_Buildings and Builders--Romanesque Architecture_
It was not till the days of Charlemagne that art was born in the Low
Country, and Charlemagne may be not inaptly said to have been its
progenitor. When that monarch planted the outposts of Christian Europe
on the banks of the Elbe he made the Low Country--a land then of marsh
and wood, whose inhabitants had hitherto lived apart, forgotten by the
rest of the world, on the edge, so to speak, of civilisation--the
central province of his dominions, and, as such, it in due course became
the centre of contemporary culture: the common intellectual mart of the
Teutonic regions of the East and the North, the Latin provinces of the
West and the South, of Ireland, of England, and of the land of the Scot.
The bishops, satraps, scholars, merchants, courtiers, courtesans who
flocked to Aix-la-Chapelle from all parts of Europe, all of them passed
through the Low Country and were constrained to sojourn for rest and
refreshment in the only hostelries which the land possessed--the
convents and monasteries sparsely scattered amid its forests and fens.
The traffic on the old Roman road across the Charbonnière was now
greater than it had ever been before; the Meuse and the Scheldt for the
first time became highways along which were towed huge barges heavily
laden with foodstuffs for the provisionment of the Court, and thus, as
Pirenne has it, 'on this soil, formed by the alluvial deposit of French
and German streams, there gradually sprang up a civilisation of like
nature with the soil itself, a civilisation made up of divers
elements--Latin, German, French, in a word, a civilisation not so much
national in character as European.'
Nor was it only thus indirectly that Charlemagne promoted the
civilisation of the people of the Netherlands. The rapid progress which
was at this time made in humanising these rugged folk was in large
measure due to the Emperor's personal initiative: he brought artists
from England, Italy, Constantinople, to decorate his palaces at Aix and
Nimègue, he established a school of art attached to the Court, he
ordained that the churches should be adorned with mural paintings, and
named inspectors to watch over the work and see that his orders were
strictly carried out, and, most important of all, he charged himself
with the task of providing foreign teachers for the novices of the few
religious houses which at this time were established in the land, and
where the culture of art and letters seems to have fallen wholly into
disrepute. The scholars to whom the Emperor confided this task were
among the most famous of their day. Men like his secretary and
biographer, Eginhard--the architect of the dome of Aix-la-Chapelle--whom
he set over the twin abbeys of Saint Peter and Saint Bavon at Ghent; and
Arnon, one of the most brilliant disciples of Alcuin, who became abbot
of Elnone by Tournai; and the Italian mechanician Georgius, who taught
at Saint-Sauve, by Valenciennes; and the great Irish scholar Sedulius,
who later on (840-855) lectured in the frescoed hall of Bishop Hartgar's
new palace at Liége.
Nor was this policy unprofitable. A spark was enkindled which soon
became a burning and a shining light. Clerks began to polish their rusty
Latin, monks to busy themselves with history, in writing the lives of
local saints, and by erecting in their honour temples not unworthy of
the patrons to whom they were dedicated. Cloistered women, too, devoted
their leisure hours to art: they adorned their refectories and chapels
with frescoes, and their choir-books with exquisite miniatures and
capitals cunningly devised, and, for the service of the altar, made
marvellous vestures of gold, wrought about with divers colours. A
specimen of their illumination has come down to us: in the sacristy of
the old church at Maeseyck there is a copy of the Gospels, painted by
two sisters, Saint Harlinda and Saint Renilda, who, about this time,
ruled over the great Abbey of Aldeneyck, on the outskirts of the town.
This is the most ancient piece of miniature work in Belgium. In a word,
the ignorance and grossness which had so long disfigured the Church in
the Netherlands completely disappeared, the soil teemed with religious
houses, each of which was an active centre of literary and artistic
life, and there was soon no more flourishing province in Christendom
than the land between the Rhine and the sea. But the glory of it all was
short-lived: after the Danish Terror there was nothing left of it but a
memory. Unless the subterranean Church of Saint Guy at Anderlecht, as
some maintain, be of this period, in Brabant, at least, no vestige
remains of Carlovingian architecture. For more than sixty years thick
darkness enveloped the land. Isolated efforts, indeed, there were: the
monks of Lobbe maintained an obscure school; Bishop Stephen at Liége,
and, at Utrecht, Bishops Radbod and Balderic, did what they could, in
the midst of the barbarism and anarchy of the times, to keep alive the
lamp of learning; but it was not until 953, when the Emperor Otho placed
the ducal crown of Lotharingia on the head of his brother Bruno, that
there was anything like an approach to a general Renaissance movement.
Under Saint Bruno's firm and gentle rule discipline was re-established.
Art and literature followed in its wake. Everachar the Saxon, whom he
named to the See of Liége in 959, was the founder, or at least the
restorer, of the Cathedral School there--a school which was renowned
almost from its origin, and which, under his successor Notger, became
one of the chief centres of learning in the West. The masters of Liége
lectured in all parts of the empire--at Mainz, at Ratisbonne, at
Brescia, and even penetrated into France; and students from all parts of
Europe flocked to drink in knowledge in the famous school of Saint
Lambert.
The literary and artistic movement inaugurated by Saint Bruno and the
imperial bishops was no doubt accentuated by the monastic revival
promoted about the same date by Gerard of Brogne. Great cathedrals and
abbey churches now sprang up in rapid succession, cloisters were
everywhere enlarged or rebuilt, bishops' palaces were adorned with
sculpture and painting, and the little edifices of wood, which on the
countryside had hitherto done duty for parish churches, were replaced by
more substantial buildings of stone or brick. German in origin for the
most part, it was naturally to German architects that the bishops of
Lotharingia entrusted their building operations. Thus the style in vogue
in the valley of the Rhine spread rapidly towards the west. With the
architects came artisans of all sorts--sculptors, hewers of stone,
painters, woodcarvers, founders of copper and of bronze. These
foreigners founded schools in the country, a host of apprentices joined
them, who made such progress in their craft that soon they were able to
compete with their masters. Thus was there gradually formed a native
school of architects and artists, of whose talent and technical skill
the remnants of their work which have come down to us bear witness; and
we know that in their own day their fame was so great that Abbot Suger
had recourse to their aid for the work which at this time he was engaged
upon in the Abbey of Saint-Denis.
They did not, however, at first form a new style. For something like two
hundred years they were content to walk in the paths which their German
masters had traced for them. Not only in architecture, but in painting,
in sculpture, in wood-carving, in metal work, in embroidery, the school
of the Meuse, as M. Pirenne aptly puts it, was the legitimate daughter
of the school of the Rhine.
Indeed, as long as the Church in the Low Country remained imperial,
German traditions prevailed. Even the main body of the cathedral at
Tournai, with its dome and its turreted apsidal transepts, which was
only commenced in 1030, is distinctively German in character, and so,
too, was the cathedral at Cambrai,[26] designed on similar lines, and
this is all the more remarkable from the fact that it was not completed
till nearly a hundred and fifty years later--some seventy years, that
is, after the episcopate of Walcher, the last of the imperial bishops of
this diocese.
[26] This cathedral no longer exists. It was destroyed by the
revolutionists in 1793.
THE CHURCH OF SAINT NICHOLAS
Of the buildings in Brussels and its immediate neighbourhood, which date
from this period (950-1200), but few remain. Indeed, in the city itself
there are only fragments. Foremost among the monuments which contain
them note the Parish Church of Saint Nicholas in the Rue au Beurre, one
of the oldest and perhaps the most interesting of the time-honoured
sanctuaries of Brussels. The date of its foundation is not known, but it
cannot be later, and may be considerably earlier, than the close of the
ten hundreds. It is one of those old buildings which, by reason of their
great age and thrilling memories, have attained individuality and almost
become living things--a stalwart veteran who in the course of a long and
honourable career has manfully endured an unwonted share of the trials
and vicissitudes of life. It has gained many scars in wrestling with
time and the elements, more in its conflict with man. It has been cast
down and renewed, enlarged and curtailed, defaced and embellished,
polluted and blessed over and over again; and though for the last fifty
years it has been constantly threatened by municipal blockheads with
total destruction, it still towers amid the nest of habitations which
cluster round its walls and cling on to its buttresses, a picturesque
and venerable pile in spite of its mutilations--not the least pleasing
of the rare landmarks of old-world Brussels.
[Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH OF SAINT NICHOLAS, RUE AU BEURRE.]
It is not, however, its intrinsic beauty which renders this church so
fascinating. It possesses in common with many ancient things, not only
buildings, but often trees, pictures, furniture, and notably jewellery,
another attribute: there is about it a certain subtle influence which at
once lays hold of the spectator and convinces him that it has a story.
It has, and a thrilling one which, if it were written, would fill
volumes and keep the reader spellbound from the opening words of the
first sentence to the end of the last page.
This church, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of burghers and
merchants, and situated on the fringe of the Great Market, hard by their
Town Hall and Guild-houses, has been, from time immemorial, the
distinctive church of the bourgeoisie, in the same way that Saint
Jacques sur Coudenberg has always been the distinctive church of the
Court. Its life is bound up with the life of the city. It is the cradle
of its liberties. Its hopes, its struggles, its victories, its defeats
are intimately associated with it. In this church the city fathers were
wont to assemble in the early days when they had no town hall. Its
steeple was the town belfry--we say advisedly _was_, for it exists no
more--home of the 'work-clock,' which every morning called the craftsman
to his toil and in the evening sounded his release; and of the shrill
tocsin, which in days of terror summoned him to arms, and when he had
triumphed shouted victory. Here, too, in a lower storey, was the archive
chamber where were laid up the records and the title-deeds--the charters
which the town had bought at such great cost of blood and gold. Thrice
burnt down and thrice rebuilt, until the close of the seventeen
hundreds, this ancient tower was the pride and the glory of the men of
Brussels, who regarded it as the outward and visible sign of their
privileges as citizens and their rights as men. Nor is this all, the
Church of Saint Nicholas is possessed of a mysterious power of
attraction. Why men should single out this particular church in
preference to all others is a question hard to answer. There is no
ostensible reason for it: it is not the shrine of some great and popular
saint, no famous relics are treasured here, nor miraculous image or
picture. They are drawn to it in spite of themselves. Wherefore, who
shall say? Enter when you will, it is never without worshippers, and
what a motley throng they are! Of course that sex which the breviary so
quaintly and aptly styles devout is the most in evidence. Women in
shoals are there--women of every age and every complexion, all sorts and
conditions of women: from the _grande dame_ of ancient date, demure,
aloof, dowdy, who, to her very rosary beads, is invested with an air of
distinction, to the market-woman with her milk cans or her basket of
fresh vegetables; from the fashion plate of the _demi monde_, perfumed
and painted, to the snuffy crone in foul rags, who in the same breath
asks an alms and tells her chaplet. And the men, if there be fewer of
them, are no less heterogeneous--that sleek, smug-faced tradesman is
trying a deal with Saint Anthony, he has made him an offering and
promised more if only he will promote his undertakings; the youth in
glorious apparel is commending, perhaps, to Saint Joseph an affair of
the heart, or--who can tell?--perhaps he has a thorn in the flesh of
which he would fain be rid; the shabby, middle-aged, sallow-faced wreck
who stands before '_Onze Lieve Vrouw_,' works, when he is not too drunk,
as a journeyman tailor, in politics he is a social democrat, and if you
were to ask him his religion, he would tell you that he was a _libre
penseur_, but the woman who loves him is sick and believes, and he has
slunk in here to put up a taper for her in honour of the 'Salus
infirmorum,' the old man with trembling limbs and palsied head, who is
painfully making the way of the Cross, was in his day a dashing spark
who could make women's hearts throb and sometimes broke them. He has
drunk to the dregs of the joys of life and experienced the after-taste,
but all this is ancient history; he has long ago made his peace with
God, and is quietly waiting now for the great metamorphosis. And there
are children too, not many--for the neighbourhood is one of theatres,
cafés, public buildings--ragged urchins some of them, with bare feet and
pinched faces. The streets outside are cold and wet, or they are hot and
dusty, and where else should these waifs seek shelter but in their
Father's house?
Such are the devotees who frequent this mysterious shrine; and the
visible objects of their devotion--the likenesses of the ghosts who
haunt it, are no less varied than are they. Some of them are Neo-Gothic
conceptions of the school of Saint Luke--tall, emaciated figures with
gilded locks and pale, meek faces; others are of the time of the
Renaissance, and are full-blooded, fleshy, human; others again are as
old perhaps as the church itself, and these are the most interesting.
For how many centuries, for example, has the 'Man of Sorrows' sat by the
western doorway silently asking of those who enter, 'Is it nothing to
you, all ye that pass by?' A strangely pathetic figure this. The
sculptor who modelled it must have had this text in his mind, 'There is
no beauty in Him,' and this, 'The Lord has placed upon His shoulders the
iniquity of us all.' The statue is of carved wood painted after life,
but time and maybe the flare of tapers have rendered it almost black. It
is quite nude save for a loin cloth, but someone, perhaps scandalised at
this, has thrown a mantle of purple velvet now faded and moth eaten,
over the shoulders. A relic is let into the instep of the left foot,
which is defaced and partly worn away by the lips of innumerable
troubled souls who have found consolation in their own sorrows by
pitying the sorrows of Christ. For the rest, the church is not without
charm from an æsthetic point of view--the axis of the choir is probably
more decidedly inclined to the north-east than that of any other church
that the visitor will call to mind: this and the divers styles of
architecture in which it is built renders it at least picturesque.
Moreover, though the stained glass which once glowed in its windows has
long since disappeared, and though whitewash and plaster have effaced
the frescoes and carving with which its walls were formerly adorned, the
interior is still bathed in glowing tints: it is rich in old oak
furniture, in objects of marble and copper and brass, in easel paintings
and in devotional statues resplendent with colour and gold, and there
are flowers too and red lamps, and withal and always a host of flaring
tapers. But let not the reader be disappointed. There is much in this
church which is tawdry, trivial, vulgar, which transgresses in a
flagrant degree the canons of good taste; its splendour, it cannot be
denied, is not always the splendour of truth. We have here the lustre of
colour which, like charity, covers a multitude of sins, the fascination
of old-world memories and the glamour of the picturesque. Added to this
there are a few genuine works of art, notably some good pictures, which
even the most fastidious need not be ashamed to admire; but since they
are all of more recent date than the Middle Age, they do not come within
the scope of these pages. And what, perhaps, it will be asked, has this
farrago of modern idolatry for which space has been found to do with the
Middle Age? This much--call it idolatry if you will, we have here
mediævalism undiluted. The credulous folk who flock to the Church of
Saint Nicholas are silly enough to believe, like their fathers in the
thirteen hundreds, that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say anything definite as to
dates in the case of a building like the Church of Saint Nicholas, which
has endured so many vicissitudes and suffered so much at the hands of
restorers, but there can be little doubt that the great oblong columns
which support the vaulting of the nave, and perhaps too the walls of the
aisles, or at all events some portions of them, formed part of the
original structure. But whether these things be old or new is a matter
of little moment. The burghers' church is doomed. The decree has gone
forth, and as soon as the leases of the old houses which cluster round
it fall in, it is to be sacrificed to the demon progress. A street has
to be enlarged or straightened, or the site is needed for a cab-stand or
a public-house, or for some purpose equally objectionable. Death indeed
sits close to our old friend, hence this disquisition. Albeit, he has so
often escaped by the skin of his teeth that it is hard not to believe
that means will even yet be found for still further prolonging his days.
One thing is quite certain. If this piece of vandalism be carried out,
it will be for the indelible shame of the whole city. A disgrace alike
to the authors of the crime, and to those who by their indifference or
their lack of energy, have connived at it. In Belgium there is a
permanent Government commission for the preservation of ancient
monuments, and a private society likewise exists, of which the _raison
d'être_ is similar, yet it seems that neither of these bodies have as
much as thought it worth their while to lodge a formal protest.
More important from an architectural point of view than the Church of
Saint Nicholas is the Church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle. The
foundation stone was laid by Duke Godfrey Longbeard in 1134, and though
the greater portion of the existing structure is of more recent date,
some interesting fragments still remain of the original building,
notably the little Chapel of the Holy Cross and the beautiful façade of
the south transept, which is pure Romanesque and richly adorned with
sculpture. The plans were modified as the work progressed, and the rest
of the south transept, the north transept and the chancel are in the
style of the Transition. A nave and aisles were also added at this
period, but they were destroyed by fire early in the fourteen hundreds,
and rebuilt in the course of the century in the style then in vogue.
The collegiate Church of Saint Michael and Saint Gudule was commenced by
Duke Henry I. in 1170, and the eastern wall of the ambulatory, with its
Romanesque windows, date from this period. It took the men of Brussels
five hundred years to complete this beautiful building, and hence it
contains specimens of every style of architecture, and is on that
account none the less interesting. We shall have something more to say
of each of these churches in another chapter.
The civil architecture of this period is represented only by some
fragments of the fortifications with which Lambert Balderick surrounded
the city in 1040. They are scattered about here and there in various
parts of the old town. There is a picturesque bit of wall for example in
the garden of Saint Gudule's Presbytery, another piece has been
incorporated into a house in the Rue des douze Apôtres, there is more in
the Steenporte, and, most important of all, a tower some sixty feet high
between the Halles Centrales and the Church of Saint Catherine.
This picturesque relic, which is called 'la Tour Noire,' was discovered
when some old houses were demolished in 1887. At first the Corporation
was for pulling it down, but fortunately Brussels at this time had a
burgomaster who was not only an artist and an archæologist of repute,
but also an enthusiastic amateur of mediæval architecture. After a long
fight, M. Buls, who is still living though he has now withdrawn from
public life, succeeded in saving the old tower, and thanks to his
indefatigable efforts, it was later on restored by the town.
THE CRYPT OF SAINT GUY AT ANDERLECHT
It is not, however, in the city itself, but in the suburb of Anderlecht,
a mile and a half beyond the line of the outer ramparts, that the most
interesting specimen of Romanesque architecture is to be found. Here we
have no mere fragment, more or less defaced, but something complete in
itself, something which has never been tampered with, something older,
too, than any of the buildings of which we have just spoken, older,
indeed, for the matter of that, than any other building in Brabant. In a
word we have here an antique jewel of rare beauty, which has never been
re-set nor re-cut: the subterranean Church of Saint Guy at Anderlecht
remains to-day what it was when the builders planned it.
[Illustration: LA TOUR NOIRE.]
The earliest archives of the collegiate chapter of Anderlecht have
disappeared, destroyed, no doubt, when the Flemings invaded Brabant
under Louis of Maele, and hence the date of its foundation is not
certainly known. Some chroniclers mention the year 800, others 914.
Tradition says that it goes back to an epoch when there were only two
other chapters in Brabant, the Chapter of Saint Berlinda, a niece of
Saint-Amand, erected at Meerbeck towards the close of the six hundreds,
and the famous Chapter of Nivelles, founded by Saint Gertrude, a
daughter of Pepin of Landen, in 645; and we know from the Anderlecht
_Life of Saint Guy_, the earliest life that has come down to us, that a
dean and canons were certainly established there early in the ten
hundreds. In any case there can be no doubt that this foundation was a
very old one, and in all probability the present subterranean church is
the church in which the first canons of Anderlecht were wont to perform
their devotional offices.
True, it is said in the anonymous _Life of Saint Guy_, written most
likely by a canon of Anderlecht in the opening years of the eleven
hundreds, that about the time when his relics were first translated
(1076) the canons of Anderlecht decided to build a new church, and from
this, M. Schaeys, in his _Histoire de l'architecture en Belgique_,
concludes that the present structure dates from this epoch, but the
style of the architecture denotes a much earlier period, and the MS.
account of what took place, in spite of the passage in question, which,
read with the context, has clearly another meaning than that which M.
Schaeys attributes to it, rather confirms than contradicts the evidence
of the architecture.
The writer informs us that at this time the church at Anderlecht, by
reason of its great age, was almost a ruin; some of the walls had
actually fallen down, and others were in imminent danger of doing so.
The clergy and the people therefore decided with one accord to sell the
rich gifts which for years past pilgrims had been offering at the shrine
of Saint Guy, and with the fund thus realised to build a new and more
spacious church. If, then, the present crypt, which only measures forty
feet by forty-eight, was the outcome of this decision, the former
structure must indeed have been one of exceedingly narrow dimensions.
Although 'the poor man of Anderlecht' had during his lifetime been
regarded as a saint, he was not publicly honoured as such until some
forty years after his demise. About this time (1054) what our author
calls a basilica, no doubt a small mortuary chapel, had been erected
over his grave, and as it adjoined the church it now became necessary to
pull it down in view of the proposed building operations. Hence the
question arose, What should be done with the saint's body? The matter
was referred to the bishop of the diocese, Gerard II. of Cambrai, 'who
had succeeded the Lord Lietbert of blessed memory'--this fixes the date,
Gerard received consecration in 1076--and he ordained that the body
should be disinterred and provisionally laid to rest in the centre of
the church until the new building should be ready for its reception.
The bishop's instructions, our author avers, were duly carried out, and
in the last paragraph of his narrative, he informs us that 'the
elevation of Saint Guy' was made by Bishop Odard on the 24th of July,
1112. It would seem, then, that from the earliest times there have been
two churches at Anderlecht, an upper church and a lower church; that the
former, having fallen into a ruinous state, was pulled down in the year
1076 and rebuilt on a larger scale, and that the new structure was
completed in the summer of 1112, certainly not later than that date.
Further, that the lower church, which no doubt had been more solidly
built than the upper building, seeing that it was intended to support a
superstructure, was still in 1076 in good repair, and that hence it was
left standing.
That this was 'the church' where the relics of Saint Guy reposed during
the interval which elapsed between the disinterment of 1076 and the
'elevation' of 1112 there can be no doubt whatever. Not only do the
terms employed by the writer render this point certain, but we have the
additional evidence of the empty tomb which still stands in the centre
of the crypt. As to the date at which this interesting building was
constructed the style of the architecture points to the eight hundreds.
In form it is distinctly reminiscent of the early Christian basilica: it
consists of an apsidal nave of three bays and double aisles, those which
are adjacent to the nave are separated from it by cylindrical columns
with capitals, which recall the Tuscan order, and from the outer aisles
by two great square shafts without capitals, around each of which are
clustered four columns similar to the columns of the nave. There is also
a series of half columns of like design at intervals round the walls.
These, and the piers, and the pillars of the nave support the vault,
which is a simple cross vault without ribs. Each of the outer aisles is
pierced in its west wall by a small round-headed doorway which opens on
a staircase leading to the upper church, and the building is dimly
lighted by six narrow slits of windows, which are likewise round-headed.
The original high altar has disappeared, but there are two side altars
which are of great antiquity, probably as old as the church itself--huge
oblong blocks of stone without ornament or inscription. Hard by to each
of them is a small chamber built in the thickness of the wall. It has
been suggested that one was a baptistery, the other a vesting-room. In
the centre of the inner southern aisle is the tomb of Saint Guy, an
oblong mass built up of stone covered by a granite slab rudely carved
with a double cross, floriated with vine leaves. The monument is pierced
by an aperture neither broad nor high, just large enough for a lean man
to crawl through if he felt so inclined, as many did at one time--the
edges of the opening are worn away by the countless pilgrims who, in
days of yore, thus gratified their devotion. Strange as they seem to us
now, practices of this kind were common enough in the Middle Age: when
in the eleven hundreds the bodies of the saints were 'elevated' from the
crypts in which they had hitherto lain to the temples which about this
time were raised above them, and there laid up in gilded shrines, the
empty tombs in which they had so long reposed still continued to be the
objects of popular devotion. Sometimes the coffin was left open, in
order that the saint's clients might stretch their own limbs in the
place where his body had lain, sometimes an opening was made in the side
of the tomb large enough for a man to peer through, or through which he
might even thrust his head. Sometimes it was larger still, and women
with sickly children would then place them for a moment within, and pray
that God, through His servant's merits, would make the weakling strong.
They as firmly believed in the virtue of these sticks and stones as the
men of Judæa believed in the virtue of the cloths and handkerchiefs
which the Apostles had touched, or of 'the shadow of Peter passing by.'
Of course the present upper church is not the church which the canons of
Anderlecht built with Guy's treasure. That was pulled down in 1460, as
the Anderlecht archives bear witness. The present structure was
commenced then, and not completed until well into the fifteen hundreds.
We shall have something to say about it presently.
NIVELLES
A little further afield, in the ancient town of Nivelles, there is
another and very noteworthy specimen of Romanesque architecture.
Nivelles was in former days a far more important place than it is now.
It gradually grew up beneath the shelter of the great abbey which, as we
have seen, Saint Ita and Saint Gertrude had founded in 625; and if so
far as concerns its material welfare it was inferior to the great cities
of Brabant, it excelled them all in the dignity of its social standing,
for the little town was an ecclesiastical fief held directly from the
Emperor[27] by an abbess who bore the illustrious title of Lady
Princess. To this exalted office no mere plebeian could aspire, nor
patrician either for the matter of that, unless she had the right to a
scutcheon with at least sixteen quarterings. The abbess lived in almost
royal state in a palace adjoining her minster, and the white-robed
canons and the Augustinian nuns, who formed the chapter of Nivelles, and
dwelt, the former in a cloister hard by the church, the latter, apart in
the town, were submitted alike in spiritual and in temporal things to
her jurisdiction. Even the lay aristocracy shone with an additional
lustre reflected from her magnificence. What rights and privileges they
enjoyed above their fellow-citizens were theirs not in virtue of noble
birth, but as members of the household of Saint Gertrude. Their fathers
were serfs on the abbey domain who had risen to positions of trust, they
were men who had bartered their liberty for a servitude freer than
freedom itself, had entered a great monastic family and become
participators in its immunities, and these their descendants continued
to enjoy for years after the days of bondage had ceased. The _Hommes de
Sainte Gertrude_ like the _Hommes de Saint Pierre_ owed their title to
distinction to the servile condition of their ancestors.
[27] Until 1349: in that year Charles IV. recognised the principality as
a fief of the Duchy of Brabant.
Though the rulers of Brabant had for years past encroached on her
privileges whenever they had an opportunity of doing so, the abbess was
still a _grande dame_, with ample means to support her high position
when the end came in 1793, but the power which she then wielded, though
still considerable, was only the shadow of what it had been in the palmy
days when she was not only in name but in fact 'the Lady Princess of
Nivelles.'
Nivelles never seems to have attained to anything like commercial
pre-eminence. In the days when the fabrication of woollen goods was the
staple industry of the Netherlands, her manufacturers perhaps did as
well as their fellows in other small towns of like standing, but
certainly no better. Later on, when the cloth monopoly was lost and men
turned their attention to linen, she did indeed make some reputation for
the excellence of her cambric, but she lost it after the riots of 1647,
when her weavers migrated in a body to Cambrai and Valenciennes.
Henceforth, until its suppression, the custom of the household of Saint
Gertrude was the mainstay of her prosperity, and when that source was
cut off by the French revolutionists in 1793, she very soon became what
she is now, a little market town with a population of some ten or eleven
thousand souls.
Nivelles is situated partly on the side of a hill and partly on the
fringe of an emerald valley made fertile by the river Senne. Here there
are snug homesteads nestling amid orchards and surrounded by well-tilled
fields, and rich pasture-lands enclosed with hedges thick and high.
There are woods too on the rising ground beyond, and here and there a
windmill or the steeple of some village church. The landscape is one
most pleasant to behold, and if only the fields were less carefully
tilled and the cottages and farm buildings were not so numerous nor so
well cared for, it might easily be mistaken for an English scene in one
of the home counties.
The little town itself is tranquil, dreamy, clean. In its narrow,
winding streets there are some curious old houses with high-pitched
roofs and crow-stepped gables, and here and there are some curious old
buildings with mullioned windows and Gothic doorways, which one is quite
sure, if they are not now the homes of nuns, were at one time, and of
course there is a sprinkling of those clean, comfortable-looking,
substantial dwellings which are always to be met with in quiet nooks and
corners in the country towns of Belgium. Sometimes they have courtyards
in front, separated from the street by cunningly wrought iron railings
and paved with cobble-stones, on which stand palms in tubs, or bay trees
fashioned like umbrellas. Sometimes stretching out behind there is a
trimly-kept walled garden of which the passer-by occasionally obtains a
refreshing glimpse through some half-open door. They were built for the
most part about a hundred and fifty years ago, and are the homes of
local professional men or the winter abodes of the neighbouring country
gentry, who, reckoning their incomes by hundreds, rather than thousands,
are rich enough not only to vegetate comfortably and in a manner
befitting their station, but to give alms with no stinted hand, and
withal and always to keep very respectable balances at their bankers.
The most interesting feature of the town of Nivelles is, of course, the
old Minster, with the exception, perhaps, of Tournai Cathedral, the
finest Romanesque church in Belgium. It is a noble pile three hundred
and twenty feet long, with three towers at the west end, single
nave-aisles, strongly-marked transepts, and an unusually long
rectangular choir built over a crypt. Within, however, it is
disappointing, for the interior was so completely transformed in the
course of the seventeen hundreds that no vestige of the original work
was left visible. Efforts are now being made to repair the mischief. The
beautiful crypt, which had been completely filled up with earth and
rubble, has been excavated and restored, the walls of the choir and
transepts have been stripped of the bastard Renaissance ornament with
which they were disfigured, the bays which had been bricked up have been
opened, a timber roof has been substituted for the plaster ceiling, and
it is proposed, as soon as funds are forthcoming, to completely restore
the whole church.
The restoration, it is pleasing to note, is being carefully and
conscientiously carried out, but though every available fragment is
being utilised, so much of the old work has disappeared that, alas,
there is no hope of adequately repairing the havoc wrought by the
ill-judged generosity of the canons of Nivelles in 1754.
_En revanche_, save for 'the golden stain of time' and the great tower,
a child of the fourteen hundreds, without, the Church of Nivelles
remains to-day what it was when Pope Leo consecrated it in 1047 in the
presence of his imperial nephew. Not the only association this of Saint
Gertrude's Abbey with Leo IX. Its bells, so runs the tale, were solemnly
tolled by invisible hands when on the night of the 19th of April 1054
the soul of the great reformer passed out of the world. Whatever may be
thought of this beautiful legend, it at least bears witness to Leo's
popularity.
So glorious is the exterior of this grand old building, that did the
journey from Brussels to Nivelles take as many hours as it does minutes,
the sight of it would be ample compensation, and, too, there are
cloisters as old as the church itself, in style pure Romanesque, so vast
that forest trees flourish in the garth, without making it appear
crowded. The south, the east and the west sides have suffered
considerably from over-restoration, but the north colonnade is still
intact, and built over it is all that remains of the ancient monastery.
We have here one of those silent, old-world nooks which are still
redolent of the incense of the Middle Age.
The Church of Nivelles is not only interesting on account of its
architecture: Pepin of Landen is buried here in the centre of the nave,
and beside him his wife, Saint Idenberge, and their daughter Begga, whom
the Beguines regard as their patron saint. Here, too, are the mortal
remains of another of Pepin's daughters, Saint Gertrude, foundress of
the abbey. They are treasured in a shrine of copper gilt, adorned with
sculpture and bas-relief, and encrusted with precious stones, a
veritable triumph of the goldsmith's craft, designed by Jaquemon, monk
of Anchin, and wrought by another Jaquemon, a townsman of Nivelles, with
the assistance of one Nicolon, who seems to have been a citizen of
Douai. The names of these men are meet to be had in perpetual
remembrance.
For the moment this marvellous piece of metal-work is laid up in the
sacristy. Presently, when the restoration of the chancel is completed,
it will be restored to its former position above the high altar.
Of the remaining fragments of Romanesque architecture in the immediate
neighbourhood of Brussels, most remarkable, perhaps, is the great square
tower of the Church of Saint Jacques at Louvain, which probably dates
from the beginning of the eleven hundreds. Within are some curious
cylindrical columns, adorned with floriated capitals of good design and
workmanship. The Abbey Church of Parc, hard by the same city, was
commenced in 1225, perhaps earlier, but not completed till 1297. This
building exists to-day, but it has been so frequently altered by
successive abbots that no trace of the original Romanesque work is
visible, save a little round-headed doorway alongside the main entrance
and some narrow slits of windows in the chancel.
For the rest, in the villages and hamlets, which are so thickly sown in
the country round Brussels, there are not a few churches or portions of
churches which date from the period we have just been considering. It is
impossible, however, within the limits of this handbook to give even a
list of them. Those who are interested in this matter will do well to
consult Mr. Weale's _Belgium_. Here will be found descriptions, with
numerous historical notes, of the village churches in the neighbourhood
of the chief towns of the kingdom and along the main lines. It was
published nearly fifty years ago, and of course since then many
archæological discoveries have been made, and, alas, much ancient work
has disappeared, but no other handbook with which we are acquainted
contains in so small a compass such a vast mass of generally reliable
information concerning the architecture and the art of the Low
Countries.
Gothic architecture seems to have been first introduced into the
Netherlands from France by way of Tournai. The stately choir, second to
none in Europe, which that great church-builder, Bishop Walter de
Marvis, added to his cathedral there during the second quarter of the
twelve hundreds, was probably the first purely Gothic structure erected
in Belgium. It is altogether French in plan and in method of
construction, and it may well have been designed by a mason of the _Ile
de France_. Men's minds were at once captivated by its beauty, and the
new style spread rapidly throughout the land.
It could hardly have been otherwise: Tournai was not only the religious
capital of Flanders, it was also the artistic capital of a very
considerable portion of the Low Country; here was established a school
of architects and sculptors, which at this time was among the most
famous of the North; when the architects of Tournai adopted the new
style it was bound to make headway. Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, without
quarries of their own, and without native masons, were constrained to
bring from Tournai, the nearest point where stone was to be had, alike
their building material and their builders. These men had drawn their
inspiration from beyond the Rhine, and perhaps, too, from Normandy, and
had already attained in their craft a very high order of excellence.
When fascinated, then, by the beauty of Bishop Walter's choir, they
determined to follow the new French fashion; they showed themselves no
servile imitators, but modified their old plans and their old schemes of
ornament in such a manner as to suit the needs of the new methods of
construction: thus they gradually evolved a distinct style of their own,
and the flat apse, the octagonal towers, the round turrets, adorned with
pilasters with capitals delicately carved on either side of the western
gable, the high, narrow lancet windows, without mullions or tracery--all
distinctive features of Tournai work, are to be met with over and over
again, not only in Hainault and in Flanders, but even in Picardy and in
Holland.
Less marked was the influence of the Tournai school on the architecture
of Brabant. Brabant had quarries of her own, and builders, inferior,
indeed, to the builders of Tournai, but for all that well skilled in
their craft; and thus what Tournai was doing for the rest of Belgium
Brabant was able to do for herself. Though at first her architects seem
to have taken as their models the buildings which their rivals of
Tournai were constructing in Hainault, in Holland, and in Flanders, even
their earliest Gothic work is in no way lacking in originality. Witness,
for example, the choir of the Collegiate Church of Saint Gudule at
Brussels, one of their first efforts. As time progressed the distinctive
features became more and more pronounced, and presently a style was
developed more original and also more beautiful than anything produced
at the same time by the Tournai school. Indeed, the Gothic architecture
of Brabant of the fourteen, fifteen and sixteen hundreds, if it be
equalled, is certainly not surpassed by the Gothic architecture of those
centuries in any other land. So far as concerns civic buildings, Brabant
certainly holds the palm. Neither France nor Germany nor England can
show anything which can be compared, for example, to the Town Hall of
Brussels or the Town Hall of Louvain, or even with the Gothic portion of
the Town Hall of Ghent, which was designed by Brabant architects.
So great was the fame of the architects of Brabant from the commencement
of the fourteen hundreds that their services were in request all over
the Netherlands, and later on, in the days of the Emperor Charles V., in
Germany, in France, and even in far-off Spain; and, strangely enough,
some of their latest efforts are as nobly conceived and as carefully
executed as in the days when their art was at its zenith.
Nothing could well be finer than the Parish Church of Saint Jacques at
Antwerp, which was commenced in 1491 and not completed till 1694, the
work having been discontinued from lack of funds in 1530, and not
renewed, owing to the religious troubles, until 1602. This grand old
building, which was designed for a simple parish church, has all the
characteristic features of a great cathedral--triforium, clerestory,
double aisles, ambulatory chevet, transepts, and a host of side chapels.
The plans were drawn up by Herman De Waghemakere, a burgher of Antwerp,
and an architect famous throughout the Low Countries, who not only
designed many noble buildings, but begot two sons, Herman and Dominic,
to whom he transmitted his talent, and whom he trained to his own
calling. When he died, early in the fifteen hundreds, they were able to
worthily continue the work at Saint Jacques' which the old man had so
successfully commenced, until 1530.
At this time no portion of the church was completed, and the choir was
not even begun. When, some seventy years afterwards, building operations
were again resumed, the original plans were strictly adhered to, and it
is worthy of note that the more recent work is as carefully and
skilfully executed as that which was carried out under the eyes of old
Herman himself.
This church is rich in stained glass of the fourteen, fifteen and
sixteen hundreds, which, considering the period, is of a very high
order. If the designs of some of the windows be faulty, the scheme of
colour is in each case perfect. It has retained more of its old
furniture--tapestry, metal-work, wood-carving and the like, than most
churches in Belgium. It contains some good pictures--notably, in the
Lady Chapel, an altar-piece by Rubens, which was placed here by his
widow, and, in a vault beneath it, all that remains of 'this prince of
painters and of gentlemen.'
In the sublime tower of Saint Rombold's at Mechlin we have another late
creation, though not so late as the Church of Saint Jacques at Antwerp.
The foundation stone was laid on the 1st of May 1452, and they seem to
have worked at it intermittently until 1583, when the stones destined to
complete it were carried off to Holland by the Prince of Orange, and
employed by him to build the town of Willemstad. Even in its unfinished
state it is a colossal building. At its base it is fifty-three feet wide
without counting the buttresses, which advance on each side to a
distance of nearly fifteen feet. Its actual height is over 320 feet, but
if the spire had been added, of which the original plans are still in
existence, it would have risen to the prodigious height of 544 feet, and
would thus have been the loftiest steeple in Europe. This mighty tower
was designed by Jan Kelderman, master-mason, of Louvain, not many
months, perhaps not many weeks, before his death in 1445; at which time
he was in all probability between seventy and eighty years of age. The
foundation stone was laid under the direction of his son Andrew, and for
over a hundred years one or other of his descendants busied themselves
with carrying out the old man's designs.
A remarkable family, the Keldermans: architects, sculptors, painters,
almost all of them, during many generations. The first of whom we have
any record was Jan van Marsdale, sculptor, of Brussels, who, for some
reason of which we are ignorant, adopted the family name by which his
descendants are generally known. He was probably born some time during
the second quarter of the thirteen hundreds, and died at Brussels not
earlier than 1415. In his day he was an artist of renown, but nothing
which can be certainly attributed to him has come down to us. We know
that he was the author of the richly-sculptured tomb of François van
Halen, which was placed in the first apsidal chapel on the south side of
Saint Rombold's at Mechlin in 1415, and demolished in 1810.--Of this
marvellous work of art there exists in _Le Théâtre Sacré du Brabant_ an
engraving--and we know, too, that he was the father of the Jan Kelderman
who designed Saint Rombold's tower. This man was a burgher of Louvain,
and city architect there from the 7th of October 1439 till his death in
1445. He directed the building of the Council Chamber in the Hôtel de
Ville, which had been designed by his predecessor, Plyssis van Vorst,
and which still exists. Of his three sons, Rombold, the eldest, was a
painter of glass, and one at least of his works has come down to us: a
beautiful window in the old church at Lierre, the first on the north
side--representing Godefroid Vilain XIV. and his wife, Elizabeth
d'Immersule, donors, along with their patrons, Saint Peter and the poor
man of Assisi. This window was painted in 1474, and the sum which the
artist received for it was forty-two golden florins. Rombold was born in
the year 1420. He married before 1447 Catherine van Voshem, whose sister
Elizabeth was the wife of the famous painter, Dierick Boudts, and
inhabited his own house in the _Rue de Diest_ at Louvain, where he died
on the 17th of March 1489. Matthew, Jan's second son, followed his
father's trade, and he also busied himself with painting and sculpture:
the indentures of an apprentice whom he undertook to instruct, in three
years, in the art of painting are still in existence, and we know, too,
that some of the carved beams in the Town Hall at Louvain are his work.
For the rest, he in due course took to himself a wife, who presently
bore him a son, whom he named Hendrick and trained to his own
calling. No record of any work that he executed has as yet been found,
but he seems to have done well in his profession, for in 1505 he
purchased a house in the Cattle Market at Mechlin, hard by the Chapel of
Saint Eloi, and here in 1521 he received Albert Dürer, who in his
journal notes that at Mechlin he was the guest of 'Maister Heindrich.'
[Illustration: Saint Rombold's Cathedral]
Andrew, the youngest son of old Jan Kelderman, was a man more famous
than either of his brethren. He was city architect of Mechlin, and
supervised the carrying out of his father's design of Saint Rombold's
tower for thirty years; and when he died, in 1485 or thereabout, it had
risen as high as the bell-chamber. He was the author of divers beautiful
rood-screens, amongst them that in the church at Bergen-op-Zoom, which
he wrought in 1471 with the aid of his son Anthony, who, it will be
interesting to note, dwelt in a house at Mechlin which is still
standing--No. 13 _Aux Tuileries._
This man, succeeding his father, directed the building of Saint
Rombold's tower until he in his turn died, on the 15th of October 1512.
He was the author of two famous buildings--the Town Hall of Middelburg,
in the island of Walcheren, and, in his native city, the Church of
_Notre-Dame au-delà de la Dyle_, and the father of two sons who were not
unworthy of the family name, and each of whom set their mark on the
family tower. The younger was aptly enough called after the saint with
whom the Keldermans had been so long associated; honours were presently
his, and wealth and a wide reputation, if he were not the greatest of
his race, at least he was the most successful, of Rombold Kelderman II.
we shall have much to say later on; the elder was named, after his
father, Anthony, and though he died young, he lived long enough, but
only just long enough, to design a monument which still proclaims his
genius--the old _Broodhuis_ at Brussels, now called _La Maison du Roi_.
Some three days before the foundation stone was laid young Anthony was
gathered to his fathers (December 5, 1515), and the guerdon which he
would have received was paid into the hands of his widow.
[Illustration: NOTRE-DAME AU-DELÀ DE LA DYLE.]
[Illustration: LA MAISON DU ROI.]
There were other members of this talented family of whom the record of
some of their labours has come down to us. Notably Matthew, a younger
son of Andrew Kelderman, who worked at Antwerp Cathedral under Herman De
Waghemakere from 1487 to 1498; his son, also Matthew, who migrated to
Louvain, was named city mason there and directed the building operations
of the Church of Saint Peter from 1503 to 1527; and Laurence, who plied
his trade, for the most part in Brussels, helped to build the _Maison du
Roi_, and was perhaps a nephew, perhaps a son, of the great architect
who planned it. The city records from which these bald facts have been
culled in comparatively recent years by those who have or have had the
care of them, divulge something of the nature of an anecdote concerning
Laurence Kelderman. We learn from certain entries in the town accounts
of Brussels that in the year 1513 he was mulcted 30 _florins_ for
wounding one of the amman's serjeants, and the same document informs us
too how it came about.
Kelderman and two other famous masons--Hendrick van Pede, the author of
the Town Hall of Oudenaarde, and Ludwig van Beughem, who later on built
for Marguerite of Austria the famous Church of Brow in Bresse--were at
this time at work, most fortunately for them as it afterwards turned
out, on the beautiful palace which the Count of Nassau was erecting for
himself in Brussels with that gold, as all men believed, which he had
wrung from the vanquished burghers of Bruges in 1490, and every evening
it was their wont, when their work was done, to drink together at the
Sign of the Star, a tavern of note in the Great Market, which seems to
have been at this time much frequented by men of their craft. To this
house of entertainment, then, on the 13th of February, at their
accustomed hour they repaired, and each man having bade the drawer bring
the liquor he liked best, they proceeded to pledge one another in
bumpers, but their potations that night were not destined to be of long
duration. Perhaps there was strife in the cups of some of their boon
companions, certain it is that one of them drew his knife, and, as luck
would have it, at the same moment the amman's serjeant walked in, who,
fearing mischief or feigning to do so, forthwith disarmed the fellow;
whereat our masons, enraged at this insult to a free citizen, hurled
themselves on the officer of justice, wrenched away his sword, and in so
doing inflicted on him a flesh wound. The offence, according to the
strict code of Brussels, was no light one, and serious consequences
would have undoubtedly followed had it not been for the Count of Nassau,
who, loth to lose the services of such capable workmen, exerted his
influence in their behalf, and thus they were quit with a fine. Later on
we find the names of two of the delinquents again associated, but in
very different fashion. When it was decided in 1532 to add to the Church
of Saint Gudila a new Sacrament chapel, the _Maîtres de la Fabrique_
commissioned three architects to prepare plans for the proposed
structure, and two of them were our friends of the tavern brawl,
Hendrick van Pede and Ludwig van Beughem. Peter van Wyenhoven was the
third competitor, his designs were adjudged the best, and he it was who
constructed the actual building. Bernard van Orley, the famous painter,
made the fair copy of his plans for him on two large sheets of
parchment, and received for so doing, it will be interesting to note,
£2, 10s. 9d., and the foundation stone was laid on the 8th of February
1535.
The plan of this chapel is exceedingly simple. It consists of a nave of
four bays with a flat apse pierced by a vast window enriched with
flamboyant tracery. The building is also lighted by five other windows
of similar design and like dimensions, of which four are set in the
north wall, and one in the last bay of the south wall. They are all of
them filled with beautiful stained glass, which is as old as the chapel
itself, and the picture which glows in one of them--the second on the
north side--was designed and painted by Bernard van Orley. The shafts,
or piers, or pilasters--it is difficult to know exactly what to call
them--from which spring the numerous prismatic ribs of a rich and
intricate vault, are strangely and elaborately fashioned. Below they are
bold, octagonal columns, or rather half-columns. Higher up they break
out into a mass of tabernacle work in the form of two canopies, which
shelter saints, and when at last they emerge from behind the pinnacles
and crockets, we find that they have ceased to be columns and are now
slender reeded shafts, which presently spread out like palm leaves and
become the ribs of the groining.
[Illustration: Eglise Sainte-Gudule Pilastre Sculpté]
Though Van Pede's designs were not accepted, the _Sainte Chapelle des
Miracles_ is none the less a perpetual memorial of his genius: the
cunningly wrought sculpture which it contains is almost all of it his
handiwork. The honoured name of Kelderman too is linked with this
building, but that association is now only a memory: the high altar
which Peter Kelderman reared has long since been cast down.
But to return to Peter's more famous kinsman, old Anthony Kelderman's
second son, Jonkhere Rombold van Marsdale, for thus the honest mason
styled himself after Charles V. had ennobled him. Maybe he thought the
ancient family name sounded more aristocratic than the name which his
great-grandfather had adopted.
Though Rombold was undoubtedly an architect and artist of a very high
order, and though he remained to the end of his career a man of energy
and enterprise, and at last died in harness, full of years and honours,
strangely enough his memory is not kept alive by any monument which he
alone can be certainly said to have designed and carried to completion.
In his early days he was largely engaged in completing the work of other
men, or in adding to, or embellishing, or restoring buildings which
already existed. Later on he entered into partnership with Dominic De
Waghemakere, and henceforth most of his designs were not the outcome of
his unaided genius. Together they planned many glorious structures. Some
never got beyond paper, others were commenced and left unfinished, for
they lived in troublous times; only a few were brought to completion,
and of these but one remains, the Steen of Antwerp, spoilt by
restoration.
Rombold Kelderman had honours, riches, renown. His career from this
point of view was certainly a most successful one, but an untoward
fortune seems to have dogged his steps in the matter of his craft, and
this was so not only with his own creations but also with the buildings
which he reared and the plans which he made conjointly with Dominic De
Waghemakere.
Thus, for example, he was commissioned by Charles V. to transform the
unfinished Cloth Hall of Mechlin into a place of assembly for the Grand
Council of Brabant. He drew out plans; they were all that could be
desired--the original drawings are preserved amongst the city rolls;
somewhere about the year 1529 the foundation stone was laid, and at
first the work was pushed on bravely, but before it was half finished
came the troubles of Philip's reign and it had to be abandoned, but
Rombold grieved not at it, he had long since paid Nature's debt.
[Illustration: THE STEEN OF ANTWERP.]
Otherwise, and yet more deplorable, was the disaster which baulked the
realisation of Kelderman and De Waghemakere's magnificent scheme for the
reconstruction of the choir of Antwerp Cathedral.
During the two centuries which had elapsed since the commencement of
this great church the ground around it had gradually risen by reason of
numerous interments to a very considerable distance above the pavement;
hence the church was always cold and damp, and in wet weather not
unfrequently flooded. To remedy this, it was decided early in the
fifteen hundreds, to erect a new choir with a crypt beneath it in such a
manner that the pavement of the upper building should be on a
considerably higher level than the ground outside. Kelderman and De
Waghemakere prepared the plans, and in due course the Emperor himself
laid the foundation stone. For nearly ten years they worked at the new
structure, and then came the catastrophe which sooner or later almost
always frustrated Kelderman's most strenuous endeavours: a fire broke
out which wrought such havoc on the main body of the cathedral that the
repairs absorbed alike the money and the material which had gradually
been amassed for the building of the new choir. Thus was the ambitious
scheme of these two great architects nipped, so to speak, in the bud,
for ambitious scheme it undoubtedly was: if it had been carried out
Antwerp would have possessed a cathedral vaster and, if contemporary
witnesses are to be trusted, more beautiful than any other city in
Christendom. Of this we have no means of judging, for though the plans
were carefully treasured among the city rolls for some two hundred
years, at last they mysteriously disappeared. There was reason to
believe they had been stolen, and though every effort was made to trace
them, from that day to this they have never been found; but of the vast
proportions of the proposed edifice there can be no manner of doubt, the
foundations still exist, and here and there they are visible. Moreover,
a few years ago, there was discovered, hidden away in the archive
chamber, a contemporary sketch of the ground plan, from which it appears
that Kelderman's choir would have occupied a surface just twice as
large as that covered by the actual choir including the ambulatory and
the chevet. Now Antwerp Cathedral in its present state is not one of
mean dimensions: it is somewhat longer than Westminster Abbey, without
the lady chapel, and exceeds it in breadth at the transepts by over ten
feet and at the nave by no less than a hundred.
[Illustration: QUAI DE L'AVOINE, MALINES.]
Kelderman and his partner were happier, or perhaps it would be more apt
to say not quite so unfortunate in their undertakings at Ghent. Here
their endeavours were at least crowned with some measure of success.
Early in the year 1518 the city fathers of Ghent commissioned our masons
to erect for them a new Town Hall, as we learn from the contract passed
between them on that occasion. The original deed is still in existence;
it is very curious and interesting, and throws much light on the customs
and methods of the builders of the day. In it Rombold and Dominic bind
themselves to inspect the work three times a year--in April, in August,
and somewhere about the Feast of Saint Bavo, at which last visit they
promised to bring with them designs for sculpture, ironwork and so
forth, to be executed by the workmen in winter time, when building
operations were invariably suspended, and they also undertook to come to
Ghent at any time throughout the year when their presence was deemed
necessary, provided their travelling expenses were paid and they were
given four, or at least three, weeks' notice. Moreover, the magistrates
reserved to themselves the right to name other architects in place of De
Waghemakere and Kelderman, in the event of their not giving
satisfaction. They had no occasion to exercise it; the plans were
perfect, Rombold and his partner performed their duties with the
greatest assiduity, and the burghers began to flatter themselves that
soon Ghent would be endowed with the grandest Town Hall in the
Netherlands. Their expectations were not realised--the building
progressed slowly, perhaps on account of the threatening state of the
political atmosphere. On the 15th of December 1531 Rombold Kelderman
died, and it was not yet half finished. Albeit, they did not lose heart;
Dominic, in virtue of a clause in the agreement, named Laurence
Kelderman to succeed his uncle; for four years longer the work dragged
on and then at last it came to a standstill. Who could think of building
operations amid the hubbub and whirl of rebellion? Or afterwards, when
the riot was quelled, whilst Alva was begging for the destruction of the
town, or whilst the city fathers with ropes round their necks were
humbly sueing for pardon? It was not till the close of the century that
the burghers were once more able to turn their attention to their
unfinished Town Hall. Dominic had long since joined his partner on the
other side of the stream, the art in which these men had so excelled was
now almost dead, Ghent was beginning to be captivated by the spurious
charms of the Renaissance, and in completing her Town Hall she followed
the bent of her fancy. The new architects, however, left the work of
their predecessors intact, and we have this much too to be thankful for:
the original plans still exist. By a clause of the agreement of 1518 it
was provided that in the event of the decease of both the architects
before the completion of the Town Hall the plans should be restored by
their heirs to the city magistrates; this clause was faithfully carried
out, and the plans, along with the contracts, are still preserved among
the city archives of Ghent.
However much we may regret the setting aside of the plans of Kelderman
and De Waghemakere, it cannot be denied that they deserved the fate
which overtook their labours, for they themselves had shown scant
respect to the memory of their predecessor, John Stassins, an architect
of no mean order, who, as early as 1481, had made plans for the new Town
Hall, plans which were accepted by the city fathers, and which, until
his death in 1517, he had done his utmost to realise. So much labour
lost, Kelderman and De Waghemakere discarded them and cast down his
unfinished building; but in Ghent John Stassins has his memorial: he it
was who planned and reared Saint Bavo's stately tower, not the least
beautiful of the many beautiful towers which still adorn the cities and
the villages of the Low Country.
* * * * *
The mention of the tower of Saint Bavo's naturally suggests the church
itself. Here we have perhaps the most beautiful of all the Belgian
cathedrals, certainly the most interesting. Founded in the course of the
nine hundreds, and not completed till the latter half of the seventeenth
century, this time-honoured building contains specimens of almost every
period of architecture. The crypt, or at all events a portion of it, is
part of the original structure; it is divided into four naves and is the
largest crypt in Belgium. Here lie the ashes of Hubert van Eyck and
those of his sister Marguerite. The choir, of blue Tournai stone,
severe, ample, stately, is of course Tournai work of the closing years
of the twelve hundreds, all of it save the vault, which dates from four
centuries later, and is so perfect an imitation of primary Gothic work
that did we not know that the choir of Saint Bavo's, like so many early
churches in Belgium, was originally covered with a wagon-head roof of
timber, and were it not for the cathedral records which remove all doubt
as to the period of its construction, it would certainly be assigned at
latest to the opening years of the thirteen hundreds. For the rest, the
fifteen ambulatory chapels are of the thirteen and of the fourteen
hundreds; the tower, as we have seen, dates from the closing years of
the latter period; and the nave and transepts, the aisles and adjoining
side chapels were built in the middle of the fifteen hundreds.
That the western half of Ghent Cathedral was the work of a Brabant
architect, is more than likely, for though there is no documentary
evidence to show who was its author, it has all the characteristic
features of the Brabant style. The position and character of the
tower--lofty, massive, bold, proudly standing at the head of the church,
with its lower stage as wide and as high as the nave and incorporated
with it; the peculiar treatment of the triforium--not an arcade, but a
simple gallery of sculptured stone; the triangular _oculi_ in the gables
of the transepts, and the vast windows, divided by great Y-shaped
mullions, which light them, these and a host of other things too
numerous to mention proclaim with no uncertain voice what manner of man
made it.