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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
to be traces of a vesica with sculpture just over the centre arch.
Entering the choir by this screen, one finds all the old arrangements
undisturbed. Between the two western doors there are three stalls
with canopies, and on either side against the stone parcloses eleven
stalls and ten subsellae. In the midst stand three ancient, heavy
square desks for office books, and upon these five most magnificent
books, well bound and of astonishing size, still maintain their old
place. They are all manuscript on vellum, and two of them have very
large illuminations of subjects, and foliage of very admirable and
bold character. I never saw such magnificent books on their own
proper desks,—never, I think any of such grand size anywhere. The
stalls are not particularly good, and are of late date, with immense
finials, of a kind I had met before at Halberstadt. A rise of several
steps divides the choir from the first bay of the sanctuary, which is
long and without furniture, save some late stalls, which do not seem
to have any business where they are placed. This bay of the choir
terminates the transitional work, which is carried throughout the
whole church, with the exception of the eastern apse and the
western choir. It is of the earliest pointed, very simple and bold in all
its details; the piers looking rather like Romanesque in their section
and capitals, carved in the most admirable manner. The foliage is all
disposed in circles, being regular and geometrical and invariably kept
severely and carefully to a regular outline; it is an example of the
very perfection of that kind of conventional foliage, of which some of
the early capitals at Venice are such admirable specimens, and I
think in no way inferior to them. The groining throughout is very
simple, with diagonal and transverse ribs. The eastern apse is an
addition in most admirable middle-pointed, and (save the upper
stages of the towers) the latest work in the whole fabric. The section
of the groining shafts is particularly elaborate and good; corbels of
foliage inferior to the rest of the carving throughout the church
supported figures under canopies at a height of about eight feet
from the floor, but the figures are all gone. A very bold string runs
round the apse at this point under a passage-way in the wall, which
is reached by a staircase between the choir and the tower-chapel
apses. The windows are of three lights, and have good geometrical
tracery, and the apse is well groined with boldly moulded ribs, the
boss in the centre being four ivy leaves. In the sanctuary stand four
oak sedilia of the thirteenth century, with open arcaded backs and
carved ends, the carving peculiar, but the whole a very remarkable
work and very perfect. The chapels in the towers on either side of
the choir are not in the old state, one being used for rubbish, and
the other as a vestry: above the former a room in the tower is used
as a receptacle for hardware! Perhaps the Prediger deals in it! The
crypt under the choir is very perfect and fine. We had an illumination
of it, and consequently a careful examination. The capitals are all
carved, and the arches all semicircular. It is divided by shafts, some
of which are clustered, into three spaces in width, and in the length
there are two bays under the choir, then a solid wall with a doorway,
and then five bays, and an apse of three bays. The old altar still
remains.
In the transepts there is little to notice, save that there is an old
altar in each. The well-like effect of these German transepts, in
which the choir is continued across with heavy stone parcloses of
great height, is most unpleasant. In this case the parcloses are no
less than 16 feet high from the floor of the transept; and, owing to
the great elevation of the choir, the floor of the crypt is only 4 ft. 6
in. lower than the transept floor.
No one, going into the nave of the church as now arranged,
would believe that he was in a church of more than very mediocre
interest. Between all the columns are small tenements, painted
white, carefully roofed in and glazed, and papered with whatever
paper the fancy and good taste of their several proprietors suggest.
In front of these are rows of pews, arranged longitudinally, and all
painted white; and as the aisles are by this arrangement practically
lost to the church, galleries are built in them, to supply the created
78
want. A white wooden screen behind the Lutheran altar conceals
the eastern rood-screen; whilst another white wooden partition, out
of the centre of which projects the pulpit, serves also to conceal the
rood-screen of the western choir. The whole arrangement is, in
short, just the most judicious that could possibly be imagined for the
entire annihilation of the architectural effect of the interior.
This western choir-screen is certainly the most striking I have
ever seen even in this land of screens. No description can, however,
do justice to its exquisite beauty, dependent as this is, to a great
extent, on the exceeding originality and beauty of the foliage, which
is all varied, and all executed from natural models. The doorway is
double, and rather narrow; the doors of iron, cross-framed; and they
form the only openings in the screen, the rest being quite solid,
arcaded on the eastern side, and on the western (that is, on the
inside, or choir side), remarkable chiefly for the exquisite open
staircases on each side of the door leading to the loft. On the
eastern side, against the doorway, are a Crucifix and SS. Mary and
John; but these seemed to be of later date than the door. The figure
of our Lord seated in the tympanum above is no doubt original; it is
very curious, being partly painted, partly carved, and reminded me
of an early picture, managed in the same way, which I saw in the
gallery at Berlin. Above the arcading, on either side of the doorway,
are a series of subjects, the execution of which (with the exception
of the two last, which are not original) is marvellously good. They
are, beginning at the south—the Last Supper, the Betrayal, ditto (S.
Peter smiting Malchus), the Denial of S. Peter, our Lord before Pilate,
the Scourging, Bearing the Cross. The open staircases on the
western side of the screen are remarkable for the beauty of the
succession of detached shafts, with finely carved capitals, which
support them.
There are no fittings in this western choir save the altar, the
mensa of which is 8 ft. 5 in. long, by 5 ft. 11 in. wide, and 3 ft. 8 in.
high; and this faces west, as all the altars throughout the church do:
so showing its back (in the centre of which is the usual closet) to
any one entering through the door of the screen from the nave. It
has a double footpace. The detail of this choir is earlier and bolder
than that of the eastern choir; the windows of two lights, with very
bold monials, and circles sexfoiled, with soffit cusping in the head.
The groining-shafts are good; and, as in the other choir, there is a
very bold string under a passage-way in front of the windows, at
about 8 feet from the floor. The windows do not fill up the whole
width of the bays, and on each side have small open arches, which
add very much to the richness of the whole effect. Against the
groining-shafts are figures, very well sculptured, and standing under
canopies of very varied design, finished at the top with what seem
like models of churches. Some of the windows retain some exquisite
stained glass. The mouldings throughout this apse are exactly like
those of the screen, and the foliage was evidently carved by the
same hand,—that of as great a master in his day as was the artist
who carved the early capitals in the nave. I think I have now
described the whole of the interior.
On the exterior there is a large cloister (partly ruined) on the
south of the nave; half of this is pointed, the other half late
Romanesque. It opens into the church with a small round-arched
door, in the third bay from the west; and on its east side into a large
kind of porch or narthex, south of the south transept, from which
there is a particularly grand doorway, with five shafts in each jamb,
into the transept. This porch is groined in two bays, and
communicates with other buildings to the south, one of which
seems, by its apse and pointed windows, to have been a chapel.
These old buildings group picturesquely with the east end of the
church. The southern was not, however, the only cloister; the good
men of Naumburg seem to have been specially fond of duplicates,
and as they had two choirs, two rood-screens, and two towers at
each end, so they thought right to have two cloisters. The northern
cloister seems to have tallied in size with the southern; but all that
now remains of it are the groining-ribs against the north wall, and
the springers of the groining throughout. The base-mould of the
western tower is continued all along this north wall, and the groining
springs from corbels; all which makes it look as though it were a
subsequent addition: but its arches are nevertheless round, whilst,
as we have seen, pointed arches are used throughout the main
arcade. There are two doors from this destroyed cloister into the
church—one into the north aisle, the other into the north transept.
 The western apse is remarkable, on the exterior, for the
excessively beautiful carving of its cornices; these are varied in every
bay, and, I think, the best I have ever seen. They are of that
exquisite imitation of natural foliage, springing upwards, and filling a
large hollow with its ramifications, which commends itself to my
mind as the most perfect type of cornice foliage. There is a
somewhat similar carved string under the windows, equally good,
but much more simple. The buttresses finish at the top with delicate
pinnacles.
At the east end the detail is also good, the windows being well
moulded, and the buttresses finished with good simple niches and
figures. The apsidal projections on the eastern face of the towers
finish with pyramidal stone roofs against the towers, at a low
elevation.
The north-west tower is late, and has open turrets at its angles,
beginning at the second stage; it is picturesque, but not very good.
The upper stages of the eastern towers are also octangular, but
without pinnacles; and what ornament they have is of a very late
kind, and not effective.
Such is the cathedral of Naumburg—little known to, and scarce
ever visited by, English tourists; and yet undoubtedly one of the
most interesting and least altered churches in Germany: its two
rood-screens would be alone sufficient to give it high claims upon
our admiration, since they are, so far as I know, the two earliest
examples remaining, and certainly older than any quoted by Mr.
Pugin in his work on Screens. Besides this, the architectural value of
some parts of the building is so pre-eminent, as in itself to repay a
long journey.

III

ERFURT AND MARBURG

 At Naumburg there was little, save the cathedral, to detain an
ecclesiologist. The Stadt-Kirche deserved little more than a hurried
visit, though the singularity of its plan deserves a note. It has an
immense apsidal west end, a vast semicircle on the plan, embracing
both nave and aisles, and its choir is also terminated with an apse.
Beyond this the only remarkable features are the large multifoiled
arches which occupy the space between the windows and the plinth
in each bay of the eastern apse.
From the railway station one obtains a good view of the
cathedral steeples over the vine-clad hills on which Naumburg
stands—refreshing sight after the dreariness of the country generally
in which I had been journeying. From Naumburg to Erfurt the
railway runs through a really pretty, often very picturesque, country,
with hills and rocks by the river-side, ever and anon capped by those
feudal keeps in which all German rivers seem to be so rich; as
picturesque now as they were formerly advantageous to their
predatory chiefs. I had but two or three hours at Erfurt, but this was
enough to show me that much was to be seen. The Barfüsser-Kirche
was the first that I saw—one of those immensely long churches of
which Germans were rather fond; a nave and aisles, and an apsidal
choir, all groined at the same height, with windows of the same size
and character throughout, and the whole “restored” in that
peculiarly chilling fashion, which Lutherans are so singularly
successful in achieving, which makes one’s recollection of such a
church not very grateful. There is, however, some old glass in the
choir windows, and a most prodigious carved and painted reredos
behind the altar, which, though apparently to some extent modern,
is nevertheless striking in its effect. The entrance to this church is by
double doors on the south side which run up into and form part of
the windows, the same jamb mould being continued all round.
I had some difficulty in finding my way to the cathedral—
strangely enough too, for when at last I reached the Dom-Platz,
there, rising high into the air, and approached by an almost endless
flight of steps, stood the magnificent choir of the cathedral,
surmounted by its singular triple arrangement of central steeples,
and by its side, and on the same high plateau, the church of S.
Severus emulating, I should almost say, aping, the cathedral both in
height and design very curiously. The east end of the cathedral, built
on the precipitous edge of a rock, has been under-built with a
terrace supported upon arches, which, concealing the natural rock,
gives it an effect of extraordinary height. These arches have been all
modernized, but there are traces here and there which prove the
arrangement to be original.
Let us mount the flight of steps which lead by the entire length
of the north side of the choir to the porch, and we shall see reason
to class one at least of the architects of Erfurt, with the greatest of
his race. No position can be conceived which would present more
difficulty to one who wished to show the doors of his church to the
people who might gather in crowds in the Dom-Platz, and seeing
nothing but the tall east end of their church and the sharp
perspective of its side, shrink from the attempt to find a door at the
end of the long flight of steps before them. Every one must have felt
how those great foreign doorways call upon all to enter; they are
always open, guarded on either side by kings, and saints, and
martyrs, and revealing glimpses, precious because vague, of glorious
interiors and worshippers within on their knees. They call upon all to
enter, and who can refuse? At Erfurt, however, one might have
deemed it impossible that people should be made to feel this, but
yet it has been done, and done nobly and magnificently. There are
no transepts, and so against the eastern bay of the north aisle of the
nave is set a triangular porch of grand size and lovely design and
detail. Its base rests against the church, and its two sides, jutting
out at angles of sixty degrees from the wall, show both from the
west and from the east the whole width of its two glorious
doorways. So, as one gazes up from the Dom-Platz, and wonders at
the singularity of the position of the church and the beauty of the
choir, one’s eye follows up the track of those who ascend the
toilsome flight of steps till it rests upon the doorway at their summit,
and one is led at once to find one’s way through its great opening
into the nave of the church. Sad to say, wanton havoc has destroyed
much of the more delicate ornaments of this most noble piece of
early fourteenth century architecture. Of the nave little can be said,
save that it is entirely unworthy and unsatisfactory; between it and
the choir is a great mass of wall, pierced only by a narrow arch
opening into the choir, and supporting a curious combination of
towers—a central tower rising from between one on either side—in a
singular and rather picturesque fashion of which I recollect no other
examples than the imitation of it here in S. Severus, and the
cathedral at Constance. The interior of the choir is very noble; its
elevation very great, and its windows of rather late middle-pointed,
full without exception of brilliant though late glass; too rich in colour
however for the traceries, which it quite conceals, giving a useful
warning to architects in dealing with stained glass.
The only piece of old furniture in this choir of which I made a
note, is a curious figure in brass, supporting three branches for
lights, one in either hand, and one growing out of his back. The
effect of this is not at all satisfactory.
This cathedral is Catholic, as also is S. Severus and some of the
other churches, the Lutherans holding about an equal number.
S. Severus imitates the cathedral very curiously; it is within some
thirty or forty feet of its northern side, and has in the same
transeptal position a great mass of tower, the outer flanks of which
are crowned with tall spires, whilst from the intermediate wall, and
raised above the others, rises the central spire; the mass of tower is
smaller, but nevertheless by dint of its slated spires, S. Severus
manages to rise higher than the cathedral. As may be imagined, the
whole group is one of most picturesque character. S. Severus has
some very good middle-pointed detail, especially in its window
traceries.
It was late in the evening when I left the Dom-Platz, but I saw
hurriedly the exteriors of some eight or ten pointed churches. They
were mostly of the same date, circa 1320 to 1400, and of very
various degrees of merit. One—the Prediger-Kirche is the not
pleasant dedication by which it is now known—is of enormous length
as compared to its width and height: fifteen bays to a church
consisting of a not very lofty nave with narrow aisles is an excess of
this proportion; its length cannot be less than about 225 feet. Near
it, but apparently having no connection with it, is a detached
campanile.
In one of Erfurt’s many squares or market-places, is a good
pointed house, with a large bay window, and three traceried
windows, one on either side, and one above it in its gable end.
In another Platz is a church with two western steeples, one with
a spire rising from the gabled sides of the tower. Another church
occupies a triangular piece of ground, the tower being at the
western angle, between two streets. It is desecrated, and I could
not get into it, but its internal arrangement must be most singular.
These hurried notes are all that I could make. I was homeward
bound, and obliged to travel all night to Marburg. So I did what a
pilgrim to the shrine of S. Elizabeth of Hungary ought, I suppose,
not to have done—I slept as the train passed Eisenach, and
neglected therefore, even to get a glance through the starlight of the
castle on the Wartburg, her residence and the scene of most of the
beautiful story of her life.
It was early morning when Marburg was reached. Under high
hills, covered with vine and picturesque in their outline, stands the
noble church, conspicuous as one first sees it by its two completed
and nearly similar towers and spires rising in all the beauty of their
deep-coloured stonework against the green hillside which rises so
precipitously close behind them. On the summit of the hill are the
tall walls of the fine old castle, and to the left of the church and
below the castle the town covers the hillside with the ramifications of
its old steep and narrow streets. The church is perhaps rather too
much outside the town for the use of the townspeople; but then it
was not built for them, and in the general view it certainly gains
much by being placed where it is.
 And now, before I say anything about the church, two or three
dates, which seem to be settled beyond dispute, may as well be
mentioned.
S. Elizabeth of Hungary was born, then, in the year 1207, was
married when but fifteen years old, and ere she was twenty left a
widow, her husband having laid down his life in the third Crusade:
three years and a half of widowed life were all she saw before an
early grave received her; and from thence forward year after year
saw fresh fervour excited by the contemplation of her virtues, and
fresh enthusiasm awakened about the old city of Marburg, in which
the last years of her life had been spent in the practice of austerity
and self-denial such as the world has seldom seen. She was
canonized in A.D. 1235; and in the same year the church as we now
see it was commenced, and completed by about A.D. 1283.
More I need not say; for the life of her whose memory gave rise
to this grand architectural effort is foreign to my present purpose,
and moreover is too well known to need repetition.
Judging by the evidence of style—which is not however very
strong, as the whole work has been completed carefully upon a
uniform plan—I should say that the work commenced at the east,
and was continued on westward, so that the west front, with its two
towers and spires, was the latest portion of the work. I am inclined
to think, too, that the sacristy, a large building of two stories in
height, filling the angle between the north transept and the northern
side of the choir, is an addition to the original fabric, but probably
earlier than the steeples.
The plan shows a very regular cruciform church, the choir and
transepts all having apsidal ends, a large sacristy, and two western
steeples; the whole very regular and similar in character throughout.
The exterior of the church is perhaps, with the exception of its
west front, more curious than really beautiful. Throughout its whole
extent every bay is similar, and consists of two stages, the upper an
exact repetition of the one below, each lighted with a simple two-
light window with a circle in the head, and divided by a great
projecting cornice, the top of which is on a level with the bottom of
the upper windows. The nave and aisles are all groined at one
height without triforium or clerestory; and the outer walls are,
therefore, the full height of the groining of the nave. Now this
endless repetition of the same windows in a manner so apparently
unnecessary was at first most perplexing to me, inconsistent as it
seemed with the delicate taste exhibited elsewhere by the architect;
but I was not long perplexed. The cornice between the windows
was, in fact, a passage-way extending all round the church in front
of the windows and, by openings, through all the buttresses: whilst
in front of the lower windows a similar passage, not corbelled out,
but formed by a thinning of the wall from this point upwards, again
encircles the church. The sacristy is the only portion of the building
not so treated. The church has not and never had cloister, chapter-
house, or any of the ordinary domestic buildings of a religious
house, attached to it; it stood on a new piece of ground, away from
houses, and with an open thoroughfare all round, and all this helps
in the solution of its singular arrangements. We have but to recall to
mind that the relics of S. Elizabeth were visited by more pilgrims for
some two or three centuries than any other shrine almost all Europe
could boast of, to see the difficulty accounted for. It was built from
the first to be a pilgrimage church, and carefully planned with an
especial view to this. No doubt it was a great shrine, round which
thousands of pilgrims congregated in the open air, to watch as
processions passed with the relics they came from so far to see,
passing by these ingeniously contrived passages round the entire
church again and again, seen by all, but unencumbered by the
pressure of the multitude.
The whole arrangement is so curious that I have dwelt at some
length upon it, feeling that it certainly shows well how boldly a
thirteenth century architect ventured to depart from precedent when
he found a new want to be provided for, and when a before
unthought of necessity had arisen. I need hardly say, that the effect
of the corbelled-out passage is to divide the height distinctly into
two parts, a division perhaps more difficult of satisfactory treatment
than any other that one can imagine. The only variety in the tracery
of the windows throughout the body of the church is, that the centre
window of each apse has a sexfoil in the circle in its head, none of
the other windows having any cusping whatever. The moulding of
the windows is very simple,—a very bold roll and chamfer; and it is
noticeable that in the tracery the roll-moulding does not mitre with
the same moulding in the arch, but is just separated from it, an
ungraceful peculiarity; the roll-moulding of the tracery is treated as a
shaft in the monial and jambs, and has corbelled bases, the effect of
which is not at all good. The buttresses run up to the eaves, but
finish abruptly without pinnacles, nor is there any parapet. It seems
probable that something must have been intended, but possibly
never done; and I confess I should shrink from venturing now upon
the introduction of either pinnacles or parapet, and I cannot but
trust that in the extensive repairs now in progress, restorations of
this conjectural kind will not be attempted. Better, in such a case, let
well alone, rather than run the risk of destroying everything by some
monstrous mistakes!
The west front is quite a thing to be considered apart from the
rest of the church, later in character, and the work, I am inclined to
think, of another man, who did not only this but all, or nearly all, the
magnificent fittings of the interior. The first man worked under the
trammels of a transitional style, endeavouring after yet not achieving
the beauties which the second man was able, in all that he did at a
more advanced day, so completely to realize.
The west door at once fixes one’s attention. It is very lovely: the
jamb perhaps too plain, and lacking mouldings between its shafts,
but the arch absolutely perfect; it has two rows of the freshest and
brightest stone foliage ever seen, and the tympanum—diapered over
one half with a trailing rose, and on the other with a vine, both
creeping naturally upwards with exquisite curve and undulation,
regular in their irregularity,—is certainly of a degree of exquisite and
simple beauty such as I have never seen surpassed. In the midst of
this bower stands a fine figure of S. Mary with our Lord in her arms,
and on either side an angel censing. As one looks at the carving, one
thinks of the prettiest perhaps of all the legends of S. Elizabeth, and
it may be that the sculptor, as he struck out the bold and beautiful
work, which even now surprises by its beauty and its sharpness,
thought of those roses of paradise with which S. Elizabeth in the
legend surprised her doubting husband.
Above this doorway a pierced parapet carries a passage in front
of the fine and thoroughly geometrical west window of six lights.
Another parapet, and then a row of traceries and canopies which
mask the roof gable. On either side the great buttresses of the
steeples give an air of solidity and plainness to the whole elevation,
which I think very satisfactory. A two-light window on the same level
as the great west window, and very long narrow belfry windows,
also of two lights, are the only openings in the towers. The
buttresses finish with pinnacles, and the towers with pierced
parapets, above which, on the cardinal sides, are gables with
windows, and at their summit an octangular open parapet, from
which the spires then rise without further break or ornament. The
composition is unusual and very good.
Besides these western steeples there is a turret of poor and
modern character over the intersection of the transept and other
roofs.
And now let us enter, and we shall find ourselves in what seems
like a very lantern; windows everywhere, tier above tier, and
admitting a flood of light which is bearable only when—as happily
still in the choir—all the windows are filled with the richest stained
glass.
The architectural peculiarities of the exterior are as marked but
not as intelligible in the interior; and one cannot cease to regret the
effect of the reiteration of the same window everywhere: otherwise,
however, the interior is full of beauty; the nave piers very simple—
large circles with four engaged shafts—very lofty and with finely
carved capitals. The transept piers are clustered, and the groining
throughout is very simple, but of exquisite proportions.
 And now I must go on to describe the fittings and arrangements
of this interior, which are so perfect as to make it, perhaps, the most
interesting and complete church in Germany.
The choir extends to the western side of the transepts, and is
finished towards the nave with a high stone screen, against the
western side of which is a large people’s altar. The screen is
traceried and panelled over its whole western surface, and
surmounted by a delicate open arcade finished with pinnacles and
gablets; the portion over the altar being elaborated so as to form a
reredos rather than a screen. The only openings in this screen are a
row of small windows (as one may almost call them), opening just
above the backs of the stalls, which in the choir are continued not
only on the north and south sides, but quite across the west side
also. The only entrance to the choir, therefore, is on either side from
the transepts to the east of the stalls. On the eastern face of the
screen, a kind of large ambon is corbelled forward in the centre, just
the width of the people’s altar; and above this rose—I say “rose,” for
when I was there, it was lying on the floor, as a first step to
“restoration,” which may not, I trust, mean “destruction,”—a grand
trefoiled arch of timber, covered with very boldly carved natural
foliage, and flanked by two massive pinnacles. All trace of the
figures is gone, but there can be no doubt that this arch and the
pinnacles bore on their summits the Crucifix with the figures of S.
Mary and S. John; and, indeed, the marks of their having once been
affixed still remain.
In the choir there is a double row of stalls round three sides, the
subsellae having low original desks in front of them. These are
perfect all round, and, as I need hardly say, valuable for their rarity.
The stalls are finely treated, and the upper row is well raised. The
effect of the whole is most singular and very new to an English eye,
for though, as I had occasion to show at Naumburg, and as I saw
elsewhere in the same part of Germany, stalls against the centre of
the eastern side of a screen are not uncommon, I have nowhere else
seen such a complete shutting-off of the choir from the church as
has from the very first existed here. There is a space between the
back of the stalls and the rood-screen, in which probably an
entrance was originally contrived to the ambo under the rood,
though of this no trace now remains.
There are no parcloses between the choir and the transepts,
whilst between the latter and the aisles of the nave there are only
rude and modern screens, without any trace of the original
arrangement.
And now that we are in the choir, the most noticeable feature is
the altar with its reredos, and its great standard candles on either
79
side. The reredos is elaborately decorated with colour, and consists
of three very fine trefoiled arches with crocketed gables above, and
elaborate and lofty pinnacles between them. The spaces within the
three arches are much recessed, and ornamented at the back with
sculpture of figures in niches, and tracery; the whole very full of
delicate taste in its execution. The altar is perfectly plain and solid,
with a moulded mensa, and footpace of three steps in front and at
the ends. It stands, of course, on the chord of the apse. The
arrangement at the back of the reredos is most singular: there are
two lockers on either side, and in the centre a doorway, which when
opened discloses steps leading down to the space under, and
enclosed by, the altar. In this space there are five square recesses
below the level of the floor: three on the west side, and one at each
end; the dimensions of this chamber are 8 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in., and 7 ft.
3 in. to the under side of the mensa of the altar; the recesses in it
are 1 ft. 8¾ in. wide by 1 ft. 7 in. deep. But one of the most
singular features in it is, that there were evidently originally sliding
shutters in front of each of the three recessed niches which form the
front of the reredos. These are all gone, but the grooves remain
both above and below, and leave not a shadow of doubt as to their
former existence. There are two grooves in front of each division,
and of course there are corresponding openings in the mensa of the
altar. The arrangement is so new to me, that it is difficult to say
exactly for what specific purpose it may have been made; but it
seems obvious that it might allow of great variety of decoration or
illustration of subjects suited to the varying seasons of the Christian
year, supposing the sliding shutters to have been decorated with
paintings.
To the south of the altar are oak sedilia—a long seat undivided,
but with five canopies above: the work all good, but defective in not
having its divisions marked through the whole height.
The windows in the choir are, as I have before observed, full of
fine stained glass, some of which is of very early character. The
lower tier of windows is filled with subjects in medallions, the upper
with two rows of figures and canopies—a satisfactory and common
arrangement in old work.
Some old lockers in the walls, and banners suspended round the
apse, serve to complete a most striking and long-to-be-remembered
tout ensemble.
Unfortunately there are no signs of any ancient pavement,
unless we take for old the wretched gravestones of the Landgraves
of Hesse and their family, which almost cover the floor. They are
effigies of recumbent figures in not very low relief, but partly sunk
below the proper level of the floor and partly raised. One stumbles
over these wretched man-traps at every step, and wishes heartily
that such a device for damaging ankles had never been invented. In
the south transept there are a number of high tombs with
recumbent effigies, beginning with one of early date and fine
character.
The north transept, however, contains something better than
these monuments, and one of the greatest curiosities of the church
—the chapel, as they call it, of S. Elizabeth. It never had an altar,
and was not a chapel, but simply a very beautiful kind of tabernacle,
within which was deposited the marvellously beautiful shrine in
which were preserved the relics of the saint, and which—now
removed to the sacristy—is still the great treasure of the church. The
relics were all dispersed, I believe, at the time of the Reformation,
though the church is still held by the Catholics. This tabernacle, if I
may so call it, is a rectangular erection, narrow at the east and west,
and with its principal front towards the south. A trefoiled arch on
each face, supported upon clusters of shafts at the four angles,
forms the design, the arches inclosed within a square projecting
moulding, with their spandrels not carved but bearing marks of
painting. The great beauty of the work is the exquisite foliage which
is carved in such masses all round the arches and elsewhere as quite
to take the place of mouldings. All this foliage is natural, much
varied, and undercut with such boldness as to stand out in very
great relief. I would that every carver in England could have the
opportunity to study this exquisite work, and still more, the sense to
profit by it. All the openings are filled in with iron grilles; and the
whole is just large enough to contain and protect the shrine. It
stands upon double steps, which are prolonged to form a footpace
for an altar which has been built against its west side, and which, on
the south, are worn into hollows by the knees of pilgrims.
Above the stone work is an open wooden railing, apparently of
the same date; and this incloses a space which is reached by a
staircase from behind. In the reredos of the altar erected against the
shrine are some sculptures from the life of the saint, her death, her
burial, and the exaltation of her relics after canonization, etc., whilst
on the shutters are paintings representing some of the more
remarkable subjects in her story.
The shrine has been removed for safety to the sacristy, and is
carefully guarded and fenced about with ironwork, as well it may be.
It is an exquisite work of the best period—circa 1280–1300—covered
with the most delicate work in silver-gilt and adorned profusely with
jewels and enamels, and on the whole I think the finest shrine I
have ever seen.
The doors in the sacristy and elsewhere throughout the church
are of deal, and were originally covered with linen or leather, which
as far as I could make out was always coloured a bright red; it is a
most curious evidence of the extent to which colour was introduced
everywhere, and must have been most effective. It is not, however,
the only instance with which I have met; and I may mention the
magnificent north transept doors of the cathedral at Halberstadt as
examples of the same thing.
Between the north transept and the sacristy is a passage, which
leads to the external passages which I have already described as
surrounding the whole exterior of the church.
My notice of Marburg has already extended far beyond what I
purposed, though not beyond its deserts; and yet I cannot conclude
without saying a few words about the castle, which so grandly
towers over the old tower and church.
The climb up to it is really a serious business; and when I
reached the summit I had to exhibit no little adroitness in passing a
sentinel who obstinately wanted to send me back, in order that I
might ascend by some more tortuous and more legal path than I
had chosen.
I went first into the chapel. This is raised to a considerable
height upon other buildings, and approached by a newel staircase. It
is a very curious and very satisfactory little building, its entire length
39 ft., and its width 18 ft. 6 in. There is a three-sided apse at either
end, and one bay only between them; this central bay has
projections on either side, which inside have the effect of very small
transepts, and externally are treated as bay windows. The windows
are all geometrical, of two lights, and very good detail. Externally,
there are buttresses at the angles of the apse, which rise out of the
much thicker walls of the rooms below the chapel, and do not go
down to the ground. In the eastern apse there are a piscina and a
locker. The old pavement still remains; it is all of red tile, arranged in
large circles, with tiles generally triangular in shape and of various
sizes. Unfortunately, this little chapel is full of galleries and pews.
From hence I ascended to the Ritter-Saal, a fine large groined
hall, somewhat like the well known hall in the Stadt-Haus at Aix-la-
Chapelle. It is divided by a row of columns down the centre, from
which the groining-ribs spring, and is about 100 feet long by 42 feet
wide. Each bay has a very fine four-light transomed window, and the
whole is of early date. Below it, on the ground floor, is a smaller hall,
the groining of which springs from a central shaft, and the windows
in which are of three and five transomed lights, and of very early
character.
The interest of both these halls is very great, as they are quite
untouched, and of a rare date for domestic work on such a scale.
The exterior of this portion of the buildings is very fine, boldly
buttressed, with great angle turrets, and occupying just the edge of
the cliff.
The castle stands upon a narrow prong of hill, very precipitous
on three sides, and all around its base the town clusters; on one side
is the grand church of S. Elizabeth, looking most admirable in this
capital bird’s-eye view, and on the other a long flight of steps leads
to a church which from above looks very well, but which did not
repay examination, its only interesting feature being an old
Sakraments-Häuslein.
I walked back from the castle by a roundabout path all through
the old town, and reached my inn too late to get on to Frankfort by
the train I had fixed on; but I was not sorry, as I had an excuse for
getting some more sketches of the exterior of the cathedral, and had
all the more pleasant thoughts wherewith to solace myself as I
travelled through the dark night to Frankfort.
I think I have said enough to show that ecclesiologists may
depend upon pleasure of no ordinary kind in visiting such churches
as those of Naumburg, Erfurt, and Marburg. They are remarkable,
not only for their generally fine character, but more especially for
their exquisite sculpture and for the extent to which they have
preserved almost untouched and undamaged their extraordinarily
beautiful furniture and fittings; and are, therefore, of especial value
to us, who have so little of the same kind of thing left in our own
churches.
 IV

MÜNSTER AND SOEST

In the course of the autumn of last year, I spent a short holiday,

not unprofitably, I hope, in the examination of some of the old towns
in the north of Germany; and, as the interest of the architectural
remains in this district is very great, and our acquaintance with them
too slight, I cannot help thinking that a mere transcript of my diary
during the time that I was examining them may be of some use and
interest. I have already printed notices, drawn up from the same
journal, of the churches of Lübeck, and the cathedral at Marburg;
and I shall now employ myself in giving shorter descriptions of the
other chief features of this journey.
Crossing by Calais, and taking hurried glances only at S. Omer,
with its noble cathedral, and the fine relic of the abbey of S. Bertin,
remarkable among great French churches for its single western
tower, I went on to Lille,—a town whose interest to architects just
now is rather in the future than in the past, but whose church of S.
Maurice is a striking example of the difference in the conception of a
town church on the Continent and in this country in the Middle Ages.
It has two aisles on each side of the nave and choir, and is groined
throughout. Here we should look on such a church almost in the
light of a cathedral; there, on the contrary, it is a not very
remarkable parish church. Some old brick work at the back of the
Hotel de Ville is the only other old feature which I remember in Lille;
but its streets and market-place are busy and picturesque.
From Lille, passing by Courtrai, I reached Ypres in time to spend
the afternoon in sketching and studying what is perhaps the noblest
example of the domestic work of Germany. Les Halles, as this great
pile of building is called, seems to have been a great covered mart,
rather than a mere town hall; and when I was there, a fair was
being held within its walls, and, filled with picturesque groups of
people, and stalls for the sale of every conceivable kind of
merchandise, the grandeur of its size and design was well seen. The
main portion of the building is of uniform early middle-pointed date,
and forms an immense and rather irregular parallelogram, enclosing
some long and narrow courts. The principal front towards the
market place is, by a rough measurement which I made, about 375
feet in length; very uniform in its design, but broken in the centre by
a fine lofty engaged tower, surmounted with a spire, finishing in a
sort of louvre, of modern character. The whole effect of the building
is inconceivably grand, leaving behind it in point of general effect
even (I am bold in saying it) the Ducal Palace at Venice. In elevation
the main building is divided into three stages. The ground stage
consists of a succession of openings with square heads, trefoiled;
the next of a long series of two-light windows with quatrefoils in the
head, the openings in which are square, the tracery not being
pierced; and the third stage has again an immense succession of
traceried openings alternately glazed and blank. The whole is
surmounted by a lofty traceried parapet corbelled out, and the steep
and original timber roof is surmounted with a ridge-crest of stone, of
more delicate character than I have ever seen elsewhere. The front
is finished at the angles with immense octangular pinnacles,
corbelling out at their base from the wall, and the tower, which rises
two stages above the ridge of the roof, has also at its angles similar
pinnacles. The general motif of the entire front is continued happily
in the steeple, the faces of which are occupied with rows of lofty
windows of two lights. From the belfry, and from within another
corbelled parapet, springs the spire, which, at first square, becomes,
below the tourelle on its summit, an octagon.
Immediately behind Les Halles, stands the cathedral. This has a
fine western tower, built circa A.D. 1380, and remarkable for the triple
buttresses at its angles. The west door is double, and set within an
enclosing arch with the west window, in a common German fashion.
The interior is lofty and spacious, with cylindrical shafts, whose
capitals have simple foliage of the thirteenth century. The triforium is
good, and some of the clerestory (e.g. that in the south transept) is
also early and good; but the whole church is not by any means of
the first order. The south transept has recently been very creditably
restored, the new carving being executed with much spirit. The east
end is remarkable externally for its tall buttresses, without
weatherings, and for the deep arches under which the windows are
set, and which give the building too much of a skeleton effect to be
pleasing. A rather graceful turret (of Renaissance character)
surmounts the crossing.
The cathedral and Les Halles, though close together, are not
absolutely parallel, but the combination of the two buildings, with
their towers and turrets, and two other towers, is very good, and
gives an imposing effect to the general views of the old city.
It is to be observed, that though in Les Halles the pointed arch
and the very best window-tracery are everywhere used, there is no
possibility of mistaking it for a church, or even for a religious
building.
There are many old houses in the town, generally of the
sixteenth century, with stepped gables, and four-centred window-
heads with carved tympana; but their effect generally is not
satisfactory.
Between Ypres and Courtrai (whither I next journeyed) are some
large churches, of which that at Comines would, I think, repay
examination. Courtrai has not much to call for remark; though its
market place is quaint, picturesque, and irregularly grouped, with a
clock-tower, turreted at the angles and with a spire-like capping,
rising suddenly out from among its houses, out of whose windows
sound forth constantly those cheery chimes which give so much
colour to the recollection of all the towns in this chime-loving part of
the world. At the back of the market place a fine middle-pointed
church tower rises, capped with a most picturesque slated tourelle.
The church to which it is attached is the largest in Courtrai, but not
remarkable. It has an apsidal projecting chapel in the second bay
from the west, noticeable in that the axis of the apse is north and
south. The other churches are of little value, and much mutilated.
Notre Dame has a western tower, and a chapel added on the south
side of the choir which has pinnacles, and a bell-turret on the gable,
of very good character.
Perhaps the most interesting building in the town is the town
hall. It is of late date, and the tracery of the windows, and the
figures which once adorned the front between the windows, are all
destroyed. The doors are original, and an old staircase with panelled
sides, and partly old metal balustrade, leads to the hall on the first
floor. This has a fine simple open roof of timber, with double collar-
beams and arched braces: this, I fear, is no longer visible, as, when I
was there, workmen were just about to begin the erection of a
ceiling under it, to make the room fit for the reception of the King of
the Belgians. In two side rooms there are very remarkable fireplaces,
one of which is well known by Haghe’s drawing. The finer of the two
is adorned with a profusion of sculptures representing the Vices and
Virtues and very striking in their treatment.
From Courtrai, a short journey by railway brought me to Tournai
—a town not, I think, so well known as it ought to be for its
magnificent cathedral—doubtless the finest, by very far, in Belgium.
The nave and transepts are Romanesque. In the former, there is that
quadruple division in height so frequent in the thirteenth century
churches in the neighbouring part of France. The transepts are very
noble, and ended with grand apses, and both they and the choir are
very much more lofty than the nave. They owe much of their
grandeur to the number of detached shafts of great size, and to the
fact that the aisle, triforium, and clerestory, are all carried round the
apses. The choir is all of the thirteenth century, and very lofty and
light in its proportions. The windows are being carefully restored;
but some bad stained glass has been recently put up. In the sacristy
there is a little old plate, of which I may mention a fine monstrance,
and two shrines; one of which, of the thirteenth century, is one of
the most exquisite I have ever seen, being adorned with a great deal
of enamelling and silversmith’s work, of most delicate character.
There is also here a fine cope-chest; but I found only one old
vestment,—the orphrey of a chasuble, with figures of saints; date
about A.D. 1450; the rest were modern, and generally very tawdry.
But they possess here, in addition to these vestments, an altar
frontal, of great interest; it is embroidered on a white silk ground,
with a tree of Jesse: the figures are well executed in high relief, and
the effect of the whole, with the stiff conventional arms of the tree
encircling the figures, is very striking. The embroidery is executed in
the same way as our old English work; but I never saw any figures
worked with so much spirit or so much character in their faces. The
old fringe of red silk over gold thread remains.
The external view of the cathedral presents one of the most
singular, and, at the same time, most grand assemblages of steeples
I have ever seen. There are two tall towers, richly arcaded and
capped with square slated spires, to each transept, and over the
crossing a much lower though larger lantern also capped with a
spire. These five spires are well seen from the market place, and
with a tall campanile at its upper end, of the thirteenth century,
combine in a very grand group. I should have mentioned that the
central spire is octagonal with four square slated turrets at the
angles. The east end of the cathedral deserves notice; its scale is
great, and its flying buttresses and detail generally very good.
Chapels are formed between the buttresses and roofed with gables
running back to the aisle walls.
The Maison de Ville was formerly a convent and still retains a
few old portions built up in the more modern additions.
In the market place is a small church, the entrance to which is at
the east, and the altar at the west end. Over the east door are two
triplets, quite first-pointed in their character. There are round turrets
at the west angles and to the transepts, and a picturesque slated
spire over the crossing; the whole is groined, and reminded me of
the style of the transepts of the cathedral, though it is not very
effective.
Another church on the way to the railway station has an eastern
apse, and a tower and slated spire over the crossing. The nave has a
continuous clerestory, with two or three windows in each bay; the
effect of which is satisfactory. Across the nave, one bay west of the
choir, there is an arch with a kind of triforium gallery across it,
pierced on each side, and serving apparently for a passage-way only.
It is not continued up to the groining.

THE GREAT S. MARTIN, COLOGNE

Nearer the railway there is another large church with a

continuous clerestory and large unfinished-looking tower at the
south-west angle.
 There are some other churches, but not, I think, of great
interest. This, however, is amply afforded by the magnificent
cathedral towering so grandly over the town, whose only defect in
the distant view is the low height of the nave as compared with the
choir and transepts.
A sluggish train took me in five or six hours to Namur to sleep,
and thence early the next morning by a strikingly beautiful line of
railway along the banks of the Meuse; and passing by the
picturesque old town of Huy, with its fine church and castle, I found
my way to Liège.
The churches here are really too often visited and too well
known to require any description from me. I think the little church of
S. Croix, with its gabled aisles (the gables running back into the
main roof), pleased me as much as anything; it is just the kind of
special town church which we want to see more in fashion in our
own large towns, adapting itself boldly to every variation in the
boundary of the land on which it is built, and giving a very
considerable effect of height without extravagant expense.
The metal font in the church of S. Bartholomew is a very
admirable work of art, and most interesting in every way.
In the cathedral is a new pulpit, by Geefs, much praised in guide
books, but not a favourable specimen of his powers, I trust.
S. Jacques, S. Martin, and other churches in Liège are
remarkable for the richness of their internal polychromatic
decorations. They are all, however, of very late date, quite
Renaissance in their design and colouring, and very tawdry in effect
and in detail. The east end of S. Jacques is, however, very
impressive owing to the rich colour of the glass in the windows,
which carries the decoration down from the roof to the floor, whilst
elsewhere, the roof only being painted, and the whole of the walls
left in the coldest white, the effect is heavy and unsatisfactory. We
have, in short, here a good practical proof—worth a thousand
arguments—that colour to be successful must be generally diffused
and not confined to one part of a building.
From Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle, of which too I shall say but little.
The choir of the cathedral, which had been entirely despoiled of its
tracery, is being gradually and well restored. It is both a noble and a
very peculiar church, and perhaps the best view of it is to be
obtained from the staircase in the old Rathhaus. How striking is the
immense height of the choir as compared to its length, and how
thoroughly fine and picturesque is the kind of dome, surrounded at
its base with gables, which crowns the polygonal nave.
No one who visits Aix should omit to see the treasures in the
sacristy of the cathedral. I have never seen anywhere so fine a
gathering of mediaeval goldsmith’s work, and a little study of these
old remains would immensely improve the work of the few men who
are attempting to revive the old glory of their craft.
The Rathhaus contains in its upper stage a fine large groined
hall, called the Kaiser-Saal, divided down the centre by columns and
arches; it is approached by a good groined staircase, and is now
being restored and decorated in fresco, by a Düsseldorf artist, with
subjects from the life of Charlemagne.
Near the cathedral is a valuable remnant of good domestic work;
it has windows with plate tracery, and above them a row of niches or
arcading, the divisions of the arcade being filled in with figures of
kings in a very effective manner. It reminded me of the famous
Maison des Musiciens, at Rheims.
At Aix I was too near Cologne to omit the pleasure of spending
another day among its crowd of architectural treasures, and so,
instead of going to Düsseldorf direct, I gave myself a holyday, and
renewed all my old recollections of its many glories.
I cannot think that the new works at the cathedral are so
satisfactory as they are generally said to be. When I was there the
scaffolding had just been removed from the south transept, and the
effect was very far from good; there was a degree of poverty in the
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