almost identical in shape and design with that round the chancel at
Stone. The proportions of their trefoil cusps are very peculiar, and
as nearly as possible the same. The spandrels are filled with foliage
carved exactly in the same spirit. The labels are terminated upon
small corbels level with the capitals: a very unusual arrangement. The
arcades rest upon a stone chamfered seat; and the arch-moulds, though
not the same, are of the same character, and both of them undercut at
the back.
II. _Window Tracery._--The original window tracery at Westminster is
the same as at Stone. The windows in the south triforium of the nave
(four eastern bays) are of precisely the same character as the window
discovered in the chancel at Stone. The latter are remarkable for the
great width of the light (3 ft. 1 in. and 3 ft. 10 in. in the clear),
and this is very characteristic of the Westminster windows. The Stone
windows are remarkable also for very broad chamfered tracery-bars on
the outside, corresponding with very rich mouldings on the inside. The
triforium openings at Westminster are treated just in the same way on
the side next the triforium, and a comparison of the triforium of the
choir and north transept there with the east window of the north aisle
at Stone would well illustrate the identity of character. The stone
cusping in both is let into grooves in the way common in early tracery.
III. _The Sculpture of Foliage_ is very similar in both churches. The
spandrels of arcades are treated just in the same way: at Westminster
sculptures of subjects are introduced here and there in place of
foliage; at Stone all the spandrels are filled with sculpture of
foliage; but we found in the thickness of the wall one spandrel
sculptured with figures, which appears never to have been used.[76]
The foliage of capitals is generally similar, and the very remarkable
bosses of foliage in the chancel arch at Stone, arranged in something
of the outline of an enormous dogtooth, are all but repetitions of the
similar archivolt enrichments in the triforium of the north transept at
Westminster. The roses round the archivolt of the south door at Stone
are of the same kind as those round the inside arches of the north
transept doorways at Westminster.
The foliage carved in the form of crosses in the quatrefoils over the
chancel arch at Stone are repeated in a quatrefoil over the door in
the cloister at Westminster, leading to the private apartments of the
abbat. The crosses are, of course, not identical in their treatment;
but the idea is the same, and one of rare occurrence.
IV. _The Materials_ used in the Abbey and at Stone are as nearly as
possible the same. The wrought stone work is executed in Caen stone and
Gatton stone, and a great deal of chalk is used for wall-lining and
groining, and all the shafts are of marble.
V. Finally, the same general system of proportion is observed in the
minster and the village church. In both, the width from the aisle walls
to the centre of the columns is equal to half the width of the nave. At
Westminster the height is given by three equilateral triangles, whose
base-line is the width across the nave from centre to centre of the
columns; and two of these triangles give the height for the springing
of the groining, and the third the height of the groining to its apex.
At Stone, if we erect triangles on the same base-line, the first gives
the top of the capitals of the nave arcade; the second, within very
little, the height of the top of the wall; and the third may very well
be supposed to have marked the height of the ridge of the timber roof.
The width of the bays in the nave of Stone is equal to the diagonal of
half the width of the nave; and the width of the bays in the chancel is
equal to the diagonal from the centre of one column to the centre of
the nave or aisle opposite the next column; whilst the height of the
chancel is given by two triangles similar to those in the nave, whose
base is the width from centre to centre of the groining-shafts.
I do not wish to lay too much stress on any one of these points of
resemblance: it is not to be expected that two churches, built by the
same architect, so unlike in size, in position, and in dignity, should
show anything more than some general resemblance of character; but
I cannot help thinking, that when I have pointed to such a general
agreement in the proportions, the materials, the sculpture, and the
details, as we find at Stone and Westminster, it would be almost enough
to decide the question, even without the final and (as it appears to
me) conclusive evidence afforded by the all but exact identity of the
cusping and the general similarity of design in the wall-arcades in the
two churches, which must either have been copied one from the other, or
designed by the same architect.
II
CHURCHES IN NORTHERN GERMANY
(_From the Ecclesiologist, 1854–1857_)
I
THE CHURCHES OF LÜBECK
Three old cities far apart, across the whole breadth of a continent,
enable us to form a fair judgement of what the whole of Europe may have
been in the palmy days of the Middle Ages. They are Lübeck, Nuremberg,
and Verona; each telling its own tale, each marked with the impress
of national peculiarity, and each remarkable, among other things, the
one as the city of brick work, the next as that of stone, and the
last as that of marble. In Lübeck nothing but brick was ever seen; in
Nuremberg, stone was used with an excellence seldom rivalled; whilst
in Verona, though brick was most beautifully used, the great aim of
its architects was ever to introduce the marbles in which the district
around it is so rich. Each of these cities deserves a full and ample
study, for each teaches its own lesson, and that a lesson scarcely to
be learnt elsewhere; and if this evening I give you such notes as I was
able to make in the course of a short sojourn last autumn in Lübeck,
it is not because I do not value Nuremberg and Verona much more, but
because it would seem that if one were to write of all three, this
is the one with which one should commence, as nearest to and most
connected with our own country and style of architecture, and because
its features of interest are in some degree less remarkable than those
of the others, and one would wish to reserve the best for the last.
In one respect, moreover, two of these cities may well teach us a
lesson. Nuremberg and Lübeck were to the world in the Middle Ages what
London, Liverpool, and Manchester are to the world in this age: the
very centres of all commerce for all Europe; and we may surely not
do amiss if we take to ourselves, and ponder well upon, the lesson
which the singular difference between their earnestness in matters
of religion and ours ought to teach us. There was in these two old
cities such an appreciation of the value of religious ordinances, and
evidently so very great a readiness to provide places for their
due celebration, that one cannot without a blush think upon the vast
difference which such a city as Manchester displays, with its almost
countless thousands of poor wretches uncared for and unthought of, and
without any power of putting foot even in the sanctuaries of their God.
[Illustration: ROOD-SCREEN IN LÜBECK CATHEDRAL]
In the great Middle Age cities this never could have been the case, for
apart from the fact that their churches stood with their doors ever
open, while ours are ever jealously kept shut, they were so vast and
spacious, and so crowded together, as it seems to us, that there never
could have been a real difficulty in finding some home for the feet of
the weary, how poor and how miserable soever they might be!
And Lübeck still shows this most grandly: you approach by a railway
through an uninteresting country, passing one of those lakes which give
much of its character to this dreary part of Germany, and suddenly
dashing through a cutting, and under the shade of fine patriarchal
trees which adorn on all sides the outskirts of the old city, you find
yourself in such a presence of towers and spires as can scarce be seen
elsewhere in Christendom. A succession of great churches standing up
high and grand above the picturesque tall old houses which fringe the
margin of the Trave, two of them presenting to us their immense west
fronts of pure red brick, each finished with two great towers and
spires, whilst others on either side rear their single spires and their
turrets high against the sky, and here and there detached turrets mark
where stands some other old building soon to be made acquaintance with;
and all of these forming the background, as you first see it, to the
most picturesque and grand old gateway--I am bold to say--in Europe,
gives one a wonderful impression, vivid but dreamlike, and reminding
one of those lovely cities with which Memling and his contemporary
painters so often delight our eyes.
The plan of the city is simple enough. One great street runs the whole
length of the peninsula on which it stands, from north to south,
finished by the Burg-Thor, a fine old gateway, on the north, and by
the cathedral and its close to the south. Right and left of this main
street are a multitude of streets descending to the water which almost
surrounds the whole town, and on the other side of the water are
immense earth-works, rising really into respectable hills, and said to
be the largest earth-works known; happily these great mounds--no longer
useful for purposes of defence--are eminently so for ornament, and
planted with great trees and laid out with walks and gardens form one
of the most pleasant features of the place; on the outer side of those
earth-works another line of water gives one certainly a very watery
impression of the whole city.
The main features of interest to an architect are in the principal
street. Beginning at the extreme south is the cathedral with its two
towers and spires standing alone and forlorn in the most deserted
part of the town, and even in the busiest days of Lübeck scarcely so
near to the bulk of the people as a cathedral should ever be; then on
either side we pass the churches of S. Giles and S. Peter, and going
along under the walls of the picturesque old Rathhaus find ourselves
close to the east end of the Marien-Kirche--a cathedral in dignity of
proportions and outline, and here superior to the cathedral in its
central position and in its greater height and general magnificence;
next, the Katerinen-Kirche is left a few steps to the right, then S.
James’s is passed, another tall spire, and then the west front of the
very interesting Heiligen Geist Hospital; and a hundred yards further
on we are in front of the relics of the Burg-Kloster, and close to
this find ourselves at the Burg-Thor, a picturesque gateway second
only in effect to the Holsteiner gate which I have before mentioned as
terminating one of the cross streets which lead to the railway. The
Burg-Thor stands just at the neck of the peninsula, and beyond it is
the Burg-Feld, a wood intersected with paths, and looking rather like
the Thier-Garten outside the Brandenburg gate at Berlin.
And now to describe the architectural beauties of the town we must go
back to the cathedral, and as in duty bound begin with what is at once
the oldest and the chief in rank of the ecclesiastical buildings.
The tradition is that this church, dedicated in honour of SS. John
Baptist and Nicolas, is built on the spot where Henry the Lion, when
engaged in the chase, fell in with a stag having a cross growing
between its horns and a collar of jewels round its neck, with the
produce of which the church was first in part built. There is some
account of a church older than this, and octangular in form, having
existed near the cathedral about the middle of the seventeenth century;
it cannot however have been older by many years than some parts of the
cathedral, as the first foundation of the present city seems to have
been laid in the middle of the eleventh century, and the cathedral
was consecrated in A.D. 1170 by Henry, the third Bishop of Lübeck,
having been founded by Henry the Lion, who in A.D. 1154 translated
Gerold, Bishop of Oldenburg, and made him the first Bishop of Lübeck;
possibly the destroyed octangular church may have been the baptistery
of the cathedral, as at this date baptisteries of this shape are not
unfrequently met (e.g. at Cremona and Pisa), and I know of but one case
of a church of such a plan.
Of the present cathedral, the most ancient portions appear to be the
lower part of the steeples and the main arcades throughout. These are
all Romanesque, though under the original arches pointed arches have
been since inserted. The piers are heavy and square, and the whole
effect is poor and ungainly.
Next in date is a magnificent porch on the north side of the north
transept, which is altogether about the best piece of architecture in
Lübeck, and remarkable as showing much more freedom in the use of stone
than is found elsewhere. The shafts are of marble, and the arches and
groining-ribs are all of stone, and, on the exterior, stone capitals
and shafts are also used, whilst the brick work is far superior to that
in any of the later examples. I fear I must say that this one remnant
of the art of the thirteenth century is by far the most beautiful thing
now left in the city. The sculpture on the inner door is very masterly
in its character, but unfortunately the whole porch is now most
neglected and uncared for.
Besides this porch there is little to notice in the exterior, save that
the brick work of the transept front over the porch savours of the
Italian mode of treating gables with deep cornices and traceries, and
that the two great brick steeples at the west end are fine examples
of a kind of steeple of which the city possesses however others much
finer. The spires are not ancient; the whole exterior is of red brick.
In the interior of the church the most interesting features are
the choir-screen and loft, and the rood. The screen stands at the
east side of the transept crossing, whilst the rood is supported on
an elaborately carved beam, which spans the _western_ arch of the
crossing, and the effect is most singular and certainly very piquant;
the whole being in a very late but good style, with figures remarkably
well sculptured. Under the screen is an altar, and on either side still
remains another. They are of stone supported on brick work, and there
is no mark of piscina, or of lockers, or places for relics in them. The
rood, and the figures of SS. Mary and John, are on a very large scale,
so that altogether, with their supports, they reach nearly the whole
height of the arch under which they stand.
There are also throughout the nave of the cathedral a number of very
curious seats; they vary a good deal in detail, but their outline is
similar, and their effect rather striking; I confess, however, that I
was sorry to see examples of fixed seats of such a date in a cathedral
church. In the nave there are some pendents for candles; one an angel
holding a light, and strongly reminding one of those beautiful angels
with candles above the stalls in the choir of S. Laurence at Nuremberg;
and the other, a much more elaborate composition, and coloured
richly in gold, red, and blue; it has two sitting figures of Bishops
under canopies, and bears three very large candles. One of the great
treasures of this church is the magnificent brass to Bishop Johann von
Mull, and Bishop Burchard von Serken, who deceased in 1350 and 1317. I
was unable to make so careful a rubbing of this magnificent brass as
I could have wished, but I have done enough to show how grand it is,
and how very similar in its details to the famous Flemish brasses which
remain at Lynn, S. Albans, North Mymms, Wensley, and Newark. Like two
of these, of which we fortunately possess rubbings, it is remarkable
for being one great engraved plate, and not, as was the English custom,
a plate cut out to the shape of the figure, and then inserted in an
incised slab; and compared with the S. Albans brass, which hangs by its
side, it will be seen that the detail is so exactly similar, that there
can scarcely be a shadow of a doubt that they were both engraved by the
same man. It is perhaps altogether the finest of the whole, and if so,
perhaps the finest brass in Europe. It is appreciated by the sacristan,
who demands a fee for lifting up a cover which he keeps on it, and
whose temper was of so difficult a kind that I almost despaired being
allowed to rub it. However, by persevering, I at last succeeded.
Lastly, there is in a chapel on the north side of the nave a most
magnificent triptych by Memling, almost unequalled by any work of
his I have ever seen. It has double shutters; on the outer, figures
of SS. Blaise, Giles, John, and Jerome, and inside are painted the
Crucifixion, and a number of subjects from the Passion of our Lord,
all worked together into one grand picture in a manner favourite with
painters of Memling’s time, and not to be contemned because no longer
the custom of our artists, inasmuch as Memling, Van Eyck, Giotto, and
their contemporaries all did it, and what they did we may well believe
not to have been done without good reason. The expression of all the
faces is most careful, and the skill with which portraits are preserved
throughout all the subjects, as e.g. of S. Peter, of Judas, and of
our Lord, is very marvellous. They were obviously painted from actual
faces, and not imagined. The colour of the whole is generally very
rich and deep, the drawing very vigorous, and the whole forms one of
the most magnificent specimens it is possible to imagine of the early
German school.
I have forgotten to say that the font in the cathedral is of metal. It
is a bowl arcaded and supported on four figures of angels; but it is
not very good in its character; perhaps we might think much of it here,
but in northern Germany, where I had just been seeing the wonderful
fonts at Münster, Brunswick, and above all at Hildesheim, the metal
fonts at Lübeck struck me as looking very poor.
I happened to come in for the end of a week-day sermon here, and
was rather amused, after it was finished, to find the _Prediger_
descending from the pulpit, and directing his steps towards me, whilst
the people went on singing: however, he turned into a great sort of
glazed pew in the choir-aisle, and there, having shut himself in, he
enthroned himself in a comfortable chair, waited for about ten minutes
until the sound of singing and music had died away, and then stole
back and out of the church at the west. It is curious, in northern
Germany, to observe how entirely, in public ministrations, the Lutheran
ministers seem to consider preaching their only work; going in after
the preparatory hymn is sung, and going away as soon as their sermon
is finished, without regard to the hymn which always winds up their
functions. In Lübeck there was a curious madness about preaching: every
morning, between eight and nine, there seemed to be sermons going on;
and as the congregations are infinitesimal, they do all they can to
keep a stray listener, when they can have him within their walls, by
locking the doors. Happily, I escaped, by judicious management, the sad
fate of listening to a sermon from any of these divines in black cloaks
and immense white frills, who look like so many repetitions of their
great prototype, Luther.
And now I must leave the cathedral, and getting over the difficulties
of the horrible pavement which distinguishes this end of the city as
well as may be, take you to the Marien-Kirche; the church which, in
one’s first view of Lübeck, one naturally takes for the cathedral, from
its central position and general grandeur. The whole church is built
of red brick, though unfortunately, internally, it has been daubed all
over with a succession of coats of whitewash. I was able to measure
the ground-plan, which may be taken as a type of the ground-plan most
in favour in Lübeck, and indeed generally in this part of Germany. All
the columns, arches, groining-ribs, and even the window tracery, are
built of moulded bricks; and, as will be seen from the detail, the
piers and arches are particularly well moulded and good. Not so the
window tracery, which is very plain, and like all brick window tracery,
most unsatisfactory, consisting as it does of three arched heads
within the window arch, without cusping or ornament of any kind to
relieve its baldness. The transepts hardly show on the ground-plan, and
externally they are finished with two gables instead of one, and are
so insignificant, consequently, as hardly to deserve notice. Between
the buttresses all round is a row of chapels, their external walls
being flush with the face of the buttresses. Among other good features
in this church are the Lady-chapel to the east of the main apse, and
the late turret over the intersection of nave and choir; and lastly,
the two grand steeples at the west end. This kind of steeple was not
an invention peculiar to Lübeck, but is a kind of which one finds many
examples throughout northern Germany. The earliest with which I am
acquainted are at Soest and Paderborn cathedrals, both of them very
fine, and much earlier in date than the Lübeck examples; and these
clearly have some affinity to the Lombard churches on the Rhine, save
that the continual repetition of stage above stage, exactly alike, is
a feature of their own, and one which the builders of the great brick
steeples in the fourteenth century always had before them. Certainly,
the two western steeples of the Marien-Kirche are very noble, and make
one admire immensely this kind of spire, which, as you will see, rises
from the angles of the tower and the points of the gables, which are
so great a feature as a finish to each face of the tower. These great
gables are generally filled in with tracery, without much regard to
uniformity or symmetry, but sometimes, as in the noble steeple of S.
John, Lüneburg, most effective: the spires in this case, and indeed
almost always, are of timber covered with copper.
It will be seen from the plan that the dimensions of this church are
very grand. The length is 280 English feet; height to vault, 108 ft.;
height of aisles, 59 ft.; the spires, 344 ft.
The church was founded circa A.D. 1276, the north-west tower in 1304,
and the south-west in 1310; and the whole may, I think, from its
mouldings, etc., be taken as an example of Lübeck middle-pointed.
In the interior arrangement there is no very distinct triforium, though
the clerestory windows have their inside arches lengthened down to
a string-course above the main arcade, and in the choir there is a
pierced parapet above this string.
The east window of the main apse, and the east windows of the eastern
chapel, are filled with exceedingly brilliant stained glass, said to be
the work of an Italian; it was brought in 1818 from the Burg-Kloster
church, which was destroyed at that time, and which, judging from what
still remains, and from the relics of its art treasures, preserved here
and elsewhere, must have been one of the most interesting churches in
the city. The three windows contain the legend of S. Jerome, the legend
of the finding of the Cross, and the legend of S. Peter. They are
said to have been done by the son of Dominic Livi, of Ghambasso, near
Florence, who, after he had learnt his art and long practised it in
Lübeck, went back in 1436 to Florence, where he executed the celebrated
windows in the Duomo. I have never seen these Florentine windows, but,
judging from my knowledge of the very mediocre character of Italian
glass generally, I should say that there could be no improbability on
the face of a story which would account for really beautiful glass
being done at Florence. Certainly, this Lübeck glass is very good and
brilliant, and valuable, as being, with a little still preserved in one
of the windows of the Katerinen-Kirche, the only old glass preserved in
any of the churches in Lübeck.
The nave of S. Mary is pewed throughout, and encumbered at the west
end with a prodigious organ; but the choir is fairly perfect. It is
screened in on all sides; to the west by means of a rood-screen,
similar in plan to that at the cathedral, but of earlier date, and at
the sides with screens mainly composed of brass. These screens are very
common in all the churches here, but these are the best I have seen:
they are very late in date, not at all satisfactory in their design,
and in all cases the cornices and the lower part of the screens are of
oak, the brass-work being confined to the uprights and the tracery, if
tracery it can be called.