally, there are a number of churches in this region which offer the singular, though not unique, disposition of a chevet showing a triple apsis. Notable examples of this style are St. Maria in Capitola, St. Andrew and St. Martin at Cologne, and St. Quirinus at Neuss.

The churches of the Rhine valley are abundantly supplied with steeples, often in groups far in excess of symmetry or sense, as for instance the outré group at Mayence, which is really quite indescribable.

The Apostles' Church at Cologne, the cathedrals at Mayence, Speyer, and Worms, and the abbey church of Laach all have wonderfully broken sky-lines; while those with great central towers, such as at Neuss, or the parish church of Sinzig, form another class; and the slim-spired churches at Andernach and Coblenz yet another. St. Martin's at Cologne is another single-spired church, but it rises from its three apses in quite a different manner from that of St. Quirinus at Neuss, and must be considered in a class by itself.

The minster at Bonn, though having three steeples, is not overspired, like that of Mayence, – indeed, it is perhaps one of the most picturesque, if somewhat theatrical, of all the spired churches of the Rhine, excepting always Limburg. The openwork spire of Freiburg is unequalled in grace by even that of Strasburg, whatever may be the actual value of its constructive details.

A marked type of German church architecture is that species of building known as the Hallenkirche. The variety is found elsewhere, even in France, but still it is distinctively German in its inception.

Usually they are of the triple-naved variety, i. e., a nave with its flanking aisles, with the aisles nearly always of the same height as the principal nave.

There are two great churches of this order – though lacking aisles – in France, the cathedrals at Rodez and Albi in the south.

Mostly these great halled churches exist in Westphalia, where there is a fine example in the cathedral at Paderborn, and again there is St. Ludger at Münster, and many others. In one form or another the type is frequently met with throughout Germany, and is therefore to be considered as a distinct German architectural expression.

In summing up, then, one may well conclude that German church architecture, in its general plan and outline, is not of the amazing beauty of the French, and is in a way lacking in mass effect. With respect to details and accessories, however, the German churches are graced with much that one would gladly find everywhere as an expression of the artistic embellishment of a great religious edifice.

In spite of the austerity of many of these German churches in the fabric itself, there is frequently an abounding wealth of accessory detail in fitments and furnishings.

In France the Revolution made away with much decorative embellishment and furniture of all sorts. The Reformation in Germany played no such part, and so there is left much really artistic detail which contributes a luxuriance that is wanting in constructive details.

The universally elaborate carven pulpits and choir-stalls are wonders of their kind. It is true they are usually of wood instead of stone, but it must be remembered that the Germans were ever great wood-workers.

The pulpits of Freiburg and Strasburg are thoroughly representative of the best work of this kind. They may be said, moreover, to be of the Gothic species only, whereas similar works elsewhere are most frequently of the Renaissance period.

In no other European country are the altars so rich in detail, the sacristies so full to overflowing with jewelled and precious metal cups, vases, and chalices, or the crucifixes, triptychs, and candlesticks so sumptuous.

In the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle the congregation seats itself upon chairs; but most frequently in Germany one finds sturdy, though movable, oaken benches.

Of the carved choir-stalls, those at St. Gérêon's at Cologne are the most nearly perfect of their kind on the Rhine; those at Mayence, while elaborately produced, being of a classic order which is manifestly pagan and out of keeping in a Christian church.

German churches in general made much of the cloister, though not all of the examples that formerly existed have come down to us undisturbed or even in fragmentary condition. But, in spite of the Protestant succession to many of the noble minsters, many of these cloisters have endured in a fair state of preservation. Attached to the western end of St. Maria in Capitola at Cologne is an admirable example, while the Romanesque types at Bonn, at the abbey of Laach, and at Essen are truly beautiful. Examples of the later pure Gothic construction are those at Aix-la-Chapelle and Trèves.

But little exterior sculpture has been preserved in all its originality in the Rhenish provinces, revolutionary fury and its aftermath having accounted for its disappearance or mutilation. In the Cistercian church at the abbey of Altenburg, there is a plentiful display of foliaged ornament, and there are the noble statues in the choir of the cathedral at Cologne. Mayence has a series of monuments to the bishop-nobles attached to the piers of the nave, and in the Liebfrau Kirche at Trèves and the cathedral at Strasburg are seen the best and most numerous features of this nature.

One of the most unusual of mediæval church furnishings, a sort of chandelier, is seen both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Hildesheim. In each instance it is a vast hoop-like pendant which bears the definition of coronæ lucis. Others are found elsewhere in Germany, but not of the great size of these two.

Organ-cases here as elsewhere are mostly abominations. The makers of sweet music evidently thought that any heavy baroque combination of wood-carving and leaden pipes was good enough so long as the flow of melody was uninterrupted.

The stained glass throughout the Rhine valley is mostly good and unusually abundant, and the freedom of this accessory from fanatical desecration is most apparent. The same is true of such paintings as are found hung in the churches, though seldom have they great names attached to them; at least, not so great as would mark them for distinction were they hung in any of the leading picture galleries of Europe.

At Essen the baptistery is separated from the main church, like that at Ravenna, or at Aix-en-Provence, the two foremost examples of their kind. A little to the westward of this minster, and joined to it by a Romanesque ligature, is a three-bayed Gothic church which occupies the site, or was built up from a former chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

Sooner or later the custom became prevalent of erecting a baptismal font within the precincts of the main church itself, thus doing away with a structure especially devoted to the purpose. This change came in the ninth century, hence no separate baptisteries are found dating from a later epoch only, except as an avowed copy of the earlier custom.

At this time, too, immersion had given way to sprinkling merely, though in many cases the German name still applied is that of taufstein, meaning dipping-stone.

Late examples of fonts were frequently in metal, the most remarkable in the Rhine valley being in St. Reinhold's at Dortmund, in St. Maria in Capitola, and St. Peter's at Cologne, and in St. Mary's and St. James's at Mayence.

One of the most elaborate, and certainly the most beautiful and remarkable of all, is the stone font of the cathedral at Limburg.

VI
CONSTANCE AND SCHAFFHAUSEN

Constance

There is a sentimental interest attached to Constance and the lake which lies at its door, which has come down to us through the pictures of the painters and the verses of the poets. Aside from this, history has played its great part so vividly that one could not forget it if he would.

The city was founded about 297 A.D. In after years it fell before the warlike Huns, and all but disappeared, until it became the seat of a bishop in the sixth century, the jurisdiction of the bishopric extending for a dozen leagues in all directions.

In the tenth century it became a ville impériale, and by the fifteenth it had a population of more than forty thousand souls, and the bishopric counted eight hundred thousand adherents. To-day the city proper has decreased in numbers to a population which hovers closely about the five thousand mark.

The emperors convoked many Diets at Constance, and in 1183 the peace was signed here between the Emperor Barbarossa and the Lombard towns.

The cathedral, or münster, of Constance is dedicated to "Our Lady", and is for the most part a highly satisfying example of a Renaissance church, though here and there may be noticed the Gothic, which was erected on the eleventh-century foundations.

The façade has been restored in recent years, and is flanked by two pseudo-Romanesque towers or campaniles in the worst of taste.

The interior is divided into three naves by columns bearing rounded arches. Above, in the grand nave, are a series of round-headed windows, while those in the aisles are ogival.

The choir contains a series of Gothic stalls in stone, which, unless it has very recently been scraped off, are covered with the ordinary cheap whitewash.

The painted vaulting is atrocious, and, while its hideous colouring lasts, it matters little whether it is of the Romanesque barrel style or ogival. The nervures are there, so it must belong to the latter variety, but it is all so thickly covered with what looks like enamel paint and gaudy red and blue "lining" that it is painful to contemplate.

There is a fine statue of John Huss supporting the pulpit. It is an adequate monument to one who made history so vivid that it reads almost like legend. In the pavement is a plaque of copper which indicates the spot where Huss stood when his sentence was read out to him. According to tradition – some have said that it was the ecclesiastical law – Huss was hurled from the church by a coup de pied.

The organ-case, of the fifteenth century, which backs up the inside wall of the façade, is one of the most gorgeous of its kind extant, although there is no very high art expression to be discovered in the overpowering mass of mahogany and lead pipes which, with inadequate supports, hangs perilously upon a wall.

This particular organ-case is richly sculptured with foliage and figures of men, demons, and what not. If it is symbolic, it is hard to trace the connection between any religious motive and the actual appearance of this ungainly mass of carved wood.

There is in the cathedral an elaborate allegorical painting by Christopher Storer, a native of Constance, and executed in 1659 by the order of Canon Sigismund Müller, who died in 1686, and whose tomb is placed near by.

An immense retable is placed at the head of the nave. It is of fine marble, and, though a seventeenth-century copy of Renaissance, is far more beautiful than such ornaments usually are outside of Italy.

At the head of the left aisle is a chapel which also has an elaborate marble retable of the same period. At the summit is a crucifix, and below in niches are statues of St. Thomas, of Constantine, and of his mother, Ste. Hélène. In the same chapel is a "Christ in the tomb", in marble, surrounded by the twelve apostles.

From the same aisle ascends a charming ogival staircase ornamented with statues and bas-reliefs. Separating the chapels from the aisles are two magnificent iron grilles. In a Gothic chapel near the entrance is a fine cul de lampe sculptured to represent the history of Adam and Eve.

A cloister exists, in part to-day as it did of yore, to the northeast of the cathedral. It is a highly beautiful example of fifteenth-century work, with its arcades varying from the firm and dignified early Gothic to the more flamboyant style of later years.

The church of St. Stephen is another ecclesiastical treasure of Constance with a rank high among religious shrines.

St. Stephen's occupies the site formerly given to a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, while not far away there was, in other times, another known under the name of Maria Unter der Linden. The Bishop Salomon III., who occupied the see from 891 to 919, enlarged the first chapel, which was further embellished in 935 by the Bishop Conrad of Altdorf, who added a choir thereto.

This in time came to be known as St. Stephen's. It was entirely renovated in 1047-51 by the Bishop Theodoric, who was interred therein upon his death. The church served as the meeting-place of the famous Roman tribunal known as the Sacra Rota Romana. Under the Bishop Otto III., who was Margrave of Hochberg, it was entirely reconstructed in 1428, and to-day it is this fifteenth-century building that one sees. Previously, if the records tell truly, the great windows of the clerestory contained coloured glass of much beauty, but the remains of to-day are so fragmentary as to only suggest this.

From 1522 to 1548 St. Stephen's was consecrated to the followers of Luther, the first incumbent under this belief being the famous Jacob Windner of Reutlingen.

The exterior of St. Stephen's is not in any way remarkable. The bell-tower, which is very high, is a great square tower to the left of the choir, surmounted by a steeple formerly covered with wooden shingles, but in recent times coppered. The clock in this tower was the gift of Bishop Otto III. There is also a fine chime of bells, which will remind one of the churches of the Low Countries when he hears its limpid notes ring out upon the still air.

The interior has been newly whitened with that peculiar local brand of whitewash, and while bright and cheerful to contemplate, is also very bare, caused perhaps by the vast size of the nave and choir.

The aisles are separated from the nave by ogival arches, rising from a series of octagonal pillars, upon which are hung statues of the twelve apostles. The wooden roof of the nave and its aisles is curious and dates from 1600, but it is mostly hidden by a plaster covering which was added in the early nineteenth century.

The gilded and highly decorated organ and its case dates from 1583. In 1819 and 1839 it was "restored," whatever that may mean with regard to an organ, and at some time between the two dates were added two colossal figures of David and St. Cecilia. There are numerous and elaborate paintings in St. Stephen's which would make many more popular shrines famous. The most notable are "St. John before King Wenceslas," "The Stoning of St. Stephen," "The Glory of the Lamb," and an "Adoration," the work of Philip Memberger, who painted this last at the time of the reëstablishment of the Catholic faith at Constance in 1550. A portrait of the artist is preserved in the sacristy.

Many other works of art were demolished or carried away in the years of the Reformation.

In 1414 three Popes disputed the honour of occupying the Holy See, John XXIII., Gregory XII., and Benoit XIII. The Emperor Sigismund, after having met the deputies of each of the aspirants at Como and Lodi, assembled a council to put an end, if possible, to the anarchy which had arisen within the Church. Its place of meeting was Constance, and the emperors, kings, princes, cities, churches, and universities of Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Bohemia, and Italy all sent their deputations. France was represented by Pierre d'Ailly, Archbishop of Cambrai, and Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris.

The Council of Constance was the most numerous body which had ever been called together on behalf of the Church. It opened its sessions on the 5th of November, 1414, and continued until the 12th of April, 1418.

John XXIII. declared that he would abdicate if his two competitors would agree to follow his example. Gregory XII. agreed to this and sent his abdication to the council by an ambassador, Carlo Malatesta; but Benoit XIII. fled to Spain and still clung tenaciously to the title of Pope. Finally, at a conclave composed of thirty-two cardinals, Othon Colonna was, in 1417, elected Pope under the name of Martin V.

The council held at Constance which condemned John Huss, who was a Wyclif disciple before he was one of Luther's, took place in 1414. Huss was condemned to be burned alive in 1415, and "he mounted the pile," says history, "with the courage of a martyr."