ST. PETERSBURG
What must the man have been who, born and bred in this atmosphere,
conceived and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own manual
labour and his own sole gigantic strength, executed the prodigious
idea of dragging the nation, against its will, into the light of
Europe, and erecting a new capital and a new empire among the cities
and kingdoms of the world.
St. Petersburg is indeed his most enduring monument. A spot up to that
time without a single association, selected instead of the Holy City
to which even now every Russian turns as to his mother; a site which
but a few years before had belonged to his most inveterate enemies,
won from morass and forest, with difficulty defended, and perhaps even
yet doomed to fall before the inundations of its own river.--DEAN
STANLEY.
Russia, or Garthrealm, was not outside the circuit of saga lands. The
_Heimskringla_ indeed has much to tell us concerning it in days when
the country formed a most hospitable refuge for those in trouble at
home. And at one time or other most prominent men of the viking age
were in that uncomfortable position.
Of the Slavs themselves, indeed, we do not learn a great deal. The saga
writers were not much interested in foreign countries except as they
affected the Norse, but the regard for law in Russia evidently made an
impression, as did also the respect entertained for woman there, at any
rate as she was represented by the queen. The chief town of Russia in
those days was called by the Norsemen Holmgarth, because it stood on an
island, to the Slavs it was known as Novgorod, or new town, although
about the oldest we wot of in the land. It became in rather later days
the eastern outpost of Hansa trade (p. 155).
Russia herself, like Normandy, was originally a Scandinavian state,
and there seems to be little doubt that the name Russ was originally
applied to the Norse. Even to-day the Finns know the Swedes as
Ruotsi.[132] Thus Ruric and his viking followers[133] gave a name to
the Slavs of the North, even as Bulgars from Asia named a portion of
the Slavs of the South and the German Franks gave a new designation
to Gaul. In all three cases the conquerors who gave a new name to
the conquered received from them language and nearly everything else.
It is quite possible, however, that Scandinavian vigour was potent in
giving to northern Slavland that political unity which neither Mongol
domination, nor the long lapse of centuries nor a series of drunken and
incapable monarchs ever succeeded in breaking up.
While the disastrous failure of the southern Slavs to unite is patent
to the whole earth.
Closely in touch with the Northlands Garthrealm long remained; it was
clearly a district in which the Norse could feel themselves perfectly
at home, however much at times they might feel the call of the
rockbound fjords. Thus for several centuries, from the British Isles
to the heart of Russia, all lands were Scandinavian pure, or under the
influence of the ever conquering Norse. Had the race possessed a spark
of Roman organising power, here had been established a dominion greater
than any that the Southlands knew, for such an empire had hardly failed
to girdle the world, expanding eastward through northern Asia, westward
from Vinland the Good. Knut the Rich (p. 114) seems to have been about
the only individual to whom any such ideas occurred, and the very
keenness of all the Norse about local autonomy and parochial Things was
a hopeless bar to such plans.
It is one of the chief characteristics of the Norse easily to be
absorbed by other races, whether in ancient viking times or in the
American North-West to-day. On Ireland they left no further impression
than a few traditions and a church dedication or two; to Russia they
gave a name, but little more. Norsemen failed to be absorbed by other
races only in Iceland and Faroe, where no other races were.
Both Olaf, son of Tryggvi, and Olaf the Saint, were at different
times resident in Russia, when Norway proved unkind. The former was
nine winters old when he came into Garthrealm, and he abode with King
Valdimar other nine winters.
One day the boy was standing idly in the gate of the city when he
suddenly noticed the person who had slain his fosterer. "Olaf had a
little axe in his hand, which same he drave into Klerkon's head, so
that it stood right down in the brain of him; then he fell to running
home to the house, and told Sigurd his kinsman thereof." Such a
spirited action would not have mattered much in Scandinavia, for in
those days the Norse were very tolerant toward such effervescence of
youthful spirits, but it was otherwise in Russia.
"Now in Holmgarth was the peace so hallowed, that, according to the law
thereof, whoso slew a man undoomed should himself be slain. And now all
the people made a rush together, according to their custom and law, and
sought after the lad, where he were; and it was told that he was in the
queen's garth, and that there was an host of men all armed.
"Hereof was the king told, and he went thereto with his folk, and would
not that they fought, and so brought about truce and peace thereafter;
and the king adjudged the weregild, and the queen paid the fine.
"Thereafter abode Olaf with the queen, and was right dear to her."[134]
Why the queen, to whom Sigurd had hastily entrusted the boy, was able
to do so much is explained to us later on: "Now it was much the wont of
mighty kings in those days, that the queen should have half the court,
and sustain it at her own costs, and have thereto of the scat and dues
what she needed. And thus it was at King Valdimar's, and the queen had
no less court than the king; and somewhat would they strive about men
of fame, and either of them would have such for themselves.
"Now so it befell that the king trowed those redes aforesaid which folk
spake before him, and became somewhat cold to Olaf, and rough. And
when Olaf found that, he told the queen thereof, and said withal that
he was minded to fare into the Northlands, where, said he, his kin had
dominion aforetime" and where he deemed it like that he should have the
most furtherance.
"So the queen biddeth him farewell, and sayeth that he shall be deemed
a noble man whithersoever he cometh."[135]
The reasons for the king's suspicion are rather delicately explained:
"Yet it befell, as oft it doth when outland men have dominion, or
win fame more abundant than they of the land, that many envied him
the great love he had of the king, and of the queen no less. So men
bade the king beware lest he make Olaf over-great: 'For there is the
greatest risk of such a man, lest he lend himself to doing thee or the
realm some hurt, he being so fulfilled of prowess and might and the
love of men; nor forsooth wot we whereof he and the queen are evermore
talking.'"
Olaf the Holy was in slightly later days to find a refuge in Russia and
to be welcomed there by a Scandinavian queen, daughter of his old enemy
and namesake, the King of Sweden. This was the manner of the royal
marriage, and somewhat modern it sounds. "The next spring there came
to Sweden messengers from King Jarisleif east away from Holmgarth, and
they fared to see to the matter of King Olaf's promise from the past
summer to give Ingigerd his daughter to King Jarisleif. King Olaf put
the matter before Ingigerd, and said it was his will that she should
wed King Jarisleif."
Driven from his kingdom and somewhat broken in his fortunes, "King
Olaf arrayed his journey and got him a ship. And he fared that summer,
and letted not till he came east to Garth-realm to the meeting of King
Jarisleif, him and his queen, Ingigerd.... King Jarisleif gave King
Olaf a hearty welcome, and bade him abide there with him and have land
as much as he needed for the costs of holding of his company. That King
Olaf took with thanks, and tarried there. So it is said, that King
Olaf was devout and prayerful unto God all the days of his life. But
from the time that he found his reign was waning, and his enemies were
waxing mightier, then he laid all his heart to the serving of God; he
was then hindered herefrom no more by other cares, or the toil which
aforetime he had had on hand."[136]
"Sithence King Olaf came to Garth-realm he had great imaginings, and
turned it over in his mind what rede he had best take. King Jarisleif
and Queen Ingigerd bade King Olaf dwell with them, and take over the
dominion called Vulgaria, and that is one part of Garth-realm; and
there in that land the folk was heathen. King Olaf bethought him in
his mind of this offer; but when he laid it before his men, they all
were loth to take up their abode there, and egged the king on to betake
himself north to Norway to his own kingdom. The king would be still
further thinking of this, to lay down his kingdom, and fare out into
the world unto Jerusalem, or into some other holy places, and there to
go under the Rule."[137]
Not infrequently the Norse passed through Russia to the great
metropolis of the eastern world (whence Russia had received her faith),
New Rome, or Constantinople itself. So much were they impressed by that
splendid city that they knew it as Micklegarth. The stalwart arms of
the Norsemen, organised in the Vaeringian Guard, propped the Byzantine
Empire against its Asian foes and gained for the Scandinavians much
wealth. Among others the founder of Oslo (p. 95) had in that realm
gotten enormous riches. "But when Harald came to Holmgarth, King
Jarisleif gave him a wondrous good welcome, and there he tarried the
winter over, and took into his own keeping all the gold which he had
sent afore thither from Micklegarth, and many kinds of dear-goods. That
was so mickle wealth, that no man in northern lands had seen such in
one man's owning. Harald had three times come into palace-spoil whiles
he was in Micklegarth. For that is law, that whenever the king of the
Greeks dies the Vaerings shall have palace-spoil; they shall then go
over all the king's palaces where are his wealth hoards, and there each
one shall freely have for his own whatso he may lay hands on."[138]
Strangely similar, both in weakness and in strength, were Alexander
and Peter, both of them most justly surnamed Great. Each was born to
a kingdom, each had marvellous foresight and each had imperial ideas.
Semi-barbarous sceptres they both inherited, and they realised how much
might be done by importing the civilisation of sea-powers further west;
each was a worker with his own hands, each cared much for the science
and art of his generation, but neither was superior to amusements of
the grossest and pastimes of the beastliest. Both drank themselves into
the other world at an untimely age, leaving their work half done.
Each is commemorated by a city placed on the sea with the express
purpose of attracting foreign influence, beyond the ancient limits of
the country whose capital it became. More attractive in some ways the
career of the Ptolemaic successors of Alexander at Alexandria than that
of the immediate Romanoff descendants of Peter at Petersburg, but the
story of an ancient nation ruled from a corner of its territory by a
half foreign court is in both cases very much the same.
Many of the capitals of Europe know at least traditional founders, but
on none is impressed the stamp of an individual to such an extent as
here. No city on earth of anything like equal importance is so entirely
the creation of a single mind, nor so truly a monument to individual
force of character. No capital except Tokyo is to such an extent the
symbol of a new era in a nation's life.
Peter heard the call of Europe and saw that it had something to offer
that Asia could not give. Asiatics have felt a strange attraction
toward European lands in all the ages of the world. Persian, Hun,
Saracen and Turk have each in turn sought a footing on European soil.
Despite administrative inconvenience the successive rulers of the House
of Othman early desired to have as their capital some city famous in
the story of the West. Peter's people were not Asiatics; their early
organisation had come from the purest European stock, the conquering
Norse themselves, their civilisation and religion had come straight
from Rome. Not indeed old Rome on the Tiber, but during the tenth
century the daughter city by the Bosphorus was probably the more
cultured of the two.
On the border-land of the continents the Russians had for centuries
looked east and not west, the very year of Peter's accession to power
(1689) they had fixed their first frontier with China. He desired that
Russia should be definitely European, and in order to consolidate his
reforms a westward-looking window was essential. Its communications
must be by sea, Poland shut out direct intercourse with Europe
overland. Southward was the better climate, but a Black Sea port
would have increased relations with a purely Oriental Empire. At the
farthest end of the icy Baltic, where the Neva flows into the Gulf of
Finland, as near to ancient Novgorod as a seaside town could be, there
eventually he decided the new capital of Russia should stand.
From a glance at the map it is difficult to realise why no town had
risen in so convenient a spot long before, but it is at once explained
by a glance at the ground. Swampy forest, liable to floods and
dangerous to health, extended over all the land where the City of Peter
was to rise. The island that became the nucleus of the settlement had
received a name from its hares. A few Finnish fishers, alone among
mankind, broke the silence of its woods. The noble river communicates
with little except timber forests, and wood is to-day brought down to
Petersburg in temporary boats remarkable for their size, their frailty,
and their graceful appearance.
The difficulties in the way of founding a city in such a spot were such
as might well have appalled any ordinary mind. The site had but a few
years before belonged to the Swedes, who maintained a small fort on the
edge of Ladoga, the lake which the Neva drains. They were constantly
making attacks; Charles XII. remarked that Peter was founding cities
only that he might capture them. Petersburg might well have anticipated
the fate of Port Arthur.
The wretched conditions in which operations had to be carried on
brought about an appalling mortality among the workmen employed
in building the new town, however much exaggerated may have been
the foreign reports that two hundred thousand died. The mechanical
appliances available were so extraordinarily poor that earth had to
be carried by each workman as best he could; there was no one about
who could construct a wheelbarrow! Brigands made communications with
Russia unsafe and sometimes did as they pleased in the city itself,
while sentries on duty or citizens going about their business were
occasionally carried off by the wolves. Provisions had to be fetched
from an enormous distance, the cost of living was extremely high.
Though the woods were all around, fuel was so scarce that even the
nobles (who most unwillingly had been compelled to live here for part
of the year) were not allowed to have hot baths excepting once a week.
To add to all this no one except Peter could see the slightest need for
any other capital than Moscow, still less the point of building a city
on this forbidding and man-forsaken spot. But to the Tsar the rising
town was a Paradise, so well loved that he had soon decided to make it
not merely the chief seaport of his Empire, but the capital as well.
The objection which the sagas tell us the eleventh century Russians
showed to outland men having dominion was fully shared by eighteenth
century Russians, and the huge number of them employed about St.
Petersburg helped still more to increase the general loathing for the
new capital. Hardly a nation of Europe failed to supply Peter with
friends and fellow-workers. He honoured them above his own subjects.
Nor did it matter in the least in what circumstances he happened to
encounter them. One day as he was inspecting the operations he chanced
to notice working with the other convicts a scion of the fightingest
family of Scotland, who, born in Sweden, combined with the surname of
Douglas the designation of Gustaf Otto. Captured at Pultowa he entered
the Russian service; having slain a general in wrath, he entered a
Russian jail. But to Peter his failings did not appear at all seriously
to cry to heaven for vengeance. He could well make allowance for the
spirit of a Douglas when provoked, so restored him to all his honours.
In 1719 the now Russified Swede-Scot seized the ancient capital of
Finland, and bore in triumph from the cathedral of Abo the bones of
Henry the English saint (p. 188).[139]
The only antiquities of St. Petersburg are the structures connected
with the life of the strenuous founder. Peter's cottage, which was
erected soon after the works began in 1703, is a large four-roomed,
shingle-roof, log-hut; and the living-room which still contains the
simple wooden furniture that he used enables one to some extent to
picture the backwoods life of the imperial pioneer. The whole is
enclosed in a larger structure of brick, and a miracle-eikon is the
central feature of the shrine that now occupies the chamber where the
great Tsar slept.
Never perhaps was Peter so happy as when he was living here. He hated
lofty rooms and luxurious furniture and costly food. He liked to wear
his oldest clothes and enjoyed working with his own hands. As a great
concession to his wife he consented at Catherine's coronation to wear
a gold-embroidered coat, but could think of nothing except the fact
that its cost would have paid for several soldiers. In Paris he found
the luxury of the Louvre absolutely insupportable. After looking
impatiently at the sumptuous feast set out, he dined off radishes
and bread which he washed down with two glasses of beer. After a
contemptuous survey of the superbly fitted French bedrooms, he rested
for the night on a camp-bed set up in a closet.
Close by the cottage was the small wooden church of the Trinity with
two towers and onion domes which Peter built, but which was burned down
early in 1913.
A picturesque appearance is given to the Neva's northern bank by the
old fort with its needle spire of gold that stands on a little island
of its own, close to the cottage and Trinity church. Peter's old earth
bastions were faced with granite in later days and the east gate is
dated 1740. For defending anything whatever the fortress is no more use
than the Tower of London, but within are pleasant avenues of trees, and
over the roofs of the barracks and other buildings rises the famous
Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, where rest the city's founder and the
later Tsars.[140] A soldiers' city from the very first St. Petersburg
has been, and such it is to-day. Troops constantly pass along the
streets; sentries with bayonets fixed are to be seen on every hand.
The thoroughfares are patrolled by policemen, each armed with baton,
revolver and sword.
Peter planned to build rather a canal town of Holland than a boulevard
city of France. Many of the canals have been filled up, but beside one
of those that remain, in the corner of the beautiful Summer Gardens,
stands the delightful two-storey house with plaster bas-reliefs and
metal roof that Dutch workmen built for Peter; it is known as his
palace to-day. The rooms inside, doored and shuttered with panelled
oak and partly lined with blue Dutch tiles, have a most cheerful and
pleasant character; they contain some rather good carved work that was
tooled by the great Tsar; a mirror-case with stag, foliage, birds and
other things is signed and dated "Peter. 1710."[141]
In this same year he founded a Battle Abbey in thanksgiving for his
victories, although he fully realised the need for reducing the
extremely large number of monks that Russia contained. This convent
helps one to realise how well Peter came to understand the people that
he ruled. If the new city was really to be the capital of this pious
land, something of old Russia, of Holy Russia, must be brought into its
midst. Most fortunately for Peter's plans it chanced that as early as
1241 a Russian general had gotten the surname of Nevski from a victory
he gained over a Swedish army on the banks of the Neva; he had also
become one of the most venerated of Russian saints. Thus the enshrining
of his relics in the cloister church brought to St. Petersburg one of
the holiest things in all the land. Venerable associations that meant
much to the devout were secured to the brand new town.
The very ornate silver shrine stands at present in the south transept
of the church or cathedral which was erected for Catherine II. by
a Russian architect named Staroff.[142] The peace that broods over
this quiet cloister rather reminds one of the south of Europe. The
picturesque convent buildings of yellow and bluish-white plaster are
seen among gardens and trees, while over them appear the towers and
dome of the cathedral and the steeples of the smaller chapels, in one
of which Suworof is at rest. Across a placid canal is the burial ground
of the monks. Even in Russia these men are famous for the beauty with
which they sing the daily offices of the church, unaccompanied by any
kind of instrument--for such is never allowed in buildings of the
Communion of the East.
A roadway cut straight through the forest between this convent and the
Admiralty formed the beginning of the chief street of the present day
city, the well-known Nevski Prospect. The Admiralty stands on the Neva
side where Peter built his first boat on the Baltic; it forms the chief
centre of the city, to which many of the streets converge. The building
in some ways is one of the best in the city, erected in the Renaissance
style by a Russian architect named Zucharoff. A ship in full sail forms
a vane on the needle spire that rises from a square tower lined with
Ionic columns, while the vast building, measuring over 1,300 by 500
feet, is well managed, the long façade being relieved from serious
monotony by an imposing gateway in the centre and by the pilastered
wings rising much higher than the plainer middle part.
Close by is the splendid Winter Palace, another Renaissance building,
designed in 1754 by Rastrelli but considerably modified after a fire in
1837.[143] One side faces the river, the other looks on, to the square
in which rises the tall monolith column that commemorates Alexander
I.--the site of the terrible scenes of January, 1905. By an archway
over the street the palace is joined to the Hermitage, which houses one
of the finest collections on the earth.[144]
While St. Petersburg has been greatly influenced by the street
architecture of Italy and France, its broadways have a distinct
character of their own and resemble the thoroughfares of no other city.
Over streets roughly paved with sharp-edged stones, or the upturned
ends of logs, rattle droskeys, whose shafts and traces both start
from the axle-trees. The horses wear high hames and the drivers long
beards, for Peter's commands that all must shave are now no longer
enforced.[145] The pace at which the horses move is a great contrast to
the leisurely dignity that characterises the citizens.
Over the windows of most of the shops are painted pictures of what
men sell within, for many of the customers are unable to read and
appreciate this guide. Huge gargoyles shoot waterfalls from rain or
melting snow on to the pavements below them, so that much caution must
be used in walking about in wet weather. Something of the café life
of the Continent is to be seen under the creepers and trees of the
pleasant courtyards of hotels. The way in which men kiss each other
both here and in the public streets is at first sight rather startling
to races trained to keep emotions more suppressed, but there is
nothing insincere, and--coupled with many qualities one would fain see
changed--there is a certain gentle and affectionate disposition about
the Russians that becomes more and more attractive as one gets to know
them better.[146]
The most prominent, and in some ways the most interesting, building
in the city is the Metropolitan Church of Russia, the great Cathedral
of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose festival Peter was born. Other
statesmen have chosen new capitals but have been satisfied to leave the
ecclesiastical centre in the older town. No half measures for Peter.
Even the holy Patriarchate of Moscow, sacred to the whole of Eastern
Christendom in a sense from making up again the number of five after
the western one had lapsed into heresy (from the eastern point of
view), he insisted upon sweeping away.[147] It was one of the duties
of the Tsar to lead the donkey upon which the Patriarch rode on Palm
Sunday, and that seemed to Peter to be putting the relations between
Church and State on to a footing wholly wrong. A patriarch once found
fault with the shabby-looking European dress of the emperor, who had
discarded the flowing robes of the East, and Peter had retorted that
he would have expected the head of the Church to be otherwise engaged
than in minding the business of tailors. So when the patriarch died he
did not name another, and at last when the priests begged that some one
might sit in the throne, he is said to have sat there himself with the
remark that he would be patriarch. The Holy Synod was organised instead
and the Church lost almost entirely its old comparative independence
of the State. The synod building is close to the cathedral and the
highest dignitary of the Russian Church is now the Metropolitan of St.
Petersburg.
[Illustration: Cathedrals of Trondhjem (p. 81) and S. Isaac, St.
Petersburg (p. 246), illustrating the very different character of the
Gothic and the Classic styles. (Later Gothic refers only to Trondhjem).]
[_Face page 246_
The existing Cathedral of St. Isaac was forty years in building and
was finished in 1858, the architect being a Frenchman, the Chevalier
de Montferrand. In magnificence of material it surpasses almost all,
and in excellence of position it excels very many of the great churches
of Christendom. Its chief merit is that it is the one building in the
capital that really suggests durability and permanence. There is just
a faint suggestion--very slight indeed, but still impossible entirely
to shake off--of temporary exhibition buildings about the acres and
acres of plaster in which the other great monuments of the capital
are sheathed. But this cathedral is of solid marble or stone, and in
its proportions the most massive large church in Christendom, a very
considerable part indeed of its area being occupied by walls and piers.
On the four sides of the church stand the four noblest porticoes that
have been erected since Roman days. With the proneness of the Eastern
Church to symbolism these glorious portals might have been made to
suggest the City of God, but the opportunity was hopelessly lost; on
the east there is no entrance at all, and the design cannot for one
moment be compared with that of St. Sophia, St. Peter's or St. Paul's.
Indeed, what was intended for stately simplicity has degenerated into
the most hopeless commonplace.[148]
Between St. Isaac's and the river are really beautiful gardens in which
stands the famous equestrian statue of Peter (by the French sculptor,
Falconet), that Catherine II. erected in 1782, on a huge block of
granite.[149] The composition is extremely spirited and it certainly
ranks very high among monuments of a similar kind over the whole world.
The general effect of this wide open space with fine Renaissance
structures all round, including those on the far side of the river, is
exceedingly stately, especially when seen for the first time.
National character is always mirrored in national architecture,
but seldom quite as here. The plan of the city is European and the
conception is of the stateliest; the flat and rather featureless site
on both sides of a noble river is just such as to give the very utmost
opportunity for splendid architectural display. The style chosen for
the buildings, the Classic Renaissance as it was developed in France
and Italy, is perhaps more suited than any other for the objects which
successive emperors had in view. The magnificence of the great broad
streets and boulevards, the ample squares and frequent monuments all
give the impression in very truth of one of the grandest of European
capitals.
The effect that should be produced by the lavish expenditure of money
and the splendour of much of the material are somewhat neutralised,
however, by the fact that the great palaces and churches (with the
exception of St. Isaac's) profess to be what they are not, and expose
to the air no other material than stucco. The very elements rebel
against so much imposture and bring down great patches of plaster,
while western rulers have been utterly powerless to prevent the
appearance of extremely eastern features in every corner of the town.
But in spite of all defects of detail these uniform Classic buildings,
well grouped and set off by wide spaces and trees, produce a really
magnificent effect, and as often as the black peaty earth is exposed by
taking up the streets for drains one realises more fully the miracle
of all these sumptuous structures founded in security upon a quaking
bog.[150] Here is a city, one feels, that was raised by a people of
iron will, a nation that was only invigorated by the centuries of
Mongol domination; a people who seek to be western Europeans, but as
a nation are not, though many individuals among them are leaders in
European thought and science too. In some respects St. Petersburg
gives one the impression of being the capital of a vast dominion more
than any other city on the globe. Even in the British Empire there is
nothing that appeals to the imagination quite in the same way as the
fact that from the Russian capital one may travel entirely on Russian
territory to the frontier of Austria, to the frontier of Japan or to a
point within thirty-six miles of American soil.
Nevertheless, whether for evil or good, the spirit of the West is not
here. The leaders of Asia think, but the leaders of Europe act. Tolstoy
and Kropotkin, household words in countless English homes, have done as
much as almost any others to sustain the present conditions in Russia
by the very elaborateness of their programmes. When England yearned as
Russia yearns she found a Cromwell, not a Tolstoy. He grasped a sword
and the scabbard was thrown away. He had little to say to the world,
but plenty to say to the king. The gentler Russian masses idolise a
man who held an open book for all the world to read, yet did little
to change the constitution of his own times--so far as on the surface
shows. And for all practical purposes the great Russian Empire still
retains the constitution that Ruric gave his conquering hordes. Law is
the word of the prince.
With the House of Commons (ten years after it had put a new sovereign
on the throne) Peter seems to have been less favourably impressed
than with any other English institution. On seeing the lawyers in
Westminster Hall he is recorded to have remarked that there were
only two such people in all Russia and he was going to hang them on
his return. Peter did not see that, however much they may be sneered
at, Parliaments and Law Courts are of the very essence of western
civilisation. Japanese guns at Port Arthur greatly helped to set up
indeed a _duma_ in the city of Peter, but the very place where it meets
indicates the extent of its power. The Taurida Palace stands far east
of the imposing mass of really important Government buildings and is in
a somewhat squalid quarter of the town.
European indeed is this city at first glance, wholly western in style,
in fact one of the most striking groups of European buildings anywhere
on earth to be seen. But step into a side street. Behold the life of
the East! Behold Asiatic bazaars! Goods displayed on quaint little open
stalls whose owners sit among their wares and make their calculations
on the _abacus_ just as one may see in China. And the smells of Asia
are there, and the leisurely pigeons of the East. The unhastening
manner in which everything goes on likewise does much to intensify the
underlying oriental atmosphere of the city. Look up to where the church
towers are crowned by the onion domes of Tatary against a European
sky. Europe in the square, Asia in the lane! Vast Government buildings
reflect the spirit of the West, but toward the painted screens of the
churches moves the changeless mind of the East. The concealed spear
of the Tatar pierces the garment of the European. There is no need to
scratch.
It is a very real relief that one important building openly reverts to
the ancient native style, and brings to the new capital a breath of
Russian mediævalism. It need hardly be said that it is a church; it
commemorates Alexander II. (p. 244) and is appropriately dedicated to
the Resurrection, raised over the spot where he fell.[151] The outlines
of the national story may be read in those of the church. The style
is an attempt at Byzantine, and that reminds us of the fact that it
was to Constantinople and the Eastern Church that Russia eventually
went when in search of a new faith long centuries ago. The effort to
produce the kind of effect of which St. Sophia is the noblest example
is, however, extremely crude; Slavs could never really fathom the
subtlety of the mind of Greece. The nine cupolas[152] are surmounted
(and the character of the building is greatly influenced) by onion
domes so common in the turbaned East, imposed upon Russia with much
else during the long centuries of Mongol rule. The presence of this
feature gives to all truly Russian churches something of the look of
Indian and Central Asian mosques. But this point is concealed by the
Russian priests, who, with their natural proneness to symbolism, will
explain that these onion domes are in reality modelled on rosebuds,
thus typifying the embryo Church on earth, destined to blossom
hereafter in Heaven. Each cupola supports a cross with chains (p. 186)
which surmounts a crescent to symbolise the triumph of Christianity
over Islam and the long series of eastern wars in which Russia has
been engaged. The interior with its glorious and most striking Italian
mosaics evidences the western influences that have spread over Russia
in latter years.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION] [_Face page 254_
The first ship to enter the port of St. Petersburg (in November, 1703)
was Dutch, and it brought a cargo of wine and salt. Peter himself acted
as pilot without telling the Hollanders who he was, but he afterwards
gave great rewards both to skipper and crew, renamed the boat after
the town, and freed it for ever from Russian dues. An English vessel
arrived the same year.
Much earlier the Muscovy Company had originated from the English
efforts to discover the north-east passage to Cathay, and during the
reign of Mary and Philip, Sebastian Cabot became its first Governor.
British trade has been prominent in St. Petersburg ever since the town,
began, and not far below the Admiralty is the old English Quay. Saints
carved in stone mark the sky line of a large Classic building that
looks over the quay to the river, and forming a long upper chamber is
the pilastered Anglican Church.[153]
Suburbs of singular beauty are provided for St. Petersburg by the
lovely islands among which the Neva winds, its different branches
crossed by rough bridges of wood. In places reeds and swamps still
border the woods, giving some idea of the original nature of the
hopeless-looking spot on which Peter decided to build. Here are large
private houses with avenues and flower beds in the style of France,
and many of them have such large grounds that the general impression
in places is very much like that of the Bois de Boulogne.
Even to-day the city of Peter is very largely isolated from the world,
approached by road or rail through long miles of forest and swamp.
Only on a small scale is agriculture or market gardening to be seen.
Nevertheless two country palaces that the founder erected in the
vicinity are centres of some population, Tsarske Selo among the woods
on the way to Moscow and Peterhof on the southern shore of the gulf.
The new Tatar-Byzantine church of the latter is a conspicuous landmark
from the decks of vessels steaming along the Morskoi canal through the
shallow waters between the heavily fortified island of Cronstadt and
the timber port of the city itself.
Of early days at this place we get a rather graphic description in a
letter written by the Hanoverian Resident named Weber in 1718: "When
at last we arrived at Cronslot, the Tsar invited us to his villa at
Peterhof. We went with a fair wind, and at dinner warmed ourselves to
such a degree with old Hungarian wine, although His Majesty spared
himself, that on rising from the table we could scarcely keep on our
legs, and when we had been obliged to drain quite a quart apiece from
the hands of the Tsaritsa we lost all our senses, and in that condition
they carried us out to different places, some to the garden, some to
the woods, while the rest lay on the ground here and there. At four
o'clock they woke us up and again invited us to the summer-house, where
the Tsar gave us each an axe and bade us follow him. He led us into a
young wood where he pointed out trees which it was necessary to fell
in order to make an alley straight to the sea, about a hundred paces
long, and told us to cut down the trees. He himself began work on the
spot (there were seven of us besides the Tsar), and although this
unaccustomed work, especially in our far from sober condition, was not
at all to our liking, we nevertheless cut boldly and diligently, so
that in about three hours the alley was ready and the fumes of wine had
entirely evaporated. None of us did himself any harm except Minister X,
who unconsciously cut one tree and was knocked down by another, badly
scratched. After verbal thanks we received our real recompense after
supper in a second drink, which was so strong that we were taken to our
beds unconscious."[154]
Peter's old villa still exists, a compromise between the styles of
building that prevailed two centuries ago in Holland and France, but
on the top of the wooded slope a long and beautiful palace has been
erected in the style of the Renaissance.[155] The chapel alone is
Russian under five gilded onion domes.
The French-looking grounds are famous for their many fountains, whose
water is brought from a lake miles away. A large number of jets play in
front of the palace itself, and also beside the straight watercourse
that runs down from it to the sea. The effect looking up through the
trees from the road at the bottom is one of the most fairy-like things
on the earth. Walking through the woods one comes upon all sorts of
fountains where they would be expected least. Water runs downstairs
or slips along a marble way under ferns, or sprinkles a statue or an
artificial tree or plays among the columns of an Ionic temple in ruin,
or forms a sort of birthday cake by jets rising higher and higher
toward the centre. The effect of all these fountains among the trees
is really most impressive, no other land has the like. But just as one
is beginning to feel that it is the most magnificent thing upon earth
one remembers that a cold bath in a St. Petersburg hotel costs two
shillings and reflects on the water supply of the capital.
By an artificial tree are hidden jets to throw water all over an
ordinary-looking seat. Such was the idea of a joke entertained by
former Tsars, who also liked to ride in carriages containing musical
boxes under the seats that used to play as they were drawn[156] along
by horses harnessed in red and gold. One may incidentally pick up
many interesting facts about the dead rulers of Russia that are not
inscribed on the page of history.
Judged by results Peter was great indeed if mortal ever was. We are not
asked to call him morally good. Alexandria has a magnificent position
on the shores of the busiest of seas. Constantinople has few rivals in
situation among all the cities of the world. But both are eclipsed in
importance by this whimsical city that Peter insisted upon building
among remote and frozen swamps.
To turn a great people round and force them to look west not east, to
compel them to expect a golden future who before looked to a golden
past--this is as near to an impossibility as ever was attempted in the
history of man. Yet to an amazing extent this Peter actually did.
One's astonishment that he achieved so much is yet further increased
when it is realised that his life was devoted very largely to frivolity
and amusement, that in serious and earnest endeavour he was far
surpassed by many who contrived to accomplish far less.
Of no individual that ever lived perhaps can it be said that he
consciously and deliberately influenced the history of the world to the
same extent as the high-thinking, hard-working, hard-drinking, founder
of Petersburg.
INDEX
AACHEN, 155
Abo, 188, 238
Absalon, Bp., 131
Adam of Bremen, 118, 186
Adrian IV., Pope, 82
Agdaness, 71
Agni's thwaite (position uncertain), 211
Akers Elv, 94
Akuliakattamiut, 64
Akureyri, 61
Alaska, 67
Albert of Mecklenburg, 121
Alexander the Great, 234
Alexander Nevski, St., 241-242
Alexander II. (Russia), 244, 253
Allthing, 39, 43-46, 49, 53
Almenningen, 84
Amager, 131, 143-143
_Ambales Saga_, 149
America, 14, 40, 62, 63, 65, 104, 125, 130, 137, 141, 145, 220, 251
Anderson, Hans, 131, 134, 141-142, 145-148
Anlaf of Black-fen, 42
Arabia, 152
Arboga, Diet of, 189
Arnliot Gellini, 79
Asgarth, 177
Aun, 185
BALTIMORE, 140
Bathridge, 53
Bellman, 206
Bergen, 83, 108, 155
Bernadotte, 102, 215
Berzelius, 219
Birchlegs, 85, 99
Birger, Jarl, 212, 215
Birger, Persson, 195
Bjoörnson, 103, 109
Blood Bath of Stockholm, 217-218
Bo Jonsson, 215
Boston, 29
Brahe, Ebba, 223
Brahe, Tycho, 133-134
Bredablick, 221
Brita, St., 122, 124, 195-196
Bryce, James, 44
_Burnt Njal, Saga of the_, 44
Bygdö, 107
Byström, 192
CALMAR, Union of, 121
Catherine II. (Russia), 242, 249
Charles XI. (Sweden), 164
Charles XII. (Sweden), 196, 197, 203, 214, 236
Charles XV. (Sweden), 223-224
Celsius, 187
Cetil, Bp., 53
China, 108
Christian II. (Scandinavia), 142, 217
Christian IV. (Denmark), 100, 123, 132
Christiania, 100-109
Christianity, Spread of, 15-18, 32, 48-58, 75, 79-80
Christiansten, 88
Christie, 82
Christina, 192, 223
Christopher the Bavarian (Denmark), 132
Cinque Ports, 155
_Codex Argenteus,_ 190
Columbus, 63
Constantinople, 161, 233, 253
Copenhagen, 26, 113, 127-145
Cowper, 23
_Cristne Saga,_ 50, 51
Cronstadt, 256
DAVID, St., 196
Dicuil, 32
Djurgarden, 220
Domald, 184-185
Douglas, Count, 188, 238
Drammensfjord, 94
Dublin, 69-70
Du Chaillu, 82, 87, 191, 223-224
Duf-thac's Scaur, 37
Dyrehaven, 144
EDSVIK, 222
_Egil's Saga_, 51
Eith, 37
Ekhoff, Dr., 167
Ellidaar, 60
Elsinore, 145-146
Enlart, C., 65, 172
Eric IX. (Sweden) St., 187, 192
Eric of Pomerania, 132, 164
Eric the Red, 33, 63
Esia-rock, 48
Esja, 40
Ethelred the Redeless, 114, 152
Etienne de Bonneuil, 193
Ewald, 100
Eyafjordr, 64
_Eyrbyggja Saga_, 38, 51, 54
Eystein, Abp., 84, 85
_FAEREYINGA SAGA_, 14-18, 73
Faroes, 14-27, 31, 32-33, 83
Faxefjoth, 33, 38, 39
Fergusson, 133, 203, 242, 244, 248
Finland, Finns, 187, 212, 236
Finsen, N. R., 25-26
Floki, 23
Flosi, 44-46
Fogelberg, 215
Frederick V. (Denmark), 123, 135
Fredericksborg, 134
Frey, 178, 180
Fyrisa, 188
GAINSBOROUGH, 114
Gard-here, 31
Gardie, de la, 223
Garthrealm, 152-153, 226-233
Gate, 17
Geiger, 191
Geikie, 68
Gilli, 19
Gizor, Bp., 50-52, 55, 61
Gogstad, 104
Gol, 108
Gorm the Old, 12, 113
Gotenburg system, 219
Gothland, 57, 150-175
Goths, 151
Greenland, 34, 63, 83, 127
Grim Camban, 14
Grimkel, Bp., 79
Gudleik, 153
Gustaf Vasa, 192, 197, 217-219
Gustavus Adolphus, 187, 189, 192, 214
Gustavus III. (Sweden), 205
Gyda, 12
HAGGARD, RIDER, 124
Hakluyt, 29
Hakon, Earl, 69-74
Hakon the Good, 104
Hakon IV. (Norway), 99-100
Hallward, St., 94, 99
Hamar, 83, 92
Hamilton, 191
Hanseatic League, 154, 162, 163, 227
Hansen, 131, 139
Harald Blaatand, 113
Harald Fairhair (Shock-head), 11-14
Harald Gilli, 96
Harald Hardredy, 85, 95, 233
_Havards Saga_, 42
Heimaey, 37
_Heimskringla_, 12, 13, 22, 54, 69, 73, 77, 86, 95, 99, 104, 113,
177, 181, 226, 233
Hell, 92
Henry, St., 187-188, 213, 238
Heor-leif, 35
Herd-holt, 41
Hill of Laws, 46, 49
Hodgkin, Dr., 114
Holar, 29, 34, 50, 55, 57, 58, 83
Holger Danske, 134, 146-148
Hollmenkollen, 109
Holmgarth, 153, 227, 233
Holy Roman Empire, 113, 155, 158
Hordaland, 12
Hudson, R., 67
Hugo, Victor, 89
Hultersta, 186
_Hungrvaca_, 53
Hveen, 133
IBSEN, 103
Ingigerd, 231-232
Ingwolf Arnerson, 35-39
Iona, 31
Ireland, Irish, 31-32, 36, 37, 43, 96-99, 229
Isaac, St., 246-248
Isafjordr, 61
JACOBSEN, Carl, 139
Jarisleif, 231-233
_Joans Saga_, 55, 57
John, St., of Holar, 55-57
Jomsburg Vikings, 71
Jutland, 94
KALFSKINSHUSET, 164
Kark, 71-74
Karl Nilsson, 215
Karl o'Mere, 19
Kaupstadr, 37
Keel-ness, 39
Kirkebö, 23, 83
Kirkwall, 83
Klenze, von, 244
Klint, 154, 174
Knut the Holy, 118, 124
Knut the Rich, 80, 94, 114-117
Köln, 163
Kronborg Castle, 145-146
Kungshögar, 180
LADE OR LADIR, 68-76, 77, 80
Ladoga, 236
Laing, Samuel, 134, 165, 204, 223
_Landnama-bok_, 38, 39, 43, 48, 49, 54, 61
Lapps, 221
Larson, L. M., 117
Lava, 54
_Laxdaela Saga_, 41
Leif Ericson, 63
Leif, son of Ozur, 19-21
Lerfos Falls, 91
_Libellus Islandorum_, 32, 34, 35, 50
_Linnæus_, 142, 172, 192, 206, 209, 219
_Liosvetninga Saga_, 30
London Bridge, 114, 152
Longfellow, 52, 198
Longshanks mission, 159
Lowe, R., 28
Lübeck, 119, 163, 164
Lucius, St., 116-117
Lund, 56, 71, 83, 128
Lyngby, 125
MAGNUS, Bp., 53
Magnus the Good, 85
Magnus Ladulaas, 213
Magnússon, 22
Mälar, Lake, 188, 201, 202, 212, 222
Mallet, P. H., 30, 58, 152
Man, 83
Margaret, Queen, 120-122, 143, 164
Marryat, Horace, 186
Micklegarth, 233
Montelius, 106, 181
Montferrand, Chevalier de, 247
Morris, William, 22, 127
Munketorp, 196
NADDODH, 32
Naerofjord, 26
Nelson, 143
Nestor, 227
Neva, 236, 241, 243, 249
Newport, R.I., 65
New York, 225
Nid, R., 68, 75, 76, 91
Niebuhr, 135
Nils the goldsmith, 161
Nolsö, 22
Nova Scotia, 67
Novgorod the Great, 155, 227
ODIN (WODEN), 57, 177-178, 180, 185
Olaf, St., 18, 21, 76-81, 85, 94, 124, 153-154, 168-169, 210-211, 231-233
_Olaf, St., Saga of_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 152, 168, 179
Olaf Tryggvison, 15, 16, 70-76, 113, 229-231
_Olaf Tryggvison, Saga of_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 63, 230
Olavus Petri, 216
_Origines Islandicæ_, 38, 83, 106, 182
Oslo, 83, 95-99
Ostero, 17
Otté, 122, 215
Otto, 113
PARIS, 193, 239
Patrec, St., 48
Peter the Great, 234-260
Peterhof, 256-258
_Pols Saga_, 58
Powell, York, 15, 38
RASTRELLI, 242, 243
Reek-ness, 33
Republic of Iceland, 44
Reykjavik, 32, 33, 38, 40-41, 46-47, 58-61
Riddarsholm, 213
Rognvald, Jarl, 13
Rosenborg, 134
Roskilde (Roiswell), 111-126
Ruric, 227
ST. EDMUNDSBURY, 84
St. Petersburg, 152, 226, 234-260
Salts Vedel, 169
Schuyler, 257
Scotland, 25, 26, 67, 222
Sergei, 206
Shakespeare, 149
Siegfrid, St., 124, 213
Sigmund, 15, 18, 73
Sigtuna, 177, 210, 212
Sigurd, Bp., 80
Sigurd Jerusalem-farer, 96
Skalholt, 50, 53, 54, 58, 83
Skansen, 220
Slite, 154
Smolni, 242
Snaefells Jökull, 40
Snoni Sturluson, 12, 54, 177, 181
Snowland, 32
Sodor (South Isles), 31, 70, 83
Southey, 66
Staroff, 242
Stavanger, 83
Steelyard, 155
Sten Sture, 189
Sticklestead, 80
Stockholm, 199-225
Stralsund, Treaty of, 163
Stromo or Streamsey, 15, 19
Styrmir hinn fródi, 61
Suworof, 242
Svein Twibeard, 113
Svein Wolf son, 117
Sverker house (Sweden), 187, 192
Sverre Sigurdsson, 84, 85
Svoldr, 113
Swedenborg, 197
Sylvanus, 35, 138
TEGNÉR, 68, 198, 199
Tessin, de, 194, 203
Thangbrand, 51-52
Thingvellir, 43
Thjelvar, 151
Thomas, W. W., 207
Thor, 49, 57, 180
Thore, 18
Thor-gar, 49-50
Thorild, 190
Thorir Klakka, 70-71
Thor-kell Moon, 39
Thorlac, Gudbrand, 29
Thorlak, St., 54
_Thorlacs Saga_, 54
Thorshavn, 15, 19, 22-25
Thorwaidsen, 47, 138-140
Thorwolf Butter, 33
Thrand o'Gate, 19-21
Thrond, 16-18
Tokyo, 235
Tolstoy, 251
Tressini, 240
Trondhjem, 76-90, 124
ULFILAS, Bp., 151, 191
Ulriksdal, 222
Upsala, 124, 159, 176-197, 210
VADSTENA, 196
Vaeringian Guard, 233
Varonikin, 248
_Vatzdaela Saga_, 25, 39, 181
Verestchagin, 254
Videy, 61-62
Vigfusson, Gudbrand, 38
Viking ships, 103-106
Vinland the Good, 63
Virginia, 123
Visborg Castle, 164
Visby, 154-175
Vossevangen, 107
Vulgaria, 232
WALDEMAR IV. (Atterdag), 130, 161-163
Weber, 256
Wellesley, 143
Westmen Isles, 37
Wheaton, 12
Wilde, Lady, 93, 140, 142, 176
William the Conqueror, 115
Winchester, 115
Wolf, Earl, 115-117
Worm Lyrgia, 71
_YNGLINGS, SAGA OF_ (part of _Heimskringla_), 117, _seq._, 184
ZIMMERN, HELEN, 154
Zucharoff, 243
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The skald was Thornbiorn Hornklofi; the lay was quoted by Snorri
Sturluson in the _Heimskringla_; it was Englished by Henry Wheaton,
_History of the Northmen_ (1831).
[2] One thing very much to his credit the _Heimskringla_ lets us know:
"Whensoever swift rage or anger fell on him, he held himself aback
at first and let the wrath run off him, and looked at the matter
unwrathfully."
[3] Or Streamsey, the isle of streams, on which Thorshavn stands.
[4] _Faereyinga Saga_, XXX.-XXXI.
[5] All these details are taken from the CLIII. Chapter of the _Saga_
_of Olaf the Holy_, being part of the _Heimskringla_ of Snorri
Sturluson (p. 54), done into English out of Icelandic by William Morris
and Eiríkr Magnússon.
[6] All the places described in this work, except St. Petersburg, are
Lutheran, but see p. 195.
[7] Other derivations have been suggested, but the traditional one
appears by far the most satisfactory.
[8] Of which the best known is Iona.
[9] Dicuil, the Irish chronicler, was greatly impressed by the long
Arctic days of summer.
[10] _Libellus Islandorum_, VI. 1.
[11] It is printed in full in _Origines Islandicæ_, by Gudbrand
Vigfusson and F. York Powell, an extremely useful work, to which I am
greatly beholden.
[12] An excellent account of the constitution of the Republic is given
in James Bryce's _Studies in History and Jurisprudence_, 1901.
[13] _Njals Saga_, translated by Sir George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L.
[14] The lower house is elected by Icelandic males, aged over
twenty-five, paying 8kr. a year in direct taxes, who are their own
masters--a rather restricted suffrage--the upper house is partly
nominated, partly chosen by the lower.
[15] _Landnama-bok_, VI. 1.
[16] _ib._ XIV., 13.
[17] _Cristne Saga_, VIII. 8.
[18] _Liber Islandorum_, X., 3.
[19] _Egils Saga_, 50.
[20] _Eyrbyggja Saga_, 49.
[21] _Thorlaks Saga_, Epilogue and XI., 1. He was never recognised as a
saint in Rome, but that did not in the least affect the reverence felt
for him in Iceland.
[22] _Joans Saga_, II., 1.
[23] _ib._ VII., 3.
[24] The saga distinctly says that the pope approved of the
consecration; it would be interesting to know whether this can be
corroborated. At that time, as is well known, the clergy were in fact
very frequently married in Northern Europe, but it was always papal
policy to prevent it.
[25] _Joans Saga_, XI., 3.
[26] Mr. St. John Hope, to whom I have shown a photograph of the
alabaster retable, says it is certainly of English origin.
[27] _Joans Saga_, XIII., 3.
[28] After leaving the Orkneys or Shetlands, the vessel would touch
at one or more ports in the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador,
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England.
[29] By an old chronicler quoted, but not named, by C. A. Vansittart
Conybeare in his _Place of Iceland in the History of European
Institutions_, 1877.
[30] It is extremely interesting to find so eminent a French antiquary
as C. Enlart seeking to revive the theory that the famous Round Tower
at Newport, R.I., was a church erected by the Norse. See _Revue de
l'Art Chrétien_, Sept.-Oct., 1910. I cannot help feeling, however, that
the balance of probability leans heavily against this view.
[31] I have never seen the Alaska sea-coast; the deep bays and arms of
Nova Scotia, lovely as they are, only mildly recall some of the tamest
of Norwegian seascapes.
[32] The district of which Nidaros or Trondhjem is the centre.
[33] He was Pope Adrian IV., but the _Dictionary of National Biography_
suggests a doubt as to his name having been Nicolas Breakspear at all.
[34] See p. 31. The title of this diocese is still attached to that of
the Isle of Man, but the southern islands are the same as the Isles
attached to the Scottish Diocese of Argyll.
[35] A very interesting account of the foundation of this distant
bishopric is given in _Graenlendinga Tháttr_, a work that gives us
a peep of Greenland in the twelfth century after nothing has been
heard of the colony for a hundred years. It is printed in _Origines
Islandicæ_, Vol. II. See p. 38. The first bishop for Greenland was
consecrated by Archbishop Auzur, of Lund.
[36] "That was a great minster, and wrought strongly of lime, so that
it might scarce be got broken when Archbishop Eystein let take it
down" (_Heimskringla_, Vol. 3, Ch. XXXIX.). All my citations from the
_Heimskringla_ are from the translation by Morris and Magnússon, except
the lay at the beginning of the first chapter.
[37] The corona is very rich. Clustered pillars, with arches divided
by shafts and closed by stone screens, sustain the triforium, whose
two-light openings have large carved caps and varied tracery, and the
clearstorey with tall lancets. The dome-vault, which rises above, is
steadied perhaps, but hardly supported, by very thin flying buttresses
of rounded unconstructive form. The surrounding aisle has the richest
of mural arcading and little chapels open from it to east and north and
south.
Into the east end of the quire a large arch opens from the corona
itself, and a small one each side from the aisle. The quire is almost
all rebuilt, pillars clustered or octagonal deeply fluted, with huge
carved caps, sustain triforium, clearstorey and vaulting of character
not dissimilar to those of the corona. The general effect is extremely
fine, and one is reminded a little of Holyrood Chapel at Edinburgh and
again of Lincoln Angel Quire. The corona recalls the similar feature at
Canterbury, but is very much more beautiful.
The most remarkable feature of the nave is the long and unbuttressed
west front, 120 feet in extent. Two tiers of arches, dating from about
the year 1300, still remain; there is no division of nave or aisle or
tower, but three of the lower arches are pierced by doors, the others
are divided by shafts. The upper arches do not correspond with the
lower ones, than which they are much smaller; they are trefoil-headed
and by corbels converted into niches. The general effect is a little
like that of the west front of Wells, but not to any very striking
extent.
The cathedral is entirely detached, but a short distance to the south,
forming barracks and a military museum to-day, are some remains of the
L-shaped Palace of the Archbishops, displaying Romanesque and early
pointed windows.
[38] Used for Anglican services.
[39] Trondhjem is connected with the interior by some of those superbly
made roads for which Norway is so justly famed. They rest upon about
four feet of stonework, the pieces diminishing upwards so far as size
is concerned. The smaller streams are frequently spanned by arches of
hard granite or other rock so neatly cut that no mortar need be used.
Sometimes the road itself is cut in the living rock of the hills.
The engine sheds are quite a feature of the city, and railways run
southward to the new capital by the valleys of Gula and Glommen and
past Hamar on its lake, also eastward into Sweden, among the mountains
and the lakes. And at a place called Hell the latter line branches
northward to Sunnan, near the head of Trondhjem Fjord.
[40] _Heimskringla, Story of Harald the Hardredy._ Ch. LX.
[41] _ib._ Ch. CIV.
[42] _Heimskringla, Tale of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer._ Chs. XXXIV., XXXV.
[43] Unbuttressed massive walls of stone surround a five-bayed nave
with aisles, and chancel with north chapel, both round-apsed. The
chapel opens to chancel and aisle by doorways rather than arches. The
low clearstorey is lighted only on the south, over the east bay of the
nave rises a tower that forms a lantern. The nave arcades have thick
round pillars with the simplest caps; the chancel is vaulted at a
much lower level than the wooden roof of the nave. The inside is very
striking.
[44] It is difficult, in reading over the play, to understand by
what mental process Nora's preposterous conduct in leaving husband
and children on the very vaguest of quests can be justified or even
palliated. Ibsen merely professed to point out the hardships endured
by women treated as dolls, the remedy for such social evils he did not
essay to prescribe. Some of his most charming works, such as _Dame
Inger of Östraat_, deal with Norwegian history.
[45] Ch. XXVII.
[46] _Origines Islandicæ_, Vol. I., p. 318.
[47] _Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, by Oscar Montelius.
[48] Close to Vossevangen is a building very similar to this one, but
much more interesting, both from its still standing where its builders
wished, and from its greater size; it also seems rather earlier in
date than the stabbur re-erected at Bygdö, and was probably built
about 1300. It is called the Finneloft, and is locally believed to
be the oldest wooden building in Norway that was not a church. The
basement is of slate stone, roughly walled, instead of, as at Bygdö,
timber-work resting on big stones. The first floor in both is framed
of flattened horizontal beams, dovetailed to fit at the corners; but
at the Finneloft there are little passages at the sides occupying
the space which at Bygdö is merely covered by the overhanging of the
upper storey. This stage in both cases is walled with thick boards,
placed vertically and overlapping each other. The roofs are of flattish
pitch and in the pleasant manner of the North simple patterns are
carved on doorpost and lintel and beam. The little side passages and
the manner in which the horizontal beams are often mortised into the
vertical remind one very much of Chinese carpentry, an impression
greatly strengthened by the far more obvious resemblance that Norwegian
Stavekirkes bear to Chinese temples. (See title-page.)
[49] This remarkable little building, like several others of its class,
consists of nave with aisle all round, aisled chancel with apse and an
open cloister girdling the structure. The interior is lofty and dark,
pillars, walls and roof all of timber. The three roofs, of cloister,
aisle, and clearstorey, rising one above another, are increased to six
by a turret-like structure that rises in three stages from the middle
of the nave roof. The effect produced is singularly like that of a
small Chinese temple, especially as queer objects like dragons project
diagonally from the corners of the ridges. The cloister part seems far
more suited to China than to Norway. In England there is a stavekirke
at Greensted, near Ongar, supposed to have been erected in 1013 as a
resting-place for the body of St. Edmund. The side walls are built of
oak-trunks, but it is as plain as it could possibly be.
[50] _Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf the Holy_, Ch. XI.
[51] In his first volume to the _Political History of England_, edited
by Hunt and Poole.
[52] L. M. Larson. _Canute the Great, and the Rise of Danish
Imperialism during the Viking Age._ 1913.
[53] It is doubtless largely for this reason that Adam sometimes writes
rather from the Danish point of view. The Icelandic Sagas are as free
from bias as any history works in the world.
[54] The quire has but a single bay with a round apse, there are
transepts, there is a nave of seven bays. At the west end this is
flanked by towers and an aisle girdles the structure from one tower
and back to the other, running all round the apse--for the transepts,
which no longer project, are reduced very largely to sections of the
aisles. In the sacristy may be seen remains of the arch between the
south transept and the eastern chapel which extended it before it was
cut back.
The interior is very striking from the unusual and pleasing combination
of white and red. Bricks are exposed where are shafts and at the
edges of the arches; white plaster covers walls and vaults. Many of
the arches are round, but pointed ones are always used for the plain
quadripartite vaulting. The windows are all single, some in groups
of three, but they are numerous and wide enough to make the building
extremely light. The blindstorey (triforium) is open to the church by
arches about the same size as those that communicate with the aisles.
Round the apse these two tiers of arches rest on shafts of granite,
elsewhere stone is very sparingly used for capitals and a few other
details. The blindstorey, itself vaulted above the vaulting of the
aisles, forms a passage the whole way round the church, a groined
gallery on two pillars carrying it from tower to tower, and wooden
balconies across the transepts. (These look like sixteenth century
work; can they have been erected when the transepts were cut back,
perhaps at the Reformation?) By means of a simple archway over a road
the blindstorey also communicates with the old Bishop's Palace to the
eastward. The clearstorey has no passage along its windows, but round
the apse there is an extra arcade between it and the blindstorey, which
greatly improves the effect.
The quire and apse with the central space and one bay of the nave are
higher in floor-level than the rest of the church, and underneath is a
crypt whose vaulting rests on a row of square columns, and whose small
windows open to the aisles.
Some of the fittings are extremely beautiful Renaissance work,
especially the reredos with folding wings. This, it is said, a Dutch
skipper was trying to smuggle through the Sound; on being detected he
placed on it a ludicrously low value, hoping that the duty might thus
be extremely light. Unfortunately, however, the Danish authorities
preferred to purchase the work at the figure that its too clever owner
had named. The worrying resourcefulness of customs house officials is
no new thing.
[55] The earliest that exists was built in 1384 by Bishop Ulfeld, who
hallowed it to St. Laurence; the vaulting springs from little grotesque
heads, and there are some beautiful wall paintings. In fact, many
such have survived throughout the cathedral. Joining it on the west
is another little square chapel, erected 1464, hallowed to St. Brita
(p. 195). Here is some really beautiful old woodwork, and one of the
wall paintings shows us a green devil writing. Westward it joins the
north porch. Touching the south porch on the other side of the nave
is the large chapel to the Three Holy Kings, erected 1459-64. A much
older granite shaft with details of Byzantine character stands in the
centre to support the vault which elsewhere rests on ancient corbels.
Foliage and figure paintings cover vault and walls, and there are two
sumptuous Classic Renaissance monuments to Christian III. (1533-59)
and Frederic II. (1559-88). The former was chiefly responsible for the
Danish Reformation, but neither king has so large a place in history as
the columned canopies and numerous figures of their marble monuments
might seem to imply. On the north side of the church Christian IV.
(p. 132) built a fair chapel with star vaulting (whose character is
indicated on the plan), resembling that of one bay in the sacristy. It
is an interesting specimen of Gothic, dated 1615, the iron grill screen
1620, and the light streams in through two large four-fold windows,
whose tracery is formed by the mullions intersecting, a common form in
English work of that day, which is found also in a few of the oldest
churches of Virginia. These are the only windows in the cathedral that
are not single lights except the double ones in the upper stages of the
western towers, which are later than the lower parts. The tall taper
spires, copper-sheathed and nearly round, were added by the same king;
they are a distinct improvement on those of the cathedral at Lübeck,
which they rather resemble, and an ornament to the whole countryside.
The great Chapel of Frederick V. (1746-66) is cross-shaped with a huge
dome rising above; there are pilasters against the walls, and two
columns (all with Ionic caps) separate it from the wide vestibule which
joins the church. It is lighted from high up, and is a very fine thing
in itself, though hopelessly out of keeping with the cathedral. (It was
built after the death of the king whose name it bears, p. 135.)
[56] _Rural Denmark and Its Lessons._ 1911.
[57] This is at Lyngby, about seven miles from Copenhagen. Near the
museum are the Agricultural College and an experimental farm.
[58] The Danish West Indies are St. Thomas, St. John and Santa Cruz,
just east of Porto Rico. No country in the Polar regions extends much
further north than Greenland.
[59] What remained of Axelhus was destroyed in 1740, when
Christiansborg Palace was erected to gratify a whim of the German
Queen, Sophia Magdalena of Kulmbach-Bayreuth. This structure was burned
down in 1794 to be replaced by the palace burned in 1884, which was
built in 1828 from designs by Hansen. The Rigsdag met there.
The present citadel, protected by water and grass banks, buried in
trees which hang over the moats, and dominated by a windmill, is on the
Sound at the other end of the Amager channel. Most of the grass-grown
rampart walls (near which was Andersen's Warton Almshouse) that
surrounded the town and connected with the citadel have been removed,
as Copenhagen had spread far beyond them, and they had become entirely
out of date.
[60] Fergusson is most unkind in his references to Danish Renaissance
buildings, particularly this structure, "of which the inhabitants of
Copenhagen pretend to be proud."
[61] Trinity Church, of which this observatory is architecturally at
any rate the tower, is a really noteworthy specimen of seventeenth
century Gothic. Tall pointed windows pierce the walls along the sides
and round the apse; octagonal pillars sustain the high-ribbed vault
with painted bosses. There is no clearstorey, and the effect within is
as striking as it is simple.
[62] Hans Andersen. Brahe did not accept the Copernican system, though
he first noticed the variations in the motions of the moon, and has
hardly been excelled as a practical astronomer. He died in the service
of the Emperor at Prague, 1601.
[63] Practically forming part of the same design as the Amalienborg,
and admirably completing it, is the Frederiks Kirke, which raises a
great dome behind a Corinthian portico to the height of over 260 feet.
Its construction dragged on from 1749 to 1894. The view from the top
passes that from the Round Tower.
[64] But while interest in the past, far more widespread than in most
other countries, has done very much to bring objects of interest to the
National Museum, England has been incomparably more happy than Denmark
in preserving for generations yet to come the buildings of mediæval and
Renaissance days (p. 125).
[65] English education, in some ways excellent, attaches far too
little importance to stimulating the imagination. I once met a very
intelligent Cornishman who had been through the schools of his native
county with credit, and could speak interestingly on many subjects,
but he had never even heard of King Arthur. That is anything but an
isolated instance.
[66] Nor is it well to forget that the main reason for their great
success is that the Danes are sufficiently educated to co-operate,
instead of deeming every neighbour a necessary rival. Both town and
country benefit alike. The capital is provided with pure milk at about
half the London prices by the Copenhagen Milk Supply Company, from
which the very poor may have milk for their babies without money and
without price.
[67] The church was designed by Hansen, and erected about a century
ago. The general appearance of the neighbourhood will be greatly
improved by the tall spire in the style of Wren, which Dr. Carl
Jacobsen is giving, but the portico will be still further crushed. No
one ever yet designed a Greek temple that would look well surmounted by
a tall Christian steeple.
[68] All the figures were designed by Thorwaldsen, but some were
finished by pupils. There is a reproduction of that representing Christ
in the Johns Hopkins Hospital at Baltimore.
[69] Lady Wilde, _Driftwood from Scandinavia_, 1884.
[70] Knut the Holy (p. 118), dedicated to St. Alban his church at
Odense.
[71] It is, of course, impossible that a work like the present should
even refer to all the collections and interesting buildings in such a
city as Copenhagen.
[72] The sound dues which the owners of the castle collected from all
the ships that sailed by dated from Hanseatic days. For Sweden they
were abrogated by treaty in 1645, for other nations they were commuted
for money in 1857.
[73] E. C. Otté, _Scandinavian History_.
[74] It does not seem certain that the term Gothic was applied to
architecture in contempt of mediæval work. Evelyn in 1641 speaks of
"one of the fairest churches of the Gotiq design I had seene," at a
time when "Gothic" was used much as we employ "Teutonic" to-day. In
1713 Wren (_Parentalia_, a family biography by his son) says, "This we
now call the Gothick manner of architecture so the Italians called what
was not after the Roman style." The depreciatory use of the term seems
first to occur in Dryden, 1695: "All that has not the ancient gust is
called a barbarous or Gothique manner." So that it seems quite possible
that Gothic architecture merely signified the style of the North of
Europe as opposed to that of the South. Mallet (_Northern Antiquities_,
translated from _Introduction à l'Histoire de Dannemarc_, 1770) refers
to so many mediæval "edifices wherein we can find nothing to admire but
the inexhaustible patience and infinite pains of those who built them!"
[75] Helen Zimmern. _The Hansa Towns; Story of the Nations._
[76] Only a few miles from Visby is the ruined monastery known as Roma
Kloster.
[77] In a most interesting paper on the Walls of Visby read before the
_Royal Institute of British Architects_, December 16, 1912, which I
have found of much value.
[78] Another sea-tower is known as Silfverhättan from the material with
which it was roofed in the very wealthy days of old.
[79] It finally became Swedish again in 1645.
[80] There are still some slight remains, but the greater part was
carried away by Charles XI. for the building of Karlskrona in the
seventeenth century.
In the grounds of the Burgomaster's House are some remains of the
Kalfskinshuset, which seems to have been built originally in the
early fourteenth century, the land being secured by making a calf's
skin cover a fair area by cutting it into strings, much as was done
with an ox-skin at Carthage. The owner of the ground when making the
arrangement imagined he was only parting with about one square yard.
[81] _Tour in Sweden_, 1838.
[82] The main part is square, and the roughly vaulted roof is supported
on four round arches that rest on square columns, placed close to the
four corners. To the north and south and also to the west there project
very shallow arms the same height as the rest. Over the western one
and resting its corners on two of the large columns, rises a great
square tower, three two-light windows aside in its upper stage. In the
thickness of the walls there are stairs and galleries on three levels,
whence varying views of the interior are gained. A comparatively low
arch in the eastern wall opens to a small chancel, rib-vaulted and
extended by a horseshoe apse. The details throughout are Romanesque of
the plainest and the best, but the inspiration is clearly Byzantine. On
a small scale the same sort of combination is attempted that La Farge
has essayed in the great Cathedral of St. John at New York.
[83] The square nave and four pillars were preserved, but instead of
being close to the corners the columns were so spaced that the nine
compartments of the vaulting should be practically equal squares. The
vaulting ribs or arches, three against each wall, now look into the
roofless nave. Not quite in the centre of the middle one on the east
a round arch opens into the roofless chancel with horseshoe apse. A
two-bay chapel projects on the south, and westward is a huge oblong
tower with stairways in the thickness of its north and southern walls.
[84] There is the same kind of oblong tower and the vaulting of the
square nave rested on four octagonal pillars, which were placed near
the corners of the walls. From a clustered respond in the chancel it is
evident that there was a north chapel.
[85] This is a late Romanesque building whose nave vault rested on
four fairly equally spaced pillars, and the strong wide tower opened
by arches both to nave floor and to the space above the vault. An arch
just pointed, resting on clustered responds, opens to the roofless
chancel which has a square east end; buildings joined it north and
south; that on the latter side was evidently a transeptal chapel.
Another square four-pillared late Romanesque nave was apparently that
of St. Hans (Johans = John), but hardly a thing remains except a large
and lofty chapel of later date with beautifully moulded corbels, in the
north-east corner.
These square churches are extraordinarily interesting to the student of
architecture from the fact that they display Byzantine forms exercising
an influence on the development of Gothic in the far north of Europe.
Unfortunately the new idea does not seem to have spread beyond the
island, but it is full of suggestion for small town churches at the
present day, especially where the site is awkward and cramped.
[86] The lower one just pointed, the upper round.
[87] There are a few British instances of Romanesque churches, square
without and apsidal within. Such are the Oratory of St. Margaret in the
Castle at Edinburgh, two chapels in Romsey Abbey, and one in the ruined
Abbey at Shaftesbury. A Renaissance instance of the same thing exists
in the Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge.
[88] It is a fine late Romanesque building, quite moderate in scale.
For five bays extend nave and aisles, and the square chancel is flanked
by small towers which become octagonal above the roof. (These are a
characteristic German feature, and recall Trier or Mainz, but this
Visby church has no resemblance to any existing building in Lübeck.)
Pillars of some variety with figure-and leaf-carved caps sustain the
triple vault, nor is the centre carried higher than the aisles. The
great south door, six times recessed with shafts both round and square,
is a magnificent example of what in England is called Norman work.
There are many such fine doorways in the town, but no other is as good
as this. Rather later than the rest a great west tower was built, and
on the northern side it has a gallery open by a rich arcade.
Extensive alterations and additions to the church were undertaken when
men first began to build large traceried windows; they probably went on
for long, but it may safely be assumed they were in progress about the
year 1300. Most beautiful windows with foliated circles in their heads,
not all alike, were pierced through the elder walls. A fair chapel was
added west of south, adorned with pinnacles and gargoyles and statues
and recessed carved door; clustered shafts hold up its vault. The
climate doubtless caused it to open by a doorway, not arches, to the
church. A tall addition was raised over the church with blindstorey
arches and trefoil lancets in the clearstorey walls. It is a tempting
hypothesis that it was intended to break through the central vault and
to double the height of the nave, but C. Enlart is almost certainly
right in saying: "These lofty halls above Scandinavian churches are
sometimes habitable. The one which still rises over the nave of the
church of St. Mary, now the cathedral, at Visby, had a chimney. It was
the seat of the consulate of the Lübeck merchants, to whom the church
belonged" (_Revue de l'Art Chrétien_, Sept.-Oct., 1910). In the middle
ages churches served for the most miscellaneous purposes, and meetings
of all kinds were held in them. In much the same style two stages were
added to each of the eastern towers. In later days Renaissance spires
were added to all the three towers, the largest having a balcony all
round. A canopied pulpit was set up in the church, which is dated 1684.
[89] At first sight the remains of Romanesque work are by no means
clear, but the spacing of the pillars through the seven bays is
exceedingly irregular, and on the south by the ruined cloister is an
older chapel, the vault below quadripartite, above a tunnel. This
church was finally consecrated, it seems, only in 1412, and it is
apparently the only important mediæval building which is subsequent in
date to the raid of 1361. The tower stood at the west end till 1885,
and then it had to be removed or it would have tumbled down.
[90] Square pillars, thirty feet in height, sustain the vaulting arches
and fragments of the rough rubble vault. One of them has a shield
inscribed "IACOB CHABBA A." At the east end two pillars are octagonal
for a change; at the west old Romanesque responds are used. On the
north remains a newel stair that led, it seems, to pulpit, rood and
roof. Along the same side are still the remains of the vaulted cloister
of the friars.
[91] St. Göran is of late twelfth century date, and the low chancel
still retains its vault, rising from corbels to a sort of dome at the
top. From the keystone of the chancel arch started the vault-supporting
arches that ran down the centre of the nave and rested on two pillars,
round and square. Tall round-arched windows pierce the walls; there are
twin west doors and three high gables mark the sky.
[92] _Heimskringla; Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. II.
[93] _Story of the Ynglings_, Chs. X. & IX.
[94] _Story of the Ynglings_, Chs. XII. & XIII.
[95] _ib._, Ch. XL.
[96] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. LXXVI.
[97] _Preface to the Heimskringla._ Presumably there was a transition
period.
[98] _The Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times_, by Oscar Montelius.
Englished by Rev. F. H. Woods, 1888.
[99] There is a ghost story about the dead men in an Icelandic howe in
the _Tale of Thorstan Oxfoot_. Printed in _Origines Islandicæ_. Vol.
II., p. 585.
[100] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XIV.
[101] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XVIII.
[102] This is certainly not the real derivation of the term. Morris and
Magnússon suggest that it may be "land of ten hundreds." Snorri was
wrong in his belief that it meant "Tithe-land."
[103] _Story of the Ynglings_, Ch. XXIX.
[104] However, Horace Marryat, _One Year in Sweden_, 1862, tells us
that when in 1803 Hultersta Church was destroyed there were discovered
"two pagan altars of sacrifice, fitted with chimney-pipes, still
containing ashes and bones of animals, bricked up when the building was
adapted to Christian worship."
[105] _Monumenta Hist. Vet. Upsaliæ_, 1709, by E. Benzelius.
[106] Within there are interesting fittings both of mediæval and
Renaissance date; including a carved reredos of the thirteenth century.
There are the graves of Fornelius, chaplain to Gustavus Adolphus and
of another pastor, named Celsius, who died in 1679. His grandson, of
thermometer fame, is commemorated by a tablet.
[107] There are women students as well as men.
[108] The present building is a little later than his time, an
interesting early pointed structure, partly of brick and partly of
granite. Saddle roof tower, nave and aisles of five bays with transepts
small and low. Brick arches and piers are partly cut into mouldings and
clustered shafts, while angel paintings over the rib-vaulted roof have
been restored with care.
[109] There is a nave of seven bays and a quire of four, each with
aisles and outer chapels, the western towers being the full width
of both; each transept is of two bays and aisleless, the apse is
three-sided with ambulatory and five radiating chapels, themselves
apsidal. The corresponding chapels of Notre Dame, no less than thirteen
in number, are not apsidal except the central one (though they usually
are in other great French Gothic churches), but they were not built at
the time Upsala was erected. In the case of Notre Dame the nave has
two more bays and the quire one more, while the chapels, which were
additions, are beyond the outer aisles. The length of Notre Dame is 430
feet, that of Upsala 360 feet, while across the transepts the French
cathedral measures 165 feet, the Swedish 135 feet. The building of
Upsala Cathedral was not finished till the fifteenth century, and the
traceried windows in aisles and clearstorey are rather poor. The arches
of the nave chapels are without caps, those of the quire in the same
position are rather elaborate, and there is some good carved work over
doors and round the ambulatory, though hardly in the same class with
that at Notre Dame. The church was largely rebuilt in 1885-93, when the
tall metal spires replaced rather ugly eighteenth century turrets and
the central flèche was built. Both inside and outside look very new.
The former is largely covered with modern paintings, and nearly all the
fittings are recent except the beautiful Renaissance canopied pulpit by
Tessin (p. 203).
(I am unable to agree with Fergusson in thinking this "an extremely
uninteresting church." T. Francis Bumpus, in his beautiful work, _The
Cathedrals and Churches of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark_, 1908, comes to
the conclusion that French influence in the design was small, and that
it is to be attributed to a Swedish architect under very strong North
German influence, but his reasons do not seem very conclusive.)
[110] _Hale Lectures_, 1910; _The National Church of Sweden_, by John
Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury. They were delivered in St. James'
Church, Chicago, and grew out of the proposals for the union of the
Swedish Church with the Anglican Communion. When in 1593 the Swedish
Church in council at Upsala accepted the Augsburg confession of faith,
the succession of Bishops and the ancient order were zealously guarded.
Nevertheless, clergy ordained by the superintendents or Bishops of the
other Scandinavian Churches (who have no succession from the mediæval
Church) are admitted to Swedish altars.
[111] Among other monuments, which are not very remarkable, is one with
a marble effigy to John III. (d. 1592), which was executed in Italy.
[112] _Rambles in Sweden and Gothland_, by "Sylvanus," published 1854.
[113] The names of the nine islands are these: Stadsholmen (on
which was the original settlement), Kungsholmen, Riddarsholmen,
Helgeandsholmen, Skeppsholmen, Kastellholmen, Stromsborg, Djurgarden,
Beckholmen. They are of extremely unequal size. The greater part of the
city is on the mainland north and south, and the suburbs spread on to
an indefinite number of other islands.
[114] Many fine structures all over Sweden were erected by the same
architect. Most of them were country seats for the nobility, who
desired to house worthily the magnificent collections of art that had
been the spoils of the Thirty Years' War, the only lasting monument for
Sweden of the victories of her armies of old.
[115] _Tour in Sweden in 1838._
[116] Within the effect is very splendid with many halls, a fine chapel
and bewilderingly numerous suites of apartments. The great marble stair
on the east with double columns in the three orders on the three levels
is a magnificent feature. The inlaid floors and carved panelling,
the really well-planned decorations, largely in white and gold,
with ceiling paintings by Jacques Fouquet and others, all give the
impression that the mansion has for generations been the home of people
of culture and taste. The traditional absence of formality in the
Swedish court is displayed by the way in which the public are admitted
to the comfortable private rooms, where copies of the English _Graphic_
lie about and unbound Tauchnitz editions provide an admirable selection
of English literature. A forest of horns and other trophies of sport
in the billiard room, in fact to a great extent the whole atmosphere,
suggest a large English country house.
[117] Miss M. E. Coleridge wrote a novel about him called _The King
with Two Faces_.
[118] In his excellent work, _Sweden and the Swedes_ (one of them his
wife), 1893. He was U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway.
[119] The National Museum, among many other things including a gallery
of pictures old and new, possesses a collection of prehistoric
antiquities rivalled only by that of Copenhagen. In the Humlegard
(Botanic Garden) is a bronze statue of Linnæus in the centre of flower
patterns; it also contains the Riks-Bibliotek, or National Library,
among whose treasures are the Latin _Codex Aureus_, and the _Gigas
Librorum_, one of whose illuminations is a huge coloured figure of the
devil--spoils of the Thirty Years' War.
[120] According to one legend the women of Wärend gained their ancient
privilege of inheriting on equal terms with men by similar service
against the Danes. The privilege is now extended all over the country.
[121] He was crusading in Finland when his son Valdemar, first of the
Folkungar Line, was chosen king by the Council on the collapse of the
House of Sverker.
[122] Quoted by Otté.
[123] A nobler English saint (who with St. Peter shares the dedication
of the Anglican Church in Stockholm), was one of the earliest and best
Apostles of the Faith in the Swede-realm. Coming once to the borders
of a lake, St. Siegfrid (or Sigurd) saw a bright vision of glistening
angels, and vowed to raise a church where the cathedral of Vexio now
stands.
[124] Rhyming Chronicle, quoted by Otté.
[125] There is a statue to him just east of the church.
[126] It is often called the cathedral, but incorrectly. Stockholm
is extra-diocesan, forming a sort of "enclave" administered by the
Pastor Primarius and his consistory; necessary episcopal functions
are performed by the Archbishop of Upsala. The church, originally
about the same age as the Riddarsholmskyrka, was largely reconstructed
about 1736, the chancel being removed, and the outer aisles apparently
built. The square clock-tower has pilasters, the church has Classic
buttresses, cornices, etc., but there are some mongrel-decorated
windows. The interior is still largely mediæval, and most impressive
from the wide dimensions--eight bays and five aisles all vaulted at the
same level. The brick pillars are mostly clustered, the central vault
has most ornate brick ribs, and the aisle roofs have remains of old
paintings. There are really splendid Renaissance fittings, including a
lovely Augsburg carved wooden reredos, stone font with Runic patterns
dated 1514, two canopied thrones, carved pulpit and organ case, some
fine tombs and tablets with several effigies and one canopy, besides a
knight on horseback larger than life slaying a dragon.
[127] Canon Wieselgren, of Göteborg (Gotenburg), was the main leader
in the triumphant temperance movement, aided by the great chymist,
Berzelius, who has a statue in the little Stockholm park that bears his
name. Gustavus III. in 1775 had made distilling and selling spirits a
Government monopoly, yielding a chief item of revenue. When this was
abolished and distilling became absolutely free to all the state of
Sweden became much worse than before.
Eventually drinking was reduced to its present very moderate dimensions
by confining the manufacture and sale of spirits to companies which
may make what profit they can on everything else, but are only allowed
five per cent. on drinks, any surplus being handed over to the local
authority for providing such things as lectures, sports, excursions and
libraries. As in America, districts may vote to be entirely "dry" if
they prefer. This arrangement, generally called the Gotenburg system,
with local variations, is in force over most of Norway and Sweden.
Göteborg adopted it in 1865, and Stockholm followed in 1877. Beer is
outside the arrangement.
[128] Judging from the Lapp huts outside museums and the ordinary Zulu
kraal of Natal, the African natives are the cleaner of the two races.
[129] Not far from Skansen is the Hasselbacken Restaurant, whose
cooking is unsurpassed in France.
[130] Both thistle and globe artichokes are extensively cultivated
for the markets of Stockholm. Tobacco is another crop very often to
be seen; its growth is no new industry, it is mentioned by Laing in
1838, and he says it is used largely for snuff. Mere frames of poles on
wheels serve for the ingathering of harvest.
[131] _The Land of the Midnight Sun_, by Paul Du Chaillu, 1881. The
author was French by birth.
[132] The form Russia was not known till the end of the seventeenth
century. In Great Blakenham Church, Suffolk, there is a monument of
1645 to a London merchant, named Swift
"Honoured abroad for wise and just,
Aske the Russe and Sweden theis."
[133] The original authority for Ruric and his viking followers
settling at Novgorod in 862 is the _Chronicle_ of Nestor, a monk of
Kiev, who died about 1114. There is a very good account of early
Russian history in W. R. Morrill's _Russia_ in the _Story of the
Nations_.
[134] _Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf Tryggvison_, Ch. VII.
[135] _ib._, Ch. XXI.
[136] _Saga of Olaf the Holy_, Ch. CXCI.
[137] _ib._, Ch. CXCVIII.
[138] _Heimskringla, Saga of Harald the Hardredy_, Ch. XVI.
[139] My friend, A. Rothay Reynolds, author of _My Russian Year_, has
very kindly elicited for me the information that these relics no longer
exist. Although the sagas give no hint of any difference of religious
views between Russians and Norse (p. 233), the bones of St. Henry
were evidently insulted at St. Petersburg, where they might with more
appropriateness have been shrined.
[140] The present building was erected about 1733 from designs by
Tressini, an Italian architect. It is a rather commonplace Classic
church whose details are extremely poor, though the interior has a
certain impressiveness from the tall pillars supporting the roof, for
the usual galleries are not there. Over the windows are cherubs. Over
the eastern octagon rises a little onion dome. The tower that surmounts
the western front is crowned by the gilded needle spire which soars,
out of all proportion to the church, no less than 364 feet into the
air, sometimes most impressively catching the light of the setting sun
while all is in shadow around.
[141] This house contains the very distorting panes of glass that were
the earliest to be made in Russia. The only large buildings in the
city that Peter ever saw are part of the University and an adjacent
palace of Menshikóf, now a school of cadets. Both are stucco and
uninteresting; one bears the date 1710.
[142] So that it is rather curious that this building should be on
the whole the most perfect reproduction of an Italian church in St.
Petersburg. There is nothing Russian about it; just an ordinary
cruciform domed Renaissance building, 255 feet long.
The other large monastery in St. Petersburg, Smolni, by the bend in the
river, has buildings surrounding two huge courts which are made very
pleasant by trees. The first, which is much the larger, has a covered
cloister all round and a high dome in each corner. The centre of the
western side is left open to expose to the street the chief façade of
the church, which, like the Chantry at Winchester, stands detached
in the centre of the court. It is a simple and impressive Italian
Renaissance building, 245 feet long, with pilasters on two levels and
in the centre a lofty tower, open to the top within. The interior is
all white, some marble shafts giving relief to the eternal plaster.
Designed by Rastrelli in 1734, the structure follows the type of his
native country, except that five great onion domes mark as Russian the
top of the tower. The faults of the building are glaring enough, but
Fergusson seems rather severe in his remark: "It would be difficult to
find in Europe anything so really bad as this."
[143] Its dimensions are 731 by 584 feet. There are three stories with
pilasters on two levels, but the architrave bends over each of the
upper windows, and the consequent loss of the horizontal line that
is of the very essence of Classic architecture, is absolutely fatal
to the effect. Several halls and other chambers within are extremely
magnificent, but the most glorious columns of marble support gilded
capitals of plaster, and there is a good deal to justify Fergusson's
observation about a man of taste recoiling in horror from such a
piece of barbaric magnificence. The chapel is frankly Russian with
the customary onion dome. The figures of the eikonastasis stand out
detached, though the Eastern Church as a rule holds anything more than
very slight relief as a breach of the Second Commandment. This little
building contains some priceless relics, hands of the Baptist and of
the Virgin, a fragment of the body of St. George, a piece of the true
cross, a picture painted by St. Luke! There are relics nearer our own
day in the chamber where the second Alexander died in 1881, after being
wounded by the bomb (p. 253). His empty study chair, the books as he
left them on the table, the few coins in his pocket when he went out
for the last time, his unfinished cigarette, his coat thrown over the
back of a chair, the couch on which he passed away.
[144] This structure is more Greek in design, the architect was Baron
Leo von Klenze, of Munich, and it was erected about the middle of
the nineteenth century. There are two large courts, but one of them
is divided by the great staircase which rises between two rows of
magnificent grey marble columns that support the plaster ceiling; other
portions have a very rich effect from the profusion of coloured marbles
and the beautiful inlaid wood flowers which almost give the impression
of mosaic. The lower storey forms a very complete museum, beginning
with ancient Egypt and including many interesting things from different
parts of the Russian Empire. The upper storey, which is higher and much
better lighted, houses the famous collection of pictures.
[145] The reason was that he wanted his people to look more European,
but the Russians held a good deal of the oriental view of the
sacredness of beards, and some preserved their cut-off hairs to be
buried with them and enjoyed in the next world.
[146] This characteristic seems even more apparent among Russians in
the Far East than in their own capital.
[147] The original Patriarchates were those of Jerusalem, Antioch,
Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome. That of Moscow dated from the
sixteenth century.
[148] Each portico has eight huge monolithic columns of red Finland
granite, 56 feet high (bases and Corinthian caps of bronze), to support
the sculptured tympanum, whose figures are in high relief, and is
approached by a stately flight of steps. Except on the east there are
splendid portals with grape patterns in stone and beautiful relief
bronze doors. The side porticoes are deeper than the others and flanked
by turrets for bells. The plan of the church is a simple oblong, 305 by
166 feet. Only four great windows admit light to the interior (except
for a single one behind the altar opening into the eastern portico and
those of the lantern dome), one on each side of the lateral porticoes.
These naturally dwarf the design very much. A rather poorly planned
circular colonnade and iron dome rise through the roof, resting on
four huge piers in the church. The arrangement of the vaulting is made
to suggest the ordinary cruciform plan, with a dome in each corner.
The general effect is extremely rich from the magnificent shafts of
malachite and lapis lazuli, and the lavish decorations of inlaid
marble and mosaic, but nothing can redeem the poverty and commonplace
character of the design. Fergusson calls the building a cold and
unsatisfactory failure, and says there is not a week's thought in the
whole design from pavement to dome cross. This it is not easy to deny,
but there is much to redeem the failure, particularly in the splendour
of the material.
The other Renaissance buildings of the city are very numerous, and
in many cases very large, but for variety they cannot be said to be
remarkable. Of the foreign architects successively employed, not one
was really good, and decidedly the best buildings on the whole are
those designed by Russians who had mastered the principles of the
foreign style. One of the most successful, by Varonikin, was erected
at the worst possible period--the early nineteenth century. It is the
Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, an Italian building, 257 feet long.
Inviting colonnades extend from the north transept to the street,
forming a vast semi-circle and suggesting the piazza of St. Peter's.
The portico of the transept appears in the centre with the dome rising
above, and, material apart, this is one of the most successful things
of its kind ever built. Nave and south transept also have porticoes.
The columns throughout the building are in pairs, and within the
effect is most striking from the granite columns that uphold the great
entablature, the lofty flat roofs of the aisles, and the way in which
the lantern rises from arches which terminate the tunnel vaults of the
four arms. Much of the eikonastasis is of silver, and the floor is
marble inlaid.
[149] The centre of gravity of the rearing horse is successfully
preserved in the right place by making the metal almost solid at the
back and quite thin in front. In November, 1770, Rev. J. C. King wrote
to Lord Macartney: "I mean the great stone on which Falconet's statue
is to be placed.... It is ... arrived at St. Petersburg: the Empress
had earrings made of it for herself."
[150] In some parts of the city the soil is of a stiff blue clay.
[151] The bomb-splintered brougham in which he took his last drive is
preserved unrepaired among the Imperial carriages.
[152] Surmounting the central octagon and its four corner turrets,
the west tower, and the three eastern apses. Some are covered with
extraordinary raised glazed tiles, the central one greatly resembling a
turban. The interior is both simpler and better than the outside; four
columns with round arches sustain the central lantern, and round arches
open to apses and tower. The floor is of marble inlaid; walls, piers
and vaults are covered with the most beautiful mosaics in prevailing
colours of blue and gold, saints in four tiers varied by landscapes and
lilies. The old church furniture displayed in the Museum of Alexander
III. seems to show Byzantine forms getting more and more modified
by increasing Tatar influences. In the same place are some very
interesting paintings by Russian artists. Verestchagin has the place
of honour, and is represented by some excellent pictures of battle
scenes, some displaying the French at Moscow. The picture of Abram and
Isaac done by Reutern with his left hand has faces that could hardly be
better.
[153] The Honourable Russia Company is still patron of four of the
English churches in Russia. "A faint legal trace of the ancient
privileges of the Muscovy Company survives in the extra-territorial
character belonging for marriage purposes to the churches and chapels
formerly attached to their factories in Russia."--Sir Courtenay Ilbert.
[154] Quoted by Eugene Schuyler, _Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia_,
1884.
[155] One room has pictures of several hundred Russian maids dwelling
in different parts of the Empire, another has living plants trained
up the walls as part of its permanent decoration, ornate chandeliers
hang from ceilings, pictures and tapestry cover the walls, and, as at
Solomon's Court, everything is splashed with gold.
[156] Several such may be seen among the Imperial carriages in St.
Petersburg.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
-Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.
End of Project Gutenberg's Capitals of the Northlands, by Ian C. Hannah