CHAPTER V.POINTED STYLE IN GERMANY.

CONTENTS.

History of style—St. Gereon, Cologne—Churches at Gelnhausen—Marburg—Cologne Cathedral—Freiburg—Strasburg—St. Stephen’s, Vienna—Nuremberg—Mühlhausen—Erfurt.

Itis scarcely necessary to repeat—what has been already perhaps sufficiently insisted upon—that the Germans borrowed their pointed style from the French at a period when it had attained its highest degree of perfection in the latter country. At all events, we have already seen that the pointed style was commonly used in France in the first half of the 12th century, and that it was nearly perfect in all essential parts before the year 1200; whereas, though there may be here and there a solitary instance of a pointed arch in Germany (though I know of none) before the last-named date, there is certainly no church or building erected in the pointed Gothic style the date of which is anterior to the first years of the 13th century. Even then it was timidly and reluctantly adopted, and not at first as a new style, but rather as a modification to be employed in conjunction with old forms.

This is very apparent in the polygonal part of the church of St. Gereon at Cologne (Woodcuts Nos.740and741), commenced in the first year of the 13th century, and vaulted about the year 1212.[73]The plan of the building is eminently German, being in fact a circular nave, as contradistinguished from the French chevet, and is a fine bold attempt at a domical building, of which it is among the last examples. In plan it is an irregular decagon, 55 ft. wide over all, north and south, and 66 ft. in the direction of the axis of the church. Notwithstanding the use of the pointed arch, the details of the building are as unlike the contemporary style of France as is the plan; and are, in fact, nearly a century behind French examples in the employment of all those expedients which give character and meaning to the true pointed style.

Another church in the same city, St Cunibert, is a still more striking example of this. Commenced in the first decade of the 13thcentury, and dedicated in 1248, the very year in which it is said the foundation-stones of the cathedral were laid, it still retains nearly all the features of the old German style, and though pointed arches are introduced, and even tracery to a limited extent, it is still very far removed from being what can be considered an example of the new style.

740. Section of St. Gereon, Cologne. (From Boisserée, ‘Nieder Rhein.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

741. Plan of St. Gereon, Cologne. (From Boisserée.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

More advanced than either of these is the choir of the cathedral of Magdeburg, said to have been commenced in 1208, and dedicated in 1254. This was built, as before mentioned, to supply the place of theold circular sepulchral church of Otho and his English queen Edith. Hence it naturally took the French chevet form, of which it is, probably, the earliest example in Germany, and which it copies rudely and imperfectly in its details. It possesses the polygonal plan, the graduated buttresses, the decorative shafts, and other peculiarities of the French style, and, if found in that country, would be classed as of about the same age as St. Denis. The upper part of the choir and the nave are of very much later date, and will be mentioned hereafter.

742. East End of Church at Gelnhausen. No scale.

A more interesting example of transition than this is the church at Gelnhausen, unfortunately not of well-known date, but apparently built in the middle of the 13th century, though the choir, it is said, was not finished till 1370. Its interest lies in its originality, for though the pointed arch is adopted, it is in a manner very different from that followed by the French, and as if the architects were determined to retain a style of their own. In general design its outline is very like that of the church at Sinzig (Woodcut No.713). In it attempts are even made to copy its apsidal galleries, but their purpose is misunderstood, and pillars are placed in front of windows,—a blunder afterwards carried, at Strasburg and else where, to a far more fatal extent. Taken altogether, the style here exhibited is light and graceful; but it neither has the stability of the old round-arched Gothic, nor the capabilities of the French pointed style. The Liebfrauen church attached to the cathedral at Trèves is another of the anomalous churches of this age (1227 to 1243): its plan has already been given (Woodcut No.696), and was probably suggested by the form of the old circular building which it supplanted. Perhaps from its proximity to France it shows a more complete Gothic style than either of those already mentioned; still the circular arch continually recurs in doorways and windows, and altogether the uses of the pointed forms and the general arrangement of parts and details cannot be said to be well understood. There is, however, a novelty, truly German in its planand a simplicity about its arrangement, which make it the most pleasing specimen of the age, and standing on the foundation of the old church of Sta. Helena, and grouped with the Dom or cathedral, it yields in interest to few churches in Germany.

From these we may pass at once to two churches of well-authenticated date, and slightly French in style. The first, that of St. Elizabeth at Marburg, whose name has been already mentioned (p.258) as adding interest and sanctity to the old castle on the Wartburg. Four years after her death she was canonised, and in the same year, 1235, the foundation was laid of this beautiful church, which was completed and dedicated forty-eight years afterwards, viz., in 1283.

743. Plan of the Church at Marburg. (From Möller’s ‘Denkmäler.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

744. Section of Church at Marburg. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

It is a small church, being only 208 ft. in length by 69 in width internally, and though the details are all ofgood early French style, it still exhibits severalGermanisms, being triapsal in plan, and the three aisles being of the same height. The latter must be considered as a serious defect, for besides the absence of contrast, either the narrow side-aisles appear too tall or the central one too low. This has also caused the defect of two storeys of windows being placed throughout in one height of wall, and without even a gallery to give meaning to such an arrangement. No French architect ever fell into such a mistake, and it shows how little the builders who could not avoid such a solecism understood the spirit of the style they were copying. The west front with its two spires is somewhat later in date, but of elegant design, and is pleasingly proportioned to the body of the church, which is rarely the case in Germany.

745. Plan of Church at Altenberg. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The other church is that at Altenberg, not far from Cologne, on the opposite side of the river Rhine. The foundation-stone was laid in 1255, and the chapels round the choir completed within a few years of that time, but the works were then interrupted, and the greater part of the church not built till the succeeding century. Like all the early churches of the Cistercian Order it is without towers, and is extremely simple in its outline and decorations. It is, in fact, almost a copy of the abbey of Pontigny (Woodcut No.643), which was built fully a century earlier, and though it does show some advance in style in the introduction of tracery into the windows and more variety of outline externally, it is remarkable how little progress it evinces in the older parts. In the subsequent erection there are some noble windows filled with tracery of the very best class, which render this church the best counterpart Germany can produce of our Tintern Abbey, which it resembles in many respects. Indeed, taken altogether, this is perhaps the most satisfactory church of its age and style in Germany, and in the erection of which the fewest faults have been committed. It was rescued from ruin by Frederick William IV. of Prussia, but its extensive conventual buildings have been destroyed by fire.

These examples bring us to the great typical cathedral of Germany, that of Cologne, which is certainly one of the noblest temples ever erected by man in honour of his Creator. In this respect Germany has been more fortunate than either France or England; for though in thenumber of edifices in the pointed style and in beauty of design these countries are far superior, Germany alone possesses one pre-eminent example in which all the beauties of its style are united.

746. Plan of Cathedral at Cologne. (FromBoisserée.[74]) Scale 100 French ft. to 1 in.

Generally speaking, it is assumed that the building we now see is that commenced by Conrad von Hochstetten in the year 1248, but more recent researches have proved that what he did was to rebuild or restore the double-apse cathedral of earlier date. The examples just quoted, however, were no other proof available, are sufficient to show that the Gothic style was hardly then introduced into Germany, and but very little understood when practised. It seems that the present building was begun about the year 1270-1275, and that the choir was completed in all essentials as we now find it by the year 1322.[75]Had the nave been completed at the same rate of progress, it would have shown a wide deviation of style, and the western front, instead of being erected according to the beautiful design preserved to us, would have been covered with stump tracery, and other vagaries of the late German school, all of which are even now observable in the part of the north-west tower actually erected. As the church is now complete according to the original design, one of itsprincipal beauties is the uniformity of style that reigns throughout, contrasting strongly as it does with the greater number of Northern cathedrals, whose erection spreads over centuries. In dimensions it is the largest cathedral of Northern Europe; its extreme length being 468, its extreme breadth 275, and its superficies 91,464 ft., which is 20,000 ft. more than are covered by Amiens, and one-fourth more than Amiens was originally designed to cover. On comparing the eastern halves of these two from the centre of the intersection of the transept, it will be found that Cologne is an exact copy of the French cathedral, not only in general arrangement, but also in dimensions, the only difference being a few feet of extra length in the choir at Cologne, which is more than made up at Amiens by the projection of the Lady Chapel. The nave, too, at Cologne is one bay less in length. On the other hand, the German building exceeds the French by one additional bay in each transept, the two extra aisles in the nave, and the enormous substructures of the western towers. All these are decided faults of design into which no French architect would have fallen.

Looking at Cologne in any light, no one can fail to perceive that its principal defect is its relative shortness. If this was unavoidable at least the transept should have been omitted altogether, as at Bourges, or kept within the line of the walls, as at Paris, Rheims, and elsewhere. It is true, our long low English cathedrals require bold projecting transepts to relieve their monotony; but at Cologne their projection detracts both internally and externally from the requisite appearance of length. Indeed, this seems to have been suspected at the time, as the façades of the transepts were the least finished parts of the building when it was left, and the modern restorers would have done well if they had profited by the hesitation of their predecessors, and omitted an expensive and detrimental addition.

Another defect before alluded to is the double aisles of the nave. It is true these are found at Paris, but they were an early experiment. At Bourges the fault is avoided by the aisles being of different heights; but in none of the best examples, such as Rheims, Chartres, or Amiens, would the architects have been guilty of dispersing their effects or destroying their perspectives as is done at Cologne, and now that the whole of the interior is finished these defects of proportion are become more apparent than they were before. The clear width of the nave is 41 ft. 6 inches between the piers, its height 155 ft., or nearly four times the width—a proportion altogether intolerable in architecture. And this defect is made even more apparent here by the aisles being together equal in width to the nave, while they are only 60 ft. in height. Besides the defect of artistic disproportion, this exaggerated height of the interior has the further disadvantage of dwarfing to a painful extent the human beings who frequent it. Even the gorgeous ceremonial of the Catholic Church and their most crowded processionslose all their effect by comparison with the building in which they are performed. Were a regiment of Life Guards on horseback to ride down the central aisle at Cologne, they would be converted into pigmies by the 148 ft. of height above them. Lateral spaciousness has not the same dwarfing effect; when all are standing on the same floor, distance does not diminish in a building more than in the open air, and with that effect we are familiar, but great height in a room is unusual, and in proportion as it affects the mind with awe or astonishment does it diminish the appearance of those objects with which we are familiar. Perhaps, however, the most striking defect of the internal design is the want of repose or subordination of parts: 50 pillars practically identical in design, and spaced nearly equally over the floor, and beyond them everywhere a wall of glass. If the four central piers had been wider spaced, or of double the section they now are, or had there been any plain wall or any lateral chapels anywhere, it would have been better. Notwithstanding all these defects, it is a glorious temple; but so mathematically perfect, that not one little corner is left for poetry, and it is consequently felt to be infinitely less interesting than many buildings of far less pretensions.

Externally the proportions are as mistaken, if not more so than those of the interior; the mass and enormous height of the western towers (actually greater than the whole length of the building), now that they are completed, have given to the whole cathedral a look of shortness which nothing can redeem. With such a ground-plan a true architect would have reduced their mass one-half, and their height by one-third at least.[76]

Besides its great size, the cathedral of Cologne has the advantage of having been designed at exactly the best age; while, as before remarked, the cathedrals of Rheims and Paris were a little too early, St. Ouen’s too late. The choir of Cologne, which we have seen to be of almost identical dimensions with that of Amiens, excels its French rival internally by its glazed triforium, the exquisite tracery of the windows, the general beauty of the details, and a slightly better proportion between the height of the aisles and clerestory. But this advantage is lost externally by the forest of exaggerated pinnacles which crowd round the upper part of the building, not only in singular discord with the plainness of the lower storey, but hiding and confusing the perspective of the clerestory, in a manner as objectionable in a constructive point of view as it is to the eye of an artist. Decorated construction is, no doubt, the great secret of true architecture; but like other good things, this may be overdone. One-half of the abutting means here employed might have been dispensed with, and the other half disposed so simply as to do the work without theconfusion produced. When we turn to the interior to see what the vault is, which this mass of abutments is provided to support, we find it with all the defects of French vaulting—the ribs few and weak, the ridge undulating, the surfaces twisted, and the general effect poor and feeble as compared with the gorgeous walls that support it. Very judicious painting might remedy this to some extent; but as it now stands the effect is most unpleasing.

747. Western Façade of Cathedral of Cologne. (From Boisserée.)

The noblest as well as the most original part of the design of this cathedral is the western façade (Woodcut No.747). As now completed, it rises to the height of 510 ft. This front, considered as an independent feature, without reference to its position, is a very grand conception. It equals in magnificence those designed for Strasburg and Louvain, and surpasses both in purity and elegance, though it is very questionable if the open work of the spires is not carried to far too great an extent, and even the lower part designed far too much by rule. M. Boisserée says, “the square and the triangle here reign supreme;” and this is certainly the case: every part is designed with the scale and the compasses, and with a mathematical precision perfectly astonishing: but we miss all the fanciful beauty of the more irregular French and English examples. The storeyed porches of Rheims, Chartres, and Wells comprise far more poetry within their limited dimensions than is spread over the whole surface of this gigantic frontispiece. Cologne is a noble conception of a mason, but these were the works of artists in the highest sense of the word.

It is certainly to be regretted that there is no contemporary French example to compare with Cologne, so that we might have been enabled to bring this to a clearer test than words can do. St. Ouen’s comes nearest to it in age and style, but it is so very much smaller as hardly to admit of comparison; for though the length of the two churches is nearly identical, the one covers 91,000 square feet, the other little more than half that, or only 47,000. Yet so judicious is the disposition of the smaller church, and so exquisite its proportions, that notwithstanding the late age of its nave, and the inappropriateness of its modern front, it is internally a more beautiful and almost as imposing a church as that of Cologne, and externally a far more pleasing study as a work of art. Had Marc d’Argent commenced his building at the same time as the builder of Cologne, and seen it completed, or had he left his design for it prior to 1322, even with its smaller dimensions, it would have been by far the nobler work of art of the two. These, however, are after all but vain speculations. We find in Cologne the finest specimen of masonry attempted in the Middle Ages; and notwithstanding its defects, we now see in the completed design a really beautiful and noble building, worthy of its builders and of the religion to which it is dedicated.

At Freiburg, in the Breisgau, there is a contemporary example,commenced in 1283, and finished in 1330. This fine spire is identical in style with the Cologne examples, and perhaps on the whole even better, certainly purer and simpler both in outline and detail, though it is not clear that the richer ornament of Cologne would not be more in accordance with this description of lace-work.

748. View of the Church at Freiburg. (From Möller’s ‘Denkmäler.’)

The total height of the spire at Freiburg is 385 ft. from the ground, and is divided into three parts. The lower portion is a square, plain and simple in its details, with bold prominent buttresses, and containing a very handsome porch. The second is an octagon of elegant design, with four triangular pinnacles or spirelets at the angles, which break most happily the change of outline, and out of this rises, somewhat abruptly, the spire, 155 ft. in height. An English architect would have placed eight bolder pinnacles at its base; a French one would have used a gallery, or taken some means to prevent the cone from merely resting on the octagon. This junction between the two is poor and badly managed; but after all, the question is, whether the open spire is not a mistake, which even the beauty of detail found here cannot altogether redeem. It is not sufficient to say it is wrong, because a spire is and ought to be a roof, and this is not. It is true a spire was originally a roof, and still retains the place of one, and should consequently suggest the idea; but this is not absolutely indispensable; and if the tower be insufficient to support the apparent weight of a solid spire, or for any such reason, the deviation would be excusable, but such is not the case here, nor at Cologne.

Indeed, it seems that the whole is only another exemplification of the ruling idea of the German masons, an excessive love oftours de force, and an inordinate desire to do clever things in stone, which soon led them into all the vagaries of their after Gothic; here it is comparatively inoffensive, though I still feel convinced that if one-half the openings of the tracery were filled up, or only a central trefoil or quatrefoil left open in each division, the effect would be far more pleasing and satisfactory.

In the spires that flank the transepts, the open work is wholly unobjectionable, owing to the smallness of the scale; but in the main and principal feature of the building the case is very different: dignity and majesty are there required; and the flimsiness, as it might almost be called, of the open work, goes far to destroy this.

The nave of this church is a fair specimen of the German Gothic of the age, being contemporary with the spire, or perhaps of a little earlier date; but the want of the triforium internally, and the consequent heavy mass of plain wall over the pier-arches, give it a poor and weak appearance. The choir, a work of the 15th century, runs into all the extravagance of the later German style; its only merits being its size and lightness.

Of the other open-work spires of Germany, one of the most beautifulis that of Thann in Alsace, in which the octagonal part is so light that anything more solid than the tracery that forms the spires would seem to crush it.

Besides these, there is a pleasing example at Esslingen; another attached to the cathedral at Meissen, in favour of which nothing can be said; and those adorning the two towers of the façade of the cathedral of Berne, which, because they are so small relatively to the towers they surmount, and are in fact mere ornaments, are pleasing and graceful terminations to the front.

Next in rank to Cologne among German cathedrals is that at Strasburg. It is, however, so much smaller as hardly to admit of a fair comparison, covering, even with its subsidiary adjuncts, little more than 60,000 square ft. The whole of the eastern part of this church belongs to an older basilica, built in the 11th and 12th centuries, and is by no means remarkable either for its beauty or its size, besides being so overpowered by the nave, which has been added to it, as to render its appearance somewhat insignificant. The nave and the western front are the glory and the boast of Alsace, and possess in a remarkable degree all the beauties and defects of the German style.

749. Plan of Strasburg Cathedral. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

It is not known when the nave was commenced, but probably in the early half of the 13th century, and it seems to have been finished about the year 1275, a date which, if authentic, is in itself quite sufficient to settle the controversy as to whether any part of Cologne is of an earlier age, everything we see in Strasburg being of an older style than anything in that church.

750. West Front of Cathedral at Strasburg.

Be this as it may, the details are pure and beautiful, and the design of singular boldness. The central aisle is 55 ft. wide from centre to centre of the piers, and the side aisles 33 ft. wide, while the corresponding dimensions at Cologne are only 49 ft. and 25 ft. respectively. Notwithstanding this, the vault at Strasburg is only 101 ft. in height against 155 ft. at Cologne. The consequence is, that measured from centre to centre the central aisle at Cologne is more than three times as high as it is wide, while at Strasburg it is less than twice. The whole width of the more northern example is practically equal to the height—at Strasburg it is one-fifth less; but the one having only three aisles, while the other has five, makes all these discrepancies still more apparent. Had the architect at Cologne, instead of introducing an external aisle, only increased the dimensions of Strasburg by one-fifth, retaining all its proportions, he would both externally and internally have produced the noblest building of the Middle Ages. As it is, the smaller nave of Strasburg is infinitely superior in proportion and apparent dimensions to that of the larger building.

This comparative lowness of the nave at Strasburg is greatly in its favour, as the length, which is only 250 ft., is made the most of, and the shortness of the cathedral is not perceived.

It does not appear that Erwin von Steinbach had anything to do with this part of the structure, beyond repairing the vault when damaged by fire in 1298, at which time he also introduced some new features of no great importance, but sufficient in some degree to confuse the chronology. What he really did, was to commence the western façade, of which he laid the foundation in 1277, and superintended the erection till his death, 41 years afterwards, when he was succeeded by his sons, who carried it up to the platform in 1365.

The Germans, however, wishing to find a name to place in their Walhalla, and mistaking entirely the system on which buildings were carried out in the Middle Ages, had tried to exalt Erwin into a genius of the highest order, ascribing to him not only the nave, but also the design of the spire as it now stands. If he had anything to do with the former, he must have been promoted at a singularly early age to the rank of master-mason, and have been a most wonderfully old man at the time of his death; and if he designed the spire, he must have had a strangely prophetic spirit to foresee forms and details that were not invented till a century after his death! The fact is, Erwin did no more than every master-mason of his age could do. There is no novelty or invention in his design, and only those mistakes and errors which all Germans fell into when working in pointed Gothic. In the first place, the façade is much too large for the church, which it crushes and hides; and instead of using the resources of his art to conceal this defect, he made the vault of the ante-chapel equal in height to that of Cologne, the result being that the centre of the great western rose-window isjust as high as the apex of the vault of the nave. It is true it can be seen in perspective from the floor of the church, but the arrangement appears to have been expressly designed to make the church look low and out of proportion.

The spiral staircases at the angles of the spire are marvels of workmanship, and the whole is well calculated to excite the wonder of the vulgar, though it must be condemned by the man of taste as very inferior in every respect to the purer designs of an earlier age.

It is not known whether the original design comprised two towers, like those of the great French cathedrals, or was intended to terminate with a flat screen-like façade. Probably the latter was the case, as mass, and not proportion, seems to have been this architect’s idea of magnificence.

The spire that now crowns this front, rising to a height of 468 ft. from the ground, was not finished till 1439, and betrays all the faults of its age. The octagonal part is tall and weak in outline, the spire ungraceful in form and covered with an unmeaning and constructively useless system of tracery.

Besides the fault of proportion for which the design of Erwin is clearly blamable, all his work betrays the want of artistic feeling which is characteristic of the German mason. Every detail of the lower part of the front is wire-drawn and attenuated. The defect of putting a second line of unsymmetrical tracery in front of windows, the first trace of which was remarked upon in speaking of Gelnhausen, is here carried to a painful extent. The long stone bars which protect and hide the windows are admirable specimens of masonry, but they are no more beauties than those which protect our kitchen windows in modern times. The spreading the tracery of the windows over the neighbouring walls, so as to make it look large and uniform, is another solecism found both here and at Cologne, utterly unworthy of the art, and not found in, I believe, a single instance in France and England, where the style was so much better understood than in Germany.

Altogether the façade of the cathedral at Strasburg is imposing from its mass, and fascinating from its richness; but there is no building in either France or England where such great advantages have been thrown away in so reckless a manner and by so unintelligent a hand.

The cathedral at Ratisbon is a far more satisfactory specimen of German art than that of Strasburg. It is a small building, only 272 ft. in length, and 114 in breadth internally, and covering about 32,000 sq. ft. It was commenced in the year 1275; the works were continued for more than two centuries, and at last abandoned before the completion of the church.

As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No.751), it is much more German than French in its arrangements, having three apses insteadof a chevet. The side-aisles are wide in proportion to the central one, the transept subdued, and altogether it is more like the old round-arched Gothic basilica than the French church. It has two storeys of windows in the apse, as at Marburg, where the arrangement is unmeaning and offensive, while here the nave has side-aisles and a clerestory: thus the upper windows of the apse are a continuation of the clerestory windows of the nave, and the effect is not unpleasing. The details of this church are singularly pleasing and elegant throughout, and produce on the whole a harmony not commonly met with in German churches of this age and style.

751. Plan of Ratisbon Cathedral. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

If size were any real test of beauty, the cathedral at Ulm ought to be one of the finest in Germany, being just twice as large as that at Ratisbon, covering 63,800 sq. ft. So far also as constructive merit is concerned, it is perhaps the best; for though I have no plan I can quite rely upon, I believe that not more than one-fifteenth of the area is occupied by the supports; nor is this church surpassed by many in sharp and clever mechanical execution of the details. With all this it would be difficult to find a colder and more unimpressive design than is here carried out; both internally and externally, it is the work of a very clever mason, but of a singularly bad artist. The freemasons had, when it was founded (1377), got possession of the art in Germany; and here they carried their system to its acmé, and with a result which every one with the smallest appreciation of art can perceive at once. It is said that, in the original design, the outer range of pillars, dividing the side-aisle into two, was to have been omitted, which would have made it even worse than it is. Its one western tower, now that it is completed, is perhaps more beautiful than that at Strasburg; and, besides, being actually higher (529 ft.), appears taller from standing alone. Its form, too, is more pleasing; and, though its details are far more suited for execution in cast iron than in stone, rivals, and perhaps even surpasses, those at Antwerp or Mechlin.

752. View of the Spire of St. Stephen’s, Vienna. (From ‘Chiesi Principali d’Europa.’)

St. Stephen’s of Vienna (Woodcut No.752), ranks fourth or fifth among the great churches of Germany, both for size and richness of decoration. Its length, internally, is 337 ft., its width 115, and it covers about 52,000 square ft. It is situated too near the eastern edge of the province for us to expect anything very pure or perfect asan example of Gothic art, and it certainly sins against every canon that a purist would enact. The three aisles are nearly equal in width and height,—there is no clerestory—no triforium. There are two very tall windows in each bay. The pillars are covered with sculpture, more remarkable for its richness than its appropriateness, and the tracery of the vaults is very defective. Yet, with all these faults, and many more, no one with a trace of poetry in his composition can stand under the great cavernous western porch and not feel that he has before him one of the most beautiful and impressive buildings in Europe. A good deal of this may be owing to the colour. The time-stain in the nave is untouched, the painted glass perfect, and the whole has a venerable look, now too rare. The choir is being smartened up, and its poetry is gone. Meanwhile, no building can stand in more absolute contrast with the cathedral at Cologne than this one at Vienna. The former fails because it is so coldly perfect that it interests no one; this impresses, though offending against all rules, because it was designed by a poet. We feel as if the Rhenish architect would certainly have been Senior Wrangler at Cambridge had he tried, but that his Danubian brother was fit to be Laureate at any court in Germany.

It is the same with the exterior. The one great roof running over the three aisles, and covering all up like an extinguisher, ought to be abominable, but it gives a character to the whole that one would be sorry to miss, and is not out of harmony with the exceptional character of the whole building. The great glory of this church consists in its two spires, one of which is finished, the other only carried up to about one-third of its intended height. Their position is unfortunate, as they are placed where the transepts should be, so that they neither form a façade nor dignify the sanctuary; they occupy, in fact, the position of the lateral entrances which the Germans were so fond of, and are the principal portals of the building. In itself, however, the finished spire is the richest, and, excepting that at Freiburg, perhaps the most beautiful of all those in Germany. Its total height, exclusive of the eagle, is 441 ft., rising from a base about 64 ft. square, gradually sloping from the ground to the summit, where it forms a cone of the unprecedently small angle of little more than 9 degrees. The transition from the square base to an octagonal cone is so gradual and so concealed by ornament, that it is difficult to say where the tower ends and the spire begins. This gives a confusion and weakness to the design by no means pleasing. Indeed the whole may be taken as an exemplification of all the German principles of design carried to excess, rather than as a perfect example of what such an object should be. It deserves to be remarked that there is no open work in the spire, though, from its own tenuity and the richness of the tower, there is no example where it would have been less objectionable.

Had the architects of Eastern Germany continued to practise the style a little longer before the introduction of the Renaissance art, it is probable they would have gone further from the French forms than they did even in St. Stephen’s. Among the novelties they did employ, one of the most remarkable was the invention of flat-roofed choirs. The plan of the Franciscan church at Salzburg (Woodcut No.753) will explain what is meant by this.[77]The nave of the church is a very beautiful example of the round-arched style, so pure and elegant in its details as to betray its proximity to Italy, and without a trace of pointed architecture, though dating as late as 1230-1260. In the year 1470 it was determined to rebuild the choir. In France this would have been effected by an extended range of chapels round a chevet; in England by several bays added to the length. In Germany they did better: they placed five slender piers on the floor: these, though 70 ft. in height, are less than 4 ft. in diameter, yet they appear sufficient for the task they have to perform, while their slenderness prevents them from interrupting the view in any direction. From these rose a vault, extending on the same level from wall to wall with a tree-like growth, from each of these pillars—without any exertion or constructive difficulty; the choir thus forms a hall 66 ft. wide by 160 in length, exclusive of the side-chapels which surround it in two storeys. A dome in that position might have been more sublime; but passing through the confined vestibule of the nave the expansion into the light and airy choir produces one of the most magical effects to be found in any church in Europe. The details of the vault, as is only too usual at that age, are not constructively correct; but if this design had been carried out with English fan-tracery nothing could well be more beautiful. In plan and dimensions this choir very nearly resembles Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster; but in design the German surpasses the English example to a greater extent than it falls short of it in beauty of detail.

753. Plan of the Franciscan Church at Salzburg.

St. Lawrence’s Church at Nuremberg is a larger and better known example of the same class of design. It was commenced in 1275, and finished after 202 years’ labour. The style of this church is consequently much more uniform; and though not large, being only 300 ft. long by 100 in width, its proportions are so good that it is a verybeautiful and impressive example of the style. It is a little too late in its details, but beautiful in its arrangements. The view, standing by the pulpit and looking towards the east, is as poetic as that of St. Stephen’s, and as spacious as at Salzburg. The two rows of windows round the apse are a defect that might easily have been avoided, but which the beauty of the painted glass goes far to redeem.

Externally, the western front, though on a small scale, only 250 ft. in height, is better proportioned and more pleasing in its detail than almost any other double-spire façade in Germany that can be named. The real defect of the exterior is the overwhelming roof of the nave and the want of external buttresses, which, with bold pinnacles, would have gone far to correct its heaviness.

754. Plan of St. Lawrence’s Church, Nuremberg.

St. Sebald’s Church at Nuremberg seems originally to have been a chevet turned the wrong way, to the eastern end of which a choir of somewhat exaggerated dimensions was added at a later age (1303-1377). This choir was not only placed unsymmetrically as regards the axis of the older part, but also as regards its own parts. It is, however, lofty and airy, with the same arrangement as to vaulting as the two last examples, but, being lighted by a single row of tall windows, it avoids the defect of the two-storeyed arrangement. These windows are 50 ft. high, and barely 8 ft. in width, which is far too narrow in proportion. Their mullions are nearly 40 ft. in height; and, though triumphs of German masonic skill, are most unpleasing features of architectural design.

755. Plan of the Church at Kuttenberg, taken above the roof of the aisles. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

When the Germans had once mastered this invention in vaulting they applied it wherever an opportunity presented itself, and in one instance at least, to a five-aisled basilica. It is true the church of St. Barbara at Kuttenberg,[78]in Bohemia, is only a fragment, but it is a very remarkable one. The buildingwas apparently commenced about the year 1358, and completed, as far as we now see it, in 1548. Its dimensions are smaller than those of Cologne, being only 126 ft. across its five aisles instead of 150; but its great peculiarity is that the roof of the first aisle next the central one on each side is converted into a great gallery, as shown in the section (Woodcut No.756), and the vault carried flat above the three. To a certain extent this prevents the clerestory windows from being so easily seen from all parts of the floor of the church, but when seen it is at a better angle; and, altogether, a play of light and shade and a poetry of effect is introduced which more than compensates for this. The double apse may be the most characteristic feature of German Mediæval churches, but this seems to be the highest and most poetic of their inventions.

756. Section of the Church of St. Barbara, Kuttenberg. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

The church of St. Veit at Prague is very similar to that at Kuttenberg. It was commenced about the year 1346, and, like it, was meant to imitate and rival Cologne. Its proportions, however, are better, being only 105 ft. high, internally, with a width of 130 ft., but its details, as might be expected from its date, are very far inferior to those of its northern rival. Like Kuttenberg, it is now only a choir—a fragment of what was intended; and it neither possesses the poetry of its Bohemian rival, nor the perfect masonry of Cologne, and perhaps more resembles Beauvais than any other church of its age.

In Bavaria there are several churches erected later in the style, which, in spite of many defects of detail, are still very imposingedifices. The cathedral at Munich is a well-known example of this style, but a better specimen is the St. Martin’s church at Landshut (1404). As in almost all these examples, the three aisles are the same height, and outside are covered by one gigantic roof. Internally this gives great spaciousness, but externally the exaggerated height of the windows and the size of the roof are great defects. The most beautiful feature at Landshut is the spire, which rises to the height of 425 ft., and is as gracefully and appropriately designed as any other which has been completed in Germany of its age. Though not so rich as St. Stephen’s at Vienna, it has not its confusion of outline, and it also avoids the somewhat ambiguous beauties of the open-work spires so frequent in this country.

In adopting the pointed-arched style, the Germans generally abandoned their favourite double-apse arrangement; and though they seldom adopted the whole of the chevet, preferring their own simple apse to it, it seems to have been only, or at least generally, where an old round Gothic double-apse church existed previously, that this arrangement was continued after the commencement of the 13th century. Naumburg, the nave of which was commenced about the year 1200, is an instance of this. This was no doubt inserted between two older apses, both of which were rebuilt at a later age, forming two very beautiful and extensive choirs. The whole makes a very pleasing and interesting church, though there certainly is an architectural incongruity in entering by the side, and the double-apse arrangement is unfamiliar and nearly unintelligible to us at the present time.

A still better example is the cathedral at Bamberg, which, judging from its date, ought to be in the complete pointed style. Though its east end dates from 1220, and the west 1257, it is still so completely transitional, and the pointed form so timidly used, that in France it would certainly be said that there was a mistake of at least a century in these dates. It is nevertheless a very fine church; and its four elegant towers flanking the two apses give it a local and at the same time a dignified character which we often miss in the imitations of French churches, too common at this age. At Naumburg unfortunately only three towers exist, the fourth never having been erected, which considerably mars the effect when comparing it with the more complete edifice at Bamberg.

Augsburg is another example of this class; although of good age, the rebuilding having commenced in 1366, it is one of the ugliest and worst-designed buildings in Germany, with nothing but its size to redeem it. It is peculiar in having a chevet at one end and an apse at the other.

The principles of the French schools of art seem to have prevailed to a much greater extent in the North of Germany, and we have in consequence several churches of more pleasing design than those lastmentioned. Among these is the cathedral at Halberstadt, a simple but beautiful church, not remarkable for any very striking peculiarities, but extremely satisfactory in general effect. The great church, too, at Xanten may be quoted as another very favourable specimen, though far more essentially German in its arrangement. The western front is older than the rest, and is German, wholly without French influence. It has no central entrance, but has two bold massive towers. The church behind these is of the latter part of the 13th and the 14th centuries. It is generally good in detail and proportion, but is arranged, as seen in the plan, in a manner wholly different from the French method, though in a form common in all parts of Germany. The polygonal form is retained both for the apse and for the chapels, but without adopting the chevet with its surrounding aisle, nor the absolute seclusion of the choir as a priestly island round which the laity might circulate, but within whose sacred precincts they were not permitted to enter. It is observable that in those districts where chevets are most frequent, generally speaking, the Catholic religion has had the firmest hold. On the other hand, where the people had declined to adopt that arrangement, it was a sign that they were ripe for the Reformation, which accordingly they embraced as soon as the standard of rebellion was raised.

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