Chapter XI: Appendix (3)

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 side.[79] 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.

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 execution which is not felt in the old work; it looks thin, “liney” and attenuated, and makes me doubt very much, first, whether it is a fair reproduction of the old design; and next, whether the following out of an old design drawn to a small scale is possible without very great powers of designing. So much depends upon detail.

I believe that the building in Cologne which above all others ought most to be studied, is that wonderful church of S. Gereon, the interior of which is so fine, and so unlike what we ever think of doing in our new work. Its nave consists of an irregular decagon, entered from a western narthex, and surrounded by chapels, from the east of which runs a long and spacious choir, approached by a great flight of steps. This nave is about 65 feet from east to west, and slightly more from north to south; forming a very grand unbroken area, all within easy reach of any one voice, and, from its height and rich character, very impressive. The choir is of considerable length, and raised on a crypt. A large modern altar placed on the steps leading to it from the nave, completely conceals it in the general view, and much mars the whole effect.

The filth of the church when I was there was extreme, and the noble crypt which extends under the whole length of the choir was thoroughly desecrated. I noticed an original altar in a side chapel in the crypt, used as a receptacle for candle-ends! The sacristy of S. Gereon is a noble middle-pointed addition, fitted with old presses, and with some very beautiful glass in the windows. This, in the tracery, is very light in colour, spotted with ruby.

Next in grandeur, perhaps, to this church, is the east end of S. Martin’s. Seen from the street below the east end, its great height, and the combination of the apsidal transepts and choir with the fine central steeple produce very great effect. It is worthy of notice, how completely similar all these apsidal terminations are in Cologne, and how like those of the same date in the north of Italy. The apses here, for instance, are almost exactly like that of the choir of S. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo.

Cologne is rich in metal-work and early stalls. In S. Cunibert is a fine brass standard for lights, with a crucifix; in the choirs of S. Pantaleon and S. Andrew, some good thirteenth century stalls; S. Gereon has also some old candlesticks, and some woodwork worth notice, as also have some of the other churches.