CHAPTER IV.DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.

CONTENTS.

Lorsch—Palaces on the Wartburg and at Gelnhausen—Houses—Windows.

Asmight be expected, the remains of domestic architecture are few and insignificant as compared with those of the great monumental churches, which in that age were the buildingspar excellenceon which the wealth, the talent and the energy of the nation were so profusely lavished.

731. Porch of Convent at Lorsch. (From Möller’s ‘Denkmäler,’ &c.) No scale.

The earliest building which has been brought to light is certainly the portal of the Convent at Lorsch, near Mannheim. It is now used as a store and has been a good deal defaced; but sufficient remains, not only to show its form, but the character of its details. These are so classical as to justify us in calling the building Romanesque; and if it were not that we have buildings—such for instance as St.Paul-Trois-Châteaux (Woodcut No.551), which may date in the 10th and 11th century—we might be inclined to assert most confidently that the date of this building must approximate nearly to the time of the departure of the Romans. On the other hand, the purely classical details of such buildings as those found in Provence must render uscautious in judging of the age of any erection at that early time, from the style alone. No church in Germany is so classical in its details as this, but it will not do to rely on these alone for evidence of date; for a hundred churches may have been built for one portal like this, and though ecclesiastical forms had become sacred, an architect may have felt himself justified in resorting to any amount of Paganism in a semi-secular building. On the whole there seems little doubt but that this porch formed part of the monastic building dedicated in the presence of Charlemagne in 774. It may, however, have been erected by an Italian architect, and consequently be more classical in its details than if the product of some purely Teutonic artist.

Its dimensions are inconsiderable, being only 31 ft. by 24. It has three arches in each face, and above them a series of pilasters supporting straight-lined arches—if the expression may be used. These are interesting, as the same form is currently used in our Saxon architecture, but never with such purely classical details as here. It is, in fact, only the elegance of these that gives interest to this building.

Nothing now remains of the palaces which Charlemagne built at Ingelheim, or at Aix-la-Chapelle, nor of the residences of many of his successors, till we come to the period of the Hohenstaufens. Of their palaces at Gelnhausen (1170A.D.) and on the Wartburg (1140-1190A.D.) enough remains to tell us at least in what style and with what degree of taste they were erected, and the remains of the contemporary castle of Muenzenburg complete, as far as we can ever now expect it to be completed, our knowledge of the subject.

One of the earliest palaces still existing is that of the Imperial Palace at Goslar, founded by Henry III. It has suffered much from restorations, but probably retains its original plan, the chief feature of which is an immense hall on the upper storey measuring 181 ft. long by 52 ft. wide. Another example with similar hall of less size is found in the Palace of Dankwarderode, in Brunswick, 1150-70. Of the same date is the Palace of Eger, to which Frederic Barbarossa added a chapel in two storeys, similar to the double chapel of Landsberg, both of which are referred to on page243.

Besides these a considerable number of ecclesiastical cloistered edifices still remain, and some important dwelling-houses in Cologne and elsewhere; but on the whole our knowledge is somewhat meagre,—a circumstance that is much to be lamented, as, from what we do find, we cannot fail to form a high idea of the state of the domestic building arts at that period.

What remains of the once splendid palace of Barbarossa at Gelnhausen consists first of a chapel very similar to those described in the last chapter; it is architecturally a double chapel, except that the lower storey was used as the hall of entrance to the palace, and notfor divine service. To the left of this were the principal apartments of the palace, presenting a façade of about 112 ft. in length, and probably half as high. Along the front ran a corridor about 10 ft. deep, a precaution apparently necessary to keep out rain before glass came to be generally used. Behind this there seem to have been three rooms on each floor; the largest, or throne-room, being about 50 ft. square. The principal architectural features of what remains are the open arcades of the façade, one of which is represented in the last woodcut (No.732). For elegance of proportion and beauty of detail they are unsurpassed by anything of the age, and certainly give a very high idea of the degree of excellence to which architecture and the decorative arts had then been carried, and, as will be observed, they are purely Romanesque in detail, without any trace of the classicality of Lorsch.

732. Arcade of the Palace at Gelnhausen. (From Möller.)

733. Capital, Gelnhausen. (From Möller, ‘Denkmäler.’)

The castle on the Wartburg is historically the most important edifice of its class in Germany, and its size and state of preservation render it remarkable in an artistic point of view. It was in one of its halls that the celebrated contest was held between the six most eminentpoets of Germany in the year 1206, which, though it nearly ended fatally to one of them at least, shows how much importance was attached to the profession of literature at even that early period. Here the sainted Elizabeth of Hungary lived with her cruel brother-in-law; here she practised those virtues and endured those misfortunes that render her name so dear and so familiar to all the races of Germany; and it was in this castle that Luther found shelter after leaving the Diet at Worms, and where he resided under the name of Ritter George, till happier times enabled him to resume his labours abroad.

734. View of the Palace on the Wartburg. (From Puttrich.)

The principal building in the castle where these events took place closely resembles that at Gelnhausen, except that it is larger, being 130 ft. in length by 50 in width. It is three storeys in height, without counting the basement, which is added to the height at one end by the slope of the ground.

All along the front of every storey is an open corridor leading to the inner rooms, the dimensions of which cannot now be easily ascertained,owing to the castle having been always inhabited, and altered in modern times to suit the convenience and wants of its recent occupiers. In its details it has hardly the elegance of Gelnhausen, but its general appearance is solid and imposing, the whole effect being obtained by the grouping of the openings, in which respect it resembles the older palaces at Venice more than any other buildings of the class. It has not perhaps their minute elegance, but it far surpasses them in grandeur and in all the elements of true architectural magnificence. It has been recently restored, apparently with considerable judgment, and it well deserves the pains bestowed upon it as one of the best illustrations of its style still existing in Europe.

The extensive ruins of the castle on the Münzenberg, which, like those of Gelnhausen and Wartburg, belongs to the 13th century, though less important, is hardly less elegant than either. It derives a peculiar species of picturesqueness from being built principally of the prismatic basalt of the neighbourhood, the crystals being used in their natural form, and where these were not available, the stones have been rusticated with a boldness that gives great value to the more ornamental parts, in themselves objects of considerable beauty.

None of these castles have much pretension to interest or magnificence as fortifications,—a circumstance which gives an idea of more peaceful times and more settled security than we could quite expect in that age, especially as we find in the period of the pointed style so many and such splendid fortifications crowning every eminence along the banks of the Rhine, and indeed in every corner of the land. These last may, in some instances, have been rebuildings of castles of this date, but I am not aware of any having been ascertained to be so.

There is no want of specimens of conventual buildings and cloisters in Germany of this age; but every one is singularly deficient both in design as a whole and in the elegance of its parts. The beautiful arcades of the palaces we have just been describing nowhere reappear in conventual buildings. Why this should be so it is difficult to understand, but such certainly is the fact. The most elegant that is known to exist is probably the cloister to the cathedral at Zurich. It is nearly square, from 60 to 70 ft. each way. Every side is divided into five bays by piers supporting bold semicircular arches, and these are again subdivided into three smaller arches supported by two slender pillars. The arrangement will be understood from the woodcut (No.735). This cloister is superior in design to many in France and elsewhere of the same age; its great beauty consists in the details of the capitals and string-courses, which are all different, most of them with figures singularly well executed, but many merely with conventional foliage, not unlike the honeysuckle of the Greeks, and not unworthy of the comparison as far as the mere design is concerned,though the execution is rude. The same is the case with the sculptures of the portal; for though they display even less classical feeling, they show an exuberance of fancy and a boldness of handling which we miss entirely in the succeeding ages, when the art yielded to make way for mere architectural mouldings, as if the two could not exist together. The example of Greece forbids us to believe that such is necessarily the case, but in the Middle Ages it certainly was, that as the one advanced nearer to perfection, the other declined in almost an equal degree.

735. Cloister at Zurich. (From Chapuy,‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)

The best collection of examples of German cloisters is found in Boisserée’s ‘Nieder Rhein.’ But neither those of St. Gereon nor of the Apostles, nor St. Pantaleone at Cologne, merit attention as worksof art, though they are certainly curious as historical monuments; and the lateral galleries of Sta. Maria in the Capitol are even inferior in design; their resemblance, however, to the style of Ravenna gives them some value archæologically. The same remarks apply to the cloisters at Heisterbach, and even to the more elegant transitional buildings at Altenberg. Almost all these examples, nevertheless, possess some elegant capitals and some parts worthy of study; but they are badly put together and badly used, so that the pleasing effect of a cloistered court and conventual buildings is here almost entirely lost. The cause of this is hard to explain, when we see so much beauty of design in the buildings to which they are generally accompaniments.

There are several dwelling-houses in Cologne and elsewhere which show how early German town-residences assumed the tall gabled fronts which they retained to a very late period through all the changes which took place in the details with which they were carried out. In the illustration (Woodcut No.736) there is little ornament, but the forms of the windows and the general disposition of the parts are pleasing, and the general effect produced certainly satisfactory. The size of the lower windows is remarkable for the age, and the details are pure, and are executed with a degree of lightness which we are far from considering as a general characteristic of so early a style.

736. Dwelling-house, Cologne. (From Boisserée.)

The windows at the back of the house illustrated in Woodcut No.736, are so large, that were it not for the unmistakable character of those in front, and of some of its details, we might be inclined to suspect that it belonged to a much more modern age. As shown in the Woodcut No.737, the details are as light and elegant as anything domestic in architecture of the pointed style.

There are several minor peculiarities which perhaps it might be more regular to mention here, but which it will be more convenient to allude to when speaking of the pointed style. One, however, cannot thus be passed over—and that is the form which windows in churches and cloisters were beginning to assume just before the period when the transition to the pointed style took place.

737. Windows in Dwelling-house, Cologne.

738. Windows from Sion Church, Cologne. (From Boisserée.)739. Windows from St. Quirinus at Neuss. (From Boisserée.)

738. Windows from Sion Church, Cologne. (From Boisserée.)

739. Windows from St. Quirinus at Neuss. (From Boisserée.)

Up to that period the Germans showed no tendency to adopt window tracery, in the sense in which it was afterwards understood, nor to divide their windows into compartments by mullions. I do not even know of an instance in any church of the windows being so grouped together as to suggest such an expedient. All their older windows, on the contrary, are simple round-headed openings, with the jambs more or less ornamented by nook-shafts and other such expedients. At the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century they seem to have desired to render the openings more ornamental, probably because tracery had to a certain extent been adopted in France and the Netherlands at that period. They did this first by foiling circles and semicircles; the former a pleasing, the latter a very unpleasing, form of window, but not so bad as the three-quarter windows—if I may so call them—used in the church of Sion at Cologne (Woodcut No.738) and elsewhere: these, however, are hardly soobjectionable as the fantastic shapes they sometimes assumed, as in the examples (Woodcut No.739), taken from St. Quirinus at Neuss. Many others might be quoted, the forms of which are constructively bad without being redeemed by an elegance of outline that sometimes enables us to overlook their other faults. The more fantastic of these, it is true, were seldom glazed, but were mere openings in towers or into roofs. These windows are also generally found in transition specimens, in which men try experiments before settling down to a new course of design. Notwithstanding this, they are very objectionable, and are the one thing that shakes that confidence which might otherwise be felt in the power of the old German style to have perfected itself without foreign aid.

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