GENERAL VIEW of LIÈGEGENERALVIEWofLIÈGE
GENERAL VIEW of LIÈGEGENERALVIEWofLIÈGE
GENERALVIEWofLIÈGE
Previously the smith's fires had burned low, and only the old man's song inspired him to forage on the hillside, with the result that the future prosperity of the city grew up from the accessibility of this inexhaustible coal supply.
The old man's story ran thus:
"Wine's good in wintry weather.Up the hillside near the heather,Go and gather the black earth,It shall give your fire birth.Ill fares the hide when the buckler wants mending,Ill fares the plough when the coulter wants tending."
When Liège, through its prosperity, had grown to good proportions, its government was assigned to a sort of prelate-proprietor.
These princely prelates were often but lads of eighteen or twenty, who became identified with the Church, frequently enough, simply because of the power it gave them.
The craftsmen and artisans of the city bought many rights from time to time from the bishops, and finally wrested the power from out of the hands of the Church, much{298}as did the burghers of other cities from their feudal lords.
Then followed the struggle, which in Flanders raged perhaps more bitterly than elsewhere in Europe; the rising, where the many fought against the privileged few, and much riot and bloodshed was caused on all sides.
Then came first the burgher heroes of Liège, who, like their confrères in Ghent and Bruges, found in many instances the martyrdom of the patriot.
In the Place St. Lambert formerly stood—until 1801, when it was removed after having been damaged by a mob—the former cathedral of St. Lambert, which took its name from the first bishop of Liège. This ancient cathedral was of much grandeur and magnificence, attributes which the present cathedral of St. Paul decidedly lacks.
It was in this venerable cathedral of St. Lambert that Quentin Durward went to hear mass, as we learn from Scott's novel, and here also, after the famous siege of Liège by Louis XI. and Charles the Bold, the two princes themselves repaired for the same purpose. St. Lambert of Liège and the three Kings of Cologne were, it would appear, the{299}chief patrons to whom Quentin and his early followers made their vows.
The bishopric was founded by Héraclius in 968, and a church, of which the present choir is a part, was built upon the site of the present St. Paul's in the thirteenth century. The see was formerly a suffragan of Cologne, and the only bishopric in the Low Countries except Tournai and Utrecht.
The present cathedral is consistently enough a Gothic church, but it is not a satisfactory example, in spite of its magnificent proportions.
Of a cruciform plan, and with a nave which was only completed in 1528, it is a poor apology for a great Gothic church, such as we know at Metz, Nancy, or even at Brussels.
Its western tower, satisfactory enough in itself, is crowned with a ludicrous spire, which dates only from 1812.
Since St. Lambert's has disappeared, and the present St. Paul's dates only from the ante-Revolutionary days, the chief ecclesiastical treasure of the city is the Église St. Jacques. It was founded in 1014 by the Bishop Baudry II., but the Romanesque tower to the west is of the century following, and the{300}whole fabric was very much modified in 1513-38.
It is a magnificent flamboyant Gothic church of quite the first rank, when compared with others of its kind elsewhere.
It has an ample nave and aisles with a polygonal choir and a series of radiating chapels which are singularly beautiful.
The magnificent north portal is an addition of the sixteenth century.
The interior has been called Spanish in its motive. Certainly it is not quite like any other Gothic forms we know in these parts, and does bear some resemblance to that peculiar variety of Gothic which belongs to Spain.
The choir has some fine glass showing the armorial bearings of former patrons of the church.
There is a beautiful carved stone staircase and much sculptured stonework in the choir.
The organ-buffet is ornate, even of its kind,—a masterpiece of cabinet-making,—and was the work of Andre Severin of Maestricht in 1673.
The left transept, which is some thirty feet longer than the right, has a fine painting of a "Mater Dolorosa," while, opposite, is a{301}stone monument to the founder of the church, Baudry II., of Renaissance workmanship.
St. Jean is another pre-tenth-century foundation of the Bishop Notger, somewhat after the plan of the "round church" at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was entirely rebuilt, however, in the eighteenth century, though the original octagon was kept intact.
At some distance from the city, on a height which may be truly called dominating, is the church of St. Martin, founded in 962, and reconstructed, after the Gothic manner of the time, contemporary with St. Jacques. Of recent times it has been restored. If any separation or division of its parts can be made, one concludes that the choir is German, and its nave French.
In 1246 there was held in this church aFête Dieufollowing upon a vision of Ste. Julienne, the abbess of Cornillon near Liège. The fête was ordained by Pope Urbain IV., who himself had been a canon of the cathedral of Liège.
Ste. Croix was another of Notger's foundations, in 979, on the site of an ancient château.
The choir was built toward 1175, and has an octagonal tower with a gallery of small{302}columns just under the roof, after the manner known as distinctly Rhenish.
The church exhibits thoroughly that Rhine manner of building which made combined use of the Gothic and Romanesque,—in bewildering fashion, to one who has previously known only the comparatively pure types of France.
The nave and its aisles rise to the same height, but the apsidal choir is aisleless.
The general effect of the interior is light and graceful, with circular columns in a blue-gray stone, which is very beautiful.
A series of fourteenth or fifteenth century "Stations of the Cross" fill the arches of the transepts; quite an unusual arrangement of this feature, and one which seems well considered.
St. Barthélemy's is Liège's other great church. It is abasilicaof five naves and two Romanesque towers. It dates in reality from the twelfth century, but has been greatly modernized.
St. Barthélemy's might have been a highly interesting example of a Romanesque church had it not been desecrated by late Italian details.
St. Barthélemy's has a twelfth-century art{303}treasure in a brazen font, cast in 1112 by Patras, a brass-founder of Dinant on the Meuse. Its bowl depicts five baptismal scenes in high relief, each accompanied by a descriptive legend. Upon the rim of the bowl is the following legend:
"Bissenis bobus pastorum forma notatur,Quos et apostolice commendat gratia vite,Officiiq; gradus quo fluminis impetus bujusLetificat sanctam purgatis civibus urbem."
Coat of Arms, Liège
{304}
DÜSSELDORF, NEUSS, AND MÜNCHEN-GLADBACH
Düsseldorf
Amongæsthetic people in general, Düsseldorf is revered—or was revered, though the time has long since passed—for that style of pictorial art known to the world as the Düsseldorf School.
A remarkably good collection of pictures remains in its art gallery to remind us of the fame of Düsseldorf as an art centre, but to-day its art has become "old-fashioned," and the gay little metropolis has many, if more worldly, counter attractions.
Düsseldorf takes its name from the little river Düssel which joins the Rhine at this point.
The French guide-books call Düsseldorf the "plus coquettes des bords du Rhin"; and so it really is, for few tourists go there for its{305}churches alone, though they are by no means squalid or inferior.
The city was the residence of the Counts, afterward the Dukes, of Berg—for it was made a duchy by the Emperor Wenceslaus—from the end of the thirteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth.
In 1806 Napoleon made it the capital of a new Grand Duchy of Berg in favour of Joachim Murat. By the treaty of 1815 Düsseldorf fell to Prussia, and became the chief town of the regency of Düsseldorf, and the seat of a superior court of justice.
Occupying the site that it does, on the banks of a great waterway, the city naturally became the centre of an important commerce.
Düsseldorf is the birthplace of many who have borne great names; of the philosopher Jacobi and his poet brother; the Baron de Hompesch, the last grand master of the Order of Malta; Von Ense, the eminent litterateur; the poet Heinrich Heine (who died at Paris in 1855), and the painters Cornelius, Lenzen, and Achenbach.
The principal church edifice is that dedicated to St. Lambert, the Hofkirche. It has a strong and hardy tower, very tall, and surmounted by a slate-covered spire. The ogival{306}style predominates, and the fabric dates mostly from the fourteenth century. Its chief feature is its choir, which is far more ample and beautiful than the nave. The rest of the edifice fails to express any very high ideals of church-building.
At the foot of the apside, behind the choir, is a mausoleum erected in the seventeenth century for the elector, John Wilhelm, who died in 1690.
In the ambulatory of the choir is, on the left, a florid Gothic tabernacle, and by the second pillar of the nave is a colossal statue of St. Christopher. There are many tombs of Jacobeans, and of the Dukes of Berg.
There are also a number of paintings by Düsseldorf artists scattered about the church, but they have not the qualities exhibited by the old Flemish masters, and are hardly worthy of remark.
On the exterior of the southern wall is affixed an immense Calvary, which is theatrical in the extreme, and is not dignified nor churchly.
The Jesuit church is not remarkable architecturally, but there are a number of tombs therein of the princes of the house of Neubourg.{307}
The ruins of the ancient château of Düsseldorf suggest but faintly its former glories before it was destroyed by the French bombardment of the city in the eighteenth century.
It has been restored, in a way, but with little regard for historical traditions, and a part of the edifice was made the home of the famous Düsseldorf academy of painting, founded in 1777 by Charles Theodore and reëstablished in 1822. It gave birth to a celebrated school of painting, now all but dead. Among the famous and well-known names connected therewith are: Cornelius, Schadow, Lessing, Schirmer, Hildebrand, and Koehler; the American, Lentzen; the Norwegians, Tiédemann and Gude; the landscape painters, Weber and Fay; and the historical painters, Knaus, Hübner, and Scheuren; and finally the celebrated engraver, Keller.
The museum and the gallery of paintings are still superb, and form a contribution to the history of the art of all ages which would be quite incomplete without it.
There are ten churches in Düsseldorf, and a synagogue, but in truth there is not much of interest in them all, and the "handsomest city of Germany" must rest its fame on something more than its appeal to the lover of churches.{308}
Neuss
There is not much about the compact, though rather ungainly, little city of Neuss to interest any but the lover of churches, though its history is very ancient, and the development of its patronymic throughNovesium,Niusa, andNova Castrabespeaks volumes for the part it has played in the past.
Its origin dates back to the time of Drusus, and it is mentioned by Tacitus as the winter quarters of the Roman Army. The city was ravaged by Attila in 451, and by the Normans in the ninth century. Emperor Philip of Suabia captured it in 1206, and gave it to the Archbishop of Cologne. A chapter of nobles was founded here in 825, and Count Evrard of Clèves and Bertha, his wife, erected, in the first years of the thirteenth century, its principal church dedicated to St. Quirinus.
This church stands to-day, with its great square tower looming bulkily over the house-tops, and is reckoned as the prototype of many similar structures elsewhere. It has the almost perfect disposition and development of the double apse so frequently met with in German churches.{309}
In general, its architecture is of a heavy order, and the whole structure is grim, though by no means gaunt nor cold.
NEUSS
St. Quirinus is of the epoch when the Romanesque was being replaced nearly everywhere by the new-coming Gothic.{310}
In spite of this, its style is, curiously enough, neither one nor the other, nor is it transition, though the pointed arch has crept in and often eliminated the Romanesque attributes of the round-arch style round about. It is manifestly not transition, because there was no transition here from Romanesque to Gothic. It remained palpably Romanesque in spite of Gothic interpolations.
In the windows one can but remark the indecision which prompted the builders to fashion them in such extraordinary squat shapes, and they certainly serve their purpose of lighting the interior very badly.
The nave and aisles of St. Quirinus are ample, and its spaciousmännerchörein the triforium is like all its fellows in the German churches, an adjunct which adds to the general effect of size.
The church dates from 1209, the period when the Gothic influence was not only making itself felt over the border, in the domain of France and Burgundy, but was already extending its influence elsewhere. But here, westward even of the borders of the Rhine, the round arch lingered on, to the exclusion of any very marked Gothic tendency.
There is an inscription in stone on the south{311}wall of the church which places the date of its erection beyond all doubt. It reads thus:
ANNO . INCARNA.DNI . MC.C.V.I.I.I.I.PMO . IPERII . ANNO . OTTONIS . ADOLFO . COLONEPO . SOPHIA . ABBA . MAGISTERWOLBERO . POSUIT . PMU . LAPIDE . FUNDAMENTI . HUI . TEMPLI . I . DIE . SCI . DIONISII . MAR.
When a former Count of Clèves founded the primitive church here in the ninth century, it was a collegiate church attached to the abbey of which the mother superior was the Abbess Sophia, presumably the same referred to in the above inscription. The abbey itself was destroyed in 1199 during a civil warfare.
Though not really a massive structure, the church of St. Quirinus is, in every particular, of a strength and solidity which rank it as a masterwork of its age. There is nothing{312}weak and attenuated about it, and its transepts and apses make up in general effect what it lacks in actual area.
The façade is imposing, though decidedly bizarre when compared with the simple flowing lines of Gothic; but, on the whole, the effect is one of a certain grandeur.
The aisles are astonishingly tall when compared with the nave.
There are various meetings of round-arched windows and arcades with those of a pointed nature, but there is not the slightest evidence of a development or transition from one to the other, hence the Gothic strain may be said not to exist.
The general effect of the exterior is polychromatic, which is not according to the best conceptions of ecclesiastical decorations in architecture. A twilight or a moonlight view, however, tones it all down in a manner that makes the fabric appear quite the most imposing church of its size that one may find in these parts.
The great central tower, reminiscent enough of the parish church in England, but not so frequent in Germany, and still less so in France, forms a great lantern which rises over the crossing in a marvellous and exceedingly{313}practical manner, in that it affords about the only adequate means of admitting light into the interior.
The triforium of the nave is the chief interior feature to be remarked, and is most spaciously planned. It forms themännerchörebefore mentioned.
The clerestory windows are decidedly Rhenish in character, resembling, says one antiquary, who is a humourist if nothing else, an ace of clubs. At any rate, it is a most unusual and inefficient manner of lighting a great church. These windows are practically trefoils of most unsymmetrical proportions, and are in every way unlovely.
The choir is raised on a platform, beneath which is the crypt. Three flights of steps lead to this platform, which gives it a far more grand appearance than its actual dimensions would otherwise allow.
The choir-stalls are of the fourteenth century, and are the only mediæval furnishings to be seen in the church to-day.
The apses contain only moderately effective glass.
The frescoes in the cupola of St. Quirinus, which are the work of Cornelius of Düsseldorf (about 1811), are most interesting, and are{314}among the most successful of the great number of modern works of their kind to be seen in Germany.
München-Gladbach
München-Gladbach is one of those "snug" little German towns that one comes across now and then when wandering along off the beaten track. Its streets are trim and clean, and its houses likewise, with a brilliancy of fresh paint which is consistently and proverbially Dutch. Beneath one's foot is a sea of cobblestones all worn to a smoothness which argues the tramp of countless hordes of feet over centuries of time, if paving-stones have really been invented so long. With all its air of prosperity and providence, München-Gladbach is not a highly interesting town in which to linger.
Its name is compounded of its prefix, meaningmonk's, with its original patronymic, Gladbach. The monks of Gladbach were a part of the establishment which founded the minster church of Gladbach, an old abbey or monastic edifice which stands to-day, a great transeptless thirteenth-century structure with an elevated choir reached from the nave by two flights of ten or a dozen steps.{315}
The crypt is entered from between these two flights of steps, and forms all that is left to mark the primitive church.
The round-arched style and Gothic, of a sort, intermingle in the nave in bewildering fashion until one wonders in what classification it really belongs. The openings from the aisles to the nave are pointed, while above is an unpierced triforium with a clerestory of round-headed arches.
In the aisles are what Jacobean architects called fanlights, a series of peculiarly shaped openings like an oddly shaped fan. They are distinctly Rhenish; indeed they are not acknowledged to be found elsewhere, and hence may be considered as one of the chief points of distinction of this otherwise not remarkably appealing church.
There are no aisles in the choir, which dates from the thirteenth century and terminates with a multi-sided apse pierced by long lancet windows.
The Stadt Kirche of Gladbach, or the parish church as it properly takes rank, is still a Catholic edifice and shows the advantage of having been kept in active use. There is nothing musty or moss-grown about it, but in every{316}way it is as warmly appealing as the monks' church is coldly unattractive.
There is no marked choir termination, its great aisles extending completely to the rear with just a suspicion of a rudimentary pentagonal apse to suggest the easterly end. This is a common enough arrangement in German churches, which more frequently than not, in the fourteenth century, the date of this structure, possessed nothing but a squared-off east end, after the English manner of building.
At the westerly end is a well-planned tower distinctly Rhenish—if it were not it would be thought heavy—and where the choir is supposed to join the nave the roof is surmounted by a tiny spire, which, in truth, is no addition of beauty.
The interior shows great height, and, if of no great architectural splendour, has enough mural embellishment and attractive glass to stamp it as a livable and lovable edifice for religious worship, which is a good deal more than most modern church buildings ever acquire.
The six bays of the nave show pointed arches springing from rounded columns. There is an arcaded triforium, and an elaborate series of clerestory windows which show{317}the geometrical and flamboyant Gothic in its perfection.
The apse is lighted with five windows of great height. The glass is a mixture of colour and monotone, but the effect is undeniably good.
The chancel is so shallow that the choir flows over, as it were, into one bay of the nave, while the choir-stalls themselves are placed in the aisles. Certainly a most unusual, and perhaps a unique, arrangement.
An altar fronts the west end of either range of stalls, and back, at the easterly end of the aisles, is found another altar.
The high altar has a handsome modern screen in the form of a gilt triptych, which is singularly effective and imposing.
Beneath the tower, at the westerly end, is the baptistery, entrance to which from the body of the church is gained through a low, pointed arch.
Coat of Arms, Düsseldorf
{318}
ESSEN AND DORTMUND
Essen
Lyingjust to the eastward of the Rhine are Essen and Dortmund.
The former was once the site of a powerful abbey of Benedictine nuns, which was dissolved in 1803. The abbess of Essen was always a titled person, and was a member of the Westphalian circle of the Imperial Estates, in which capacity she held a governing right over a large tract of country immediately surrounding the abbey.
GENERAL VIEW of ESSENGENERALVIEWofESSEN
GENERAL VIEW of ESSENGENERALVIEWofESSEN
GENERALVIEWofESSEN
There are the spires of five churches hidden away in the forest of chimneys of the manufactories of Essen which rise skyward from the Rhineland plain. It is not a very beautiful picture that one sees from across the railway viaduct, but a remarkable one, and one that has undeniable elements of the picturesque.
The cathedral at Essen is a conglomerate group of buildings of many epochs. The{319}church proper consists of a three-aisled nave, with the usual choir appendage in what must pass for acceptable Gothic.
There are Romanesque features which date back as far as 874, when the original edifice was built by Bishop Alfred of Hildesheim. The crypt, the transept, and possibly a part of the choir foundation, are of the eleventh century, and are of Romanesque motive; but the Gothic fabric superimposes itself upon these early works in the style in vogue in the fourteenth century.
There are evidences of a central octagon, like that at Aix-la-Chapelle, and St. Gérêon's at Cologne, but the fourteenth-century rebuilding has practically covered this up, though three of the original faces are left, and bear aloft a series of tall Corinthian columns.
The nave, for some reason, inexplicable on first sight, is low and unimpressive, caused doubtless by the grandeur of the supporting pillars of the roof and the shallowness of the groining above.
The pillars are single cylinders with curiously plain capitals.
The choir rises a few steps above the nave pavement, in order to give height to the crypt{320}ambulatory, as is frequently the custom in German churches.
The windows of the south aisle are good in their design and glass, which, though modern, reflects the Gothic mediæval spirit far better than is usual.
There is an elevated gallery along the aisle walls, which forms a sort of tribune ormännerchöre. In one of the recesses beneath the gallery is a highly coloured sculpture group of an "Entombment."
The easterly portion of the cathedral is by far the most pleasing, and partakes of the best Gothic features, and indeed is far superior to the nave. The supporting columns of the vaulting have foliaged capitals, while the vaulting itself is even more elaborate.
The aisles, as they approach the choir, are rectangular-ended, and extend quite to the end of the choir termination, showing a very singular cross-section of this portion of the church.
The screen is a modern stone work after the Gothic manner. It sits beneath a not unbeautiful Gothic window, rather richly traceried with four lights. The glass of this window is modern, but, like that in the nave aisles, is excellent.{321}
The crypt is entered from the south transept, and also from the nave by an entrance which passes between the steps which rise to the choir pavement.
Seven-branched Candlestick, Essen
There is an elaborate seven-branched candlestick at the juncture of the nave and choir, modelled on one known to have existed in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is of the conventional form, but is a rare piece of church{322}furniture in that it dates from 1003, when it was presented by the Abbess Matilda, sister of the Emperor Otho II. Since it stands six or eight feet in height, this candlestick is a notable and conspicuous object.
Before the steps leading to the crypt is the tomb of Bishop Alfred of Hildesheim. The crypt is all that a crypt should be,—a dim-lighted, solemn chamber of five aisles, the pavement of the church above being supported on stubby square pillars. It is used also for devotional purposes, the altar at the easterly end of the central aisle bearing the inscription, "Heilige Maria, Trösterin der Betrubten, bitt fur uns."
The cloisters of this interesting edifice are, in part, of the primitive style of early Gothic, while the southern and western sides are an approach to the full-blown Gothic of a later epoch, with foliaged capitals.
Dortmund
Dortmund is the largest town of the province of Westphalia, and possesses four mediæval churches of more than usual interest.
St. Reinhold's is the chief, and is a cruciform edifice of more than ordinary proportions.{323}It is a picturesque mélange of many parts. Its western tower is of no style in particular, and is hideous, but most curious considering its environment. The nave and transepts are supposedly of the thirteenth century, but they are certainly not good Gothic as we know it elsewhere.
The choir is of the early fifteenth century, and is much more gracefully conceived than is any other portion of this nondescript edifice.
The transepts are square boxlike protuberances, which link the choir with the nave in most unappealing fashion.
In the interior the most astonishing features are the low truncated nave of three bays, the grimness of the walls of the entire fabric,—excepting the well-lighted and aspiring choir,—and the straight-backed pews.
The clerestory windows of the nave are semicircular, but the aisles are lighted by Gothic openings.
There are two altars, one at the choir entrance and the other in the apse, each surmounted by a triptych.
The windows of the choir-apse, tall, ample, and of admirable framing, are the chief glory of this not very beautiful, though interesting, church.{324}
St. Mary's is a late twelfth-century Romanesque structure, without transepts, but possessed of a towering apsidal choir.
The nave is an attenuated affair with no triforium, leaving a vast blank wall space, as though it were intended to have been decorated.
Dortmund's "Pfarr Kirche" was a former Dominican foundation. Its general proportions are far greater than those of any other of the city's churches. The nave is ample, and the great choir of four bays, with spacious, lofty windows, is of the same generous proportions.
The church dates only from the mid-fourteenth century, and its three-bayed nave is even later. The aisles of the nave are curious in that they are not of similar dimensions. That on the street side is separated from the nave proper by square piers, with a slender shaft running to the vaulting. The other aisle is more ample, and has its arched openings to the nave composed of four shafts superimposed upon a central cylinder.
The nave lighting is amply provided for by a series of four light windows, bare, however, of any glass worthy of remark.
The south wall, which has no windows, has{325}two large frescoes, a "Descent of the Holy Ghost" and an "Assumption." There is also a series of paintings by two native artists, Heinrich and Victor Dunwege.
Coat of Arms, Essen
{326}
EMMERICH, CLÈVES, AND XANTEN
Emmerich and Clèves
Justbelow Emmerich, which is the last of the German Rhenish cities, the Rhine divides itself, and, branching to the north, takes the Dutch name of Oud Rijn, which name, with the variation Neder Rijn, it retains until it reaches the sea. The branch to the west takes the name of the Waal and passes on through Nymegen, bounding Brabant on the north, and enters the sea beyond Dordrecht.
Emmerich has, in its church of St. Martin, a tenth-century church of no great architectural worth, but charming to contemplate, nevertheless.
Four kilometres away is Clèves, which, under the Romans, was known as Clivia and attained considerable prominence and prosperity. The Normans sacked it in the ninth century, but it was shortly rebuilt, and became{327}the chief town of the County, afterward the Duchy, of Clèves.
Under the Empire the city belonged to France. The town's principal church is quite attractive, but, beyond the distinction which it has in its twin spires, terminating a singularly long line of roof-top of nave and choir, there are no architectural features of note.
Xanten
At a little distance from the Rhine, just before the frontier of Holland is reached, is Xanten, the ancient Ulpia Castra. Near by, in the neighbouring village of Mirten, one sees the remains of an ancient amphitheatre, which denotes a considerable importance for the neighbourhood in Roman times. If more proof were needed, it will be found in the museum at Bonn, where are many Roman antiquities coming from the neighbourhood.
Xanten is celebrated for having given birth to St. Norbert, the founder of the order of Premonstratension monks, and for having been the cradle of Siegfried, the hero of the "Nibelungen Lied."
The city was captured by the French in 1672.{328}
The collegiate church of Xanten is known as St. Victor's, and is truly celebrated for the grace and beauty of its early twelfth-century Gothic.
Without transepts or clerestory, it shows in its one ample chamber, comprising both nave and choir, an exemplification of the art of combining the accessories of the Latin-cross structures of France with the hall-church idea so frequently met with in Germany, and so well recognized as a distinct German type.
This arrangement does not give the church the appearance of being in any way confined or limited; quite the reverse is the case, and the double range of windows in the apse indicates, at least, a loftiness and hardiness of construction which is highly commendable.
There are, moreover, double aisles to both nave and choir which give an ampleness to the interior which even its abundance of furnishings does not overcrowd.
There are few five-aisled churches such as this in Germany, or indeed elsewhere, Cologne being Germany's chief example in this style.
In general, the Gothic of this highly interesting church is of the best, though it dates from various periods. The primitive church,{329}we know, was a Romanesque structure; but, beyond the foundations of the western towers, and possibly other fragmentary works yet hidden, there is nothing but the most acceptable Gothic in evidence.
S. VICTOR'S. XANTEN.
A distinctly curious feature is the apse-sided termination to the aisles, radiating from the main apse at an angle of forty-five degrees. It is a distinct innovation in the easterly termination of a church; a sort of a compromise between the French, English, and German styles, and wholly a successful one.{330}
In the chancel is a sort of screen before the high altar, worked in brass at Maastricht in 1501.
The windows contain a great deal of beautiful old glass, and some other that is by no means as good.
The clerestory windows are elaborately traceried, and there is much detail of church furnishings, a choir screen, some elaborate stalls, a little tapestry,—which looks well and is certainly old,—and a modern tiled floor which is not offensive.
As is frequently seen in Germany, the pillars and shafts have a series of statues superimposed upon them; always a daring thing to do, but in this case of far better execution and design than is frequently encountered. Before the church is a monument in honour of Cornelius de Pauw, the friend of the great Frederick, a canon of the church and a famous spiritual writer. He was born at Amsterdam in 1739 and died at Xanten in 1799.{331}
ARNHEIM, UTRECHT, AND LEYDEN
Arnheim
TheRhine in Holland is a mighty river. It divides itself into many branches, all of which make their way to the sea through that country which Butler in the "Hudibras" calls:
"A land that draws fifty feet of water,In which men live as in the very hold of nature,And when the sea does in upon them break,And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."
The Rhine proper, the Oud Rijn and the Neder Rijn, enfolds three great ecclesiastical centres of other days, Arnheim, Utrecht, and Leyden.
Arnheim is the chief town of the Guelderland, and seats itself proudly on the banks of the Neder Rijn just above its juncture with the Yssel. Of its fifty-five thousand inhabitants,{332}twenty-five thousand are Roman Catholics, which fact makes it one of the most strongly Catholic cities, if not the strongest, in the Netherlands.
Formerly the city was known as the Arenacum of the Romans, and served as the residence of the Dukes of the Guelderland up to 1538. In 1579 it gave adherence to the "Union of Utrecht," and in 1672 was taken by the French, when it became one of the principal fortresses of Holland. To-day the fortifications serve the purpose to which they are so frequently devoted in the cities and towns of Continental Europe, and form a fine series of promenades.
In 1813 the town was taken by the Prussians, but in spite of all this changing of hands, it remains to-day as distinctly Dutch as any of the Low Country cities and towns. Its houses are well built of brick and equally well kept, and its sidewalks are as cleanly and well cared for as the courtyard of a palace.
GENERAL VIEW of ARNHEIMGENERALVIEWofARNHEIM
GENERAL VIEW of ARNHEIMGENERALVIEWofARNHEIM
GENERALVIEWofARNHEIM
To-day the aspect of Arnheim is that of a quaint though modern-looking Dutch city. It is a favourite place of residence for "messieurs du sucre,"—rich Hollanders and Orientals from the Dutch East Indies. Altogether the atmosphere of its streets and cafés{333}is decidedly cosmopolitan and most interesting.
The Groote Kerk, built in 1452, rises from the market-place with a considerable purity of Gothic style. The church was formerly dedicated to St. Eusebe. Its tower is a landmark for miles around, and rises to a height approximating three hundred feet. It is built of brick and is square for the first two tiers, flanked with sustaining buttresses, then it tapers off into an octagon. It contains a fine set of chimes, so frequently an adjunct to the churches and municipal belfries of the Low Countries.
The interior presents a great ogival example of the best of fourteenth and fifteenth century church-building.
To-day, since the church belongs to the Protestants, much that stood for symbolism in the Roman Church is wanting, and the pulpit, which is an admirable work of art in itself, is placed in the middle of the choir surrounded by numerous tribunes, or seats in tiers, in quite a parliamentary and non-churchly fashion.
Behind the choir is a monument to Charles d'Egmont, Duke of Guelderland, who died in 1538, and whose tomb is at Utrecht. As a work of art this monument in the Groote{334}Kerk at Arnheim is much more worthy than such monuments usually are.
The duke is represented clothed in armour and reclining between six lions, which hold aloft his escutcheon.
The pedestal is ornamented with bas-reliefs representing the Holy Family, the twelve apostles, St. Christopher, and two other saints. On a pillar at the left of the tomb is suspended, in a sort of wooden cage, another figure of the same prince. The effigy is of painted wood and is amazingly lifelike, though smacking decidedly of the figures in a waxworks exhibition.
Thechevetof this great church is quite worthy of consideration, though by no means as amply endowed as the French variety by which one comes to judge all others.
Altogether, except for the poverty of deeply religious symbolism in the interior, of which it has doubtless been despoiled since the Catholic religion has waned in its power here, the church is a lovely and lovable example of the appealing church edifices which one now and then comes across in Continental cities of the third rank.
The Catholic cult occupy the church of St. Walburge, a Gothic edifice in brick of the{335}fourteenth century. At the portal are two great symmetrical towers which are worthy of a far more important edifice.
The interior is entirely modern as to its furnishings and fitments.
On four pillars of the nave are placed, back to back, statues of the evangelists,—a species of decorative embellishment which, at all times since the fifteenth century, has been greatly favoured throughout Germany and the Low Countries. In France it is a feature but seldom seen, and, among the smaller parish churches, has almost its only examples at Vetheuil on the Seine below Paris, and at Louviers.
The high altar is modern, as are also the black and white marble baptismal fonts.
The pulpit is quite a grand affair, though modern also. Its sounding-board shows a figure of Moses holding aloft the tables of the law. It is admirably conceived and executed, and is of much artistic merit.
Arnheim possesses several other religious edifices; but, as satisfactory expressions of ecclesiastical art or architecture, they are quite unworthy. The only one worthy of remark—and that only for its unseemliness—is a modern Protestant place of worship in the{336}form of a vast rotunda, which in all respects resembles a great building enclosing a panorama.
Behind thechevetof the Groote Kerk, the ancient cathedral, is a fine old-time house of the sixteenth century. It is known, somewhat sacrilegiously one thinks, as the Maison du Diable, and was formerly the residence of a famous brigand or highwayman,—if there be any subtle distinction between the two. This brigand was moreover of the nobility, and was known as Martens van Rosum, Duke of the Guelderland. In front of the house is a miniature terrace, and, on the walls above, to the right, are three monstrous effigies of devils, as well as one of a woman. In the centre, upon a pillar, is a bust of Van Rosum, and an inscription to the effect that the house was restored in 1830. To-day it is occupied by certain municipal offices.
Utrecht
In many respects Utrecht was, in the past, the most important city in Holland, not commercially, but politically.
To-day it is simply the capital of the province of Utrecht, the seat of a Catholic archbishop,{337}and of a Jansenist archbishop as well.
Of its population of quite a hundred thousand souls, one-third, at least, are of the Catholic profession, which is an astonishing proportion for a city of Holland. For this reason, perhaps, the city remains the metropolis of the Catholic religion in the Netherlands.
The environs of the city are exceedingly picturesque. The Rhine again divides into two branches, the Oud Rijn continuing to the North Sea, through Leyden, and the other branch, known thenceforth as the Vecht, flowing into the Zuyder Zee.
Utrecht is one of the most ancient cities of the Netherlands, having been founded under Nero by a Roman Senator named Antony, hence it is frequently referred to by historians as Antonia Civitas.
Its name in time evolved itself intoTrajectum inferiusorvetus, and in the Latin nomenclature of the early middle ages, it becameUltrajectum, orTrajectum Ultricensium. Under the Franks it was called Wiltrecht, which was but a short step to the name it now bears.
King Dagobert here founded the first church in Friesland, with St. Willibrod as{338}bishop, and St. Boniface, before he was called to Rome, here preached evangelization.
The city was ruined and devastated in the seventh century, but its rebuilding was begun in 718 by Clothaire IV. Toward 934 it was surrounded by protecting walls by Bishop Baldric of Clèves. Utrecht was frequently made the residence of the emperors, and Charles V. there built the château of Vreeburg, a species of fortress-château that was demolished by the burghers of the city at the beginning of the war of independence, 1577.
Adrien Florizoon, the preceptor of Charles V., who, at the death of Leo X., occupied the pontifical throne in 1522-23 as Adrien VI., was born at Utrecht. His house (Paushuizen) on the banks of the canal Nieuwe Gracht, now a government building, contains many pictures relative to his life and times.
For a long time the city was only a bishop's seat, but in 1559 it was made an archbishopric.
When, in 630, Dagobert, King of Austrasia, founded a chapel here, the religious foundation of the city began, and as early as in 696 it became the seat of a bishop. In the ninth century the Normans sacked the town, but thenceforth the bishops, who were then suffragans{339}of Liège, acquired a strength and power which assured the city freedom from molestation for a long time.
In the sixteenth century political and religious dissension combined to promote a state of unrest which was most acute. In 1577 the party which had allied itself with the Prince of Orange introduced religious reform, and in 1579 the seven provinces of Holland formed their compact of federation, and the States General held their sittings here.
TheDomkerk, or cathedral, originally dedicated to St. Martin, is to-day a Protestant church. It was an outgrowth of the primitive church founded in 630 by Dagobert I., and of an abbey established by St. Willibrod.
The cathedral of St. Martin was rebuilt, after a fire in 1024, by Bishop Adebolde, "in the presence of the Emperor Henry II. and many other great personages," as the old chroniclers have it. In 1257 it was nearly entirely rebuilt by the bishop then holding the see, Henri of Vianden, but a great storm crushed in its nave in 1674, since which time the faulty juncture of the various parts has been sadly apparent.
After the destruction of the nave, the choir and the transepts formed practically the entire{341}building, with the tower existing merely as a dismembered and orphaned feature.
The tower was commenced in 1331 and completed in 1382. It rises from a magnificently vaulted base. The lower portion is rectangular, but the octagon which forms the upper stages and "pierced to the light of day," as the French have it, follows the best accepted style of its era. In its way it is, although quite different, the rival of St. Ouen's "Crown of Normandy" at Rouen.
There are 453 steps to be mounted if one cares to ascend to the platform, 103 metres from the ground. One gets the usual bird's-eye view, with this difference, that the glance of the eye seems to reach out into an interminable distance, by reason of the general flatness of the country. One sees, at any rate, quite all of the provinces of South Holland, with the Zuyder Zee to the north, and a part of Guelderland and North Brabant. The tower possesses also a fine set of chimes of forty-two bells which is reminiscent of Belgium; but, unlike those in the famous old belfry at Bruges, the chimes on theDomkerkat Utrecht do not ring out popular marches or the airs of popular songs.
The interior is so crowded with benches,{340}similar to what English churchgoing people know as pews, that its original aspect is somewhat changed. Eighteen great pillars hold aloft the vaulting of the choir and transepts.