things may really be done, and done well and naturally, in brick. You
may form mouldings to any extent, because each moulded brick tells its
own tale, does its own work; and mouldings, so far from not bearing
repetition, gain by it. All the windows in a noble church require
varied traceries, but it were as well that no two of them should vary
in their mouldings. Here, therefore, the reproductive power of the
moulder is most valuable; so, too, is it in all forms of ornament
(as, e.g., the billet, chevron, and the like) which become ornamental
only by repetition, and not in any way by reason of art or skill in
the man who works them. These are absolutely better in brick than in
stone, because, as no thought and no taste are necessary in the man who
carves them, it were better the human intellect should be as little as
possible deadened by working upon them. The windows of S. Katharine,
Lübeck, show how these moulded bricks may be used in conjunction with
stone traceries, and with admirable effect, when compared with the
attempts at tracery in brick which this and other churches here exhibit.
But one of the most important facts which we can learn here is, that
brick is not only good outside, but just as much inside a church. All
the Lübeck churches are built, inside and out, with red brick; most
unfortunately, this has all been whitewashed, but I think we may have
faith enough in the men who built them to be sure that they would not
have been built with brick had not the effect been good. For myself,
I am persuaded that they were right in so doing; because I have seen
in Italy the wonderfully solemn effect produced in this way, and have
since tested it myself. In truth, no red brick building should ever be
plastered inside, save where it is intended to introduce paintings of
some kind more brilliant than the colour of the bricks.
On the whole, therefore, though the brick work of Lübeck is far
inferior, in delicacy and beauty, to that which I have seen in Italy,
there is much to be learnt from it, and much proof to be obtained, if
proof be needed, that brick is really a most noble and serviceable
material, and one which, wherever it is the material of the district,
ought invariably and unhesitatingly to be used.
But I feel that, in criticising its brick work, I have been led
into abusing old Lübeck almost too much. Perhaps I ought only to
express my grateful recollection of all the treasures which she
still possesses,--of her screens, her church furniture, her spacious
interiors, and her many picturesque features of antiquarian and
ecclesiological interest, her triptychs, her brasses, and her
gateways,--rather than attempt to draw a parallel between her and
Italy; between the stern ruggedness of the north, and the sunny
softness and delicacy of the south; between, moreover, a city built
as it were in a day,--for Lübeck’s rise was sudden almost beyond all
precedent, without a history, and without older days to teach and to
correct her,--and a land whose memories of the past and associations
with old art were, even in the Middle Ages, well nigh as great, and as
valuable in their influence on the mind of her people, as they can be
even at the present day. More just it is, perhaps, only to be thankful
for all the pleasures with which my three days’ sojourn in this noble
old city was full even to overflowing; and (forgetful of the faults of
her architects) to dwell more upon the lessons which their works cannot
fail to teach us, if we will only lovingly and patiently study and
examine them.
II
NAUMBURG CATHEDRAL
I reached Naumburg late at night in a tremendous storm; but the sun
rose cheeringly, and I started early for the cathedral fearful of
disappointment, as I had spent half the previous day in a mistaken
attempt to find something interesting at Merseburg,--a place against
which it is only right to warn all ecclesiologists. At Naumburg my
fate was happier. The first view of the exterior is not very striking.
A fair apsidal choir with a tower rising on either side, Romanesque
at the base, and finished in late third-pointed, does not rise above
the picturesque, and gives but small promise of the excessive interest
of the interior. The plan is curious. A late Romanesque, or very
early-pointed nave finished with eastern and western apsidal choirs,
and separated from both of them by rood-screens; that to the eastern
choir Romanesque, that to the western of most exquisite early pointed,
and both of them coeval with the portions of the main fabric to which
they belong. The eastern choir extends across the transepts, and is
raised considerably above them, with solid stone parcloses, arcaded on
the faces towards the transepts with semicircular arches, a kind of
parclose not uncommon in the churches in this part of Germany.
Under the whole of the choir is a crypt entered from the transept,
and in the angles between the transepts and the choir are towers, the
lower stages of which are open to the transepts and form chapels,
whose altars stand in small apsidal projections on the east face of
the tower. A door on either side of the sanctuary leads by a staircase
in the thickness of the wall to rooms above the chapels in the tower.
The entrance to the choir is through the old rood-screen by doors
on either side of the altar, and by doors in the parcloses, reached
by long flights of steps in the transepts. The nave is divided into
three groining bays, each bay subdivided and having two arches into
the aisles. The western choir has one bay and a five-sided apse. On
either side of it is a narrow passage leading to staircases which lead
to rooms above some chapels, which have now to be mentioned. They
form the base of towers at the west end of the aisles, but project
considerably beyond them: only one of these towers has been built;
the other is carried up and finished externally as though it was a
transept, and produces at first some confusion when seen from the
exterior. These tower chapels are very curious. That on the south side
has a circular central shaft, decreasing in size to the capital, and
the vaulting has four ribs springing from corbels in the angles of
the chapel in a semicircular arch to the cap of the column, and there
are no other ribs. In the _east_ wall is a small semicircular recess,
in which still stands the original altar with a double footpace.
The north tower chapel is almost exactly like the other, save that
it has a polygonal central shaft, and the recess for the altar is
rectangular. Both chapels are lighted with small round-headed windows
in their western faces. From this description it will be seen that the
ground-plan of this church is so curiously alike at its eastern and
western ends, as to be somewhat confusing at first.
And now to describe this most interesting church in detail. The eastern
choir-screen is most remarkable. It has admirably carved capitals, and
its three western arches (which are semicircular) rest on delicate
clusters of shafts. The original doorways still remain, and in front
of them steps, arranged in semicircles radiating from the centre of
the door, which lead up into the choir. No doubt an altar once stood
under this screen, but this has been destroyed in order to convert
it into a pew! The front of the screen too is so much obscured by a
modern gallery, and by the reredos of the Lutheran altar, that it
is impossible to say how it was finished: there seemed to be traces
of a vesica with sculpture just over the centre arch. Entering the
choir by this screen, one finds all the old arrangements undisturbed.
Between the two western doors there are three stalls with canopies,
and on either side against the stone parcloses eleven stalls and ten
subsellae. In the midst stand three ancient, heavy square desks for
office books, and upon these five most magnificent books, well bound
and of astonishing size, still maintain their old place. They are all
manuscript on vellum, and two of them have very large illuminations of
subjects, and foliage of very admirable and bold character. I never
saw such magnificent books on their own proper desks,--never, I think
any of such grand size anywhere. The stalls are not particularly
good, and are of late date, with immense finials, of a kind I had met
before at Halberstadt. A rise of several steps divides the choir from
the first bay of the sanctuary, which is long and without furniture,
save some late stalls, which do not seem to have any business where
they are placed. This bay of the choir terminates the transitional
work, which is carried throughout the whole church, with the exception
of the eastern apse and the western choir. It is of the earliest
pointed, very simple and bold in all its details; the piers looking
rather like Romanesque in their section and capitals, carved in the
most admirable manner. The foliage is all disposed in circles, being
regular and geometrical and invariably kept severely and carefully to a
regular outline; it is an example of the very perfection of that kind
of conventional foliage, of which some of the early capitals at Venice
are such admirable specimens, and I think in no way inferior to them.
The groining throughout is very simple, with diagonal and transverse
ribs. The eastern apse is an addition in most admirable middle-pointed,
and (save the upper stages of the towers) the latest work in the whole
fabric. The section of the groining shafts is particularly elaborate
and good; corbels of foliage inferior to the rest of the carving
throughout the church supported figures under canopies at a height of
about eight feet from the floor, but the figures are all gone. A very
bold string runs round the apse at this point under a passage-way in
the wall, which is reached by a staircase between the choir and the
tower-chapel apses. The windows are of three lights, and have good
geometrical tracery, and the apse is well groined with boldly moulded
ribs, the boss in the centre being four ivy leaves. In the sanctuary
stand four oak sedilia of the thirteenth century, with open arcaded
backs and carved ends, the carving peculiar, but the whole a very
remarkable work and very perfect. The chapels in the towers on either
side of the choir are not in the old state, one being used for rubbish,
and the other as a vestry: above the former a room in the tower is used
as a receptacle for hardware! Perhaps the _Prediger_ deals in it! The
crypt under the choir is very perfect and fine. We had an illumination
of it, and consequently a careful examination. The capitals are all
carved, and the arches all semicircular. It is divided by shafts, some
of which are clustered, into three spaces in width, and in the length
there are two bays under the choir, then a solid wall with a doorway,
and then five bays, and an apse of three bays. The old altar still
remains.
In the transepts there is little to notice, save that there is an old
altar in each. The well-like effect of these German transepts, in which
the choir is continued across with heavy stone parcloses of great
height, is most unpleasant. In this case the parcloses are no less than
16 feet high from the floor of the transept; and, owing to the great
elevation of the choir, the floor of the crypt is only 4 ft. 6 in.
lower than the transept floor.
No one, going into the nave of the church as now arranged, would
believe that he was in a church of more than very mediocre interest.
Between all the columns are small tenements, painted white, carefully
roofed in and glazed, and papered with whatever paper the fancy and
good taste of their several proprietors suggest. In front of these
are rows of pews, arranged longitudinally, and all painted white;
and as the aisles are by this arrangement practically lost to the
church, galleries are built in them, to supply the created want.[78]
A white wooden screen behind the Lutheran altar conceals the eastern
rood-screen; whilst another white wooden partition, out of the centre
of which projects the pulpit, serves also to conceal the rood-screen of
the western choir. The whole arrangement is, in short, just the most
judicious that could possibly be imagined for the entire annihilation
of the architectural effect of the interior.
This western choir-screen is certainly the most striking I have ever
seen even in this land of screens. No description can, however, do
justice to its exquisite beauty, dependent as this is, to a great
extent, on the exceeding originality and beauty of the foliage, which
is all varied, and all executed from natural models. The doorway is
double, and rather narrow; the doors of iron, cross-framed; and they
form the only openings in the screen, the rest being quite solid,
arcaded on the eastern side, and on the western (that is, on the
inside, or choir side), remarkable chiefly for the exquisite open
staircases on each side of the door leading to the loft. On the eastern
side, against the doorway, are a Crucifix and SS. Mary and John; but
these seemed to be of later date than the door. The figure of our
Lord seated in the tympanum above is no doubt original; it is very
curious, being partly painted, partly carved, and reminded me of an
early picture, managed in the same way, which I saw in the gallery
at Berlin. Above the arcading, on either side of the doorway, are a
series of subjects, the execution of which (with the exception of the
two last, which are not original) is marvellously good. They are,
beginning at the south--the Last Supper, the Betrayal, ditto (S. Peter
smiting Malchus), the Denial of S. Peter, our Lord before Pilate,
the Scourging, Bearing the Cross. The open staircases on the western
side of the screen are remarkable for the beauty of the succession of
detached shafts, with finely carved capitals, which support them.
There are no fittings in this western choir save the altar, the mensa
of which is 8 ft. 5 in. long, by 5 ft. 11 in. wide, and 3 ft. 8 in.
high; and this faces west, as all the altars throughout the church
do: so showing its back (in the centre of which is the usual closet)
to any one entering through the door of the screen from the nave. It
has a double footpace. The detail of this choir is earlier and bolder
than that of the eastern choir; the windows of two lights, with very
bold monials, and circles sexfoiled, with soffit cusping in the head.
The groining-shafts are good; and, as in the other choir, there is a
very bold string under a passage-way in front of the windows, at about
8 feet from the floor. The windows do not fill up the whole width of
the bays, and on each side have small open arches, which add very
much to the richness of the whole effect. Against the groining-shafts
are figures, very well sculptured, and standing under canopies of
very varied design, finished at the top with what seem like models of
churches. Some of the windows retain some exquisite stained glass. The
mouldings throughout this apse are exactly like those of the screen,
and the foliage was evidently carved by the same hand,--that of as
great a master in his day as was the artist who carved the early
capitals in the nave. I think I have now described the whole of the
interior.
On the exterior there is a large cloister (partly ruined) on the south
of the nave; half of this is pointed, the other half late Romanesque.
It opens into the church with a small round-arched door, in the
third bay from the west; and on its east side into a large kind of
porch or narthex, south of the south transept, from which there is a
particularly grand doorway, with five shafts in each jamb, into the
transept. This porch is groined in two bays, and communicates with
other buildings to the south, one of which seems, by its apse and
pointed windows, to have been a chapel. These old buildings group
picturesquely with the east end of the church. The southern was not,
however, the only cloister; the good men of Naumburg seem to have
been specially fond of duplicates, and as they had two choirs, two
rood-screens, and two towers at each end, so they thought right to have
two cloisters. The northern cloister seems to have tallied in size with
the southern; but all that now remains of it are the groining-ribs
against the north wall, and the springers of the groining throughout.
The base-mould of the western tower is continued all along this north
wall, and the groining springs from corbels; all which makes it look as
though it were a subsequent addition: but its arches are nevertheless
round, whilst, as we have seen, pointed arches are used throughout the
main arcade. There are two doors from this destroyed cloister into the
church--one into the north aisle, the other into the north transept.
The western apse is remarkable, on the exterior, for the excessively
beautiful carving of its cornices; these are varied in every bay,
and, I think, the best I have ever seen. They are of that exquisite
imitation of natural foliage, springing upwards, and filling a large
hollow with its ramifications, which commends itself to my mind as
the most perfect type of cornice foliage. There is a somewhat similar
carved string under the windows, equally good, but much more simple.
The buttresses finish at the top with delicate pinnacles.
At the east end the detail is also good, the windows being well
moulded, and the buttresses finished with good simple niches and
figures. The apsidal projections on the eastern face of the towers
finish with pyramidal stone roofs against the towers, at a low
elevation.
The north-west tower is late, and has open turrets at its angles,
beginning at the second stage; it is picturesque, but not very good.
The upper stages of the eastern towers are also octangular, but without
pinnacles; and what ornament they have is of a very late kind, and not
effective.
Such is the cathedral of Naumburg--little known to, and scarce ever
visited by, English tourists; and yet undoubtedly one of the most
interesting and least altered churches in Germany: its two rood-screens
would be alone sufficient to give it high claims upon our admiration,
since they are, so far as I know, the two earliest examples remaining,
and certainly older than any quoted by Mr. Pugin in his work on
Screens. Besides this, the architectural value of some parts of the
building is so pre-eminent, as in itself to repay a long journey.
III
ERFURT AND MARBURG
At Naumburg there was little, save the cathedral, to detain an
ecclesiologist. The Stadt-Kirche deserved little more than a hurried
visit, though the singularity of its plan deserves a note. It has an
immense apsidal west end, a vast semicircle on the plan, embracing both
nave and aisles, and its choir is also terminated with an apse. Beyond
this the only remarkable features are the large multifoiled arches
which occupy the space between the windows and the plinth in each bay
of the eastern apse.
From the railway station one obtains a good view of the cathedral
steeples over the vine-clad hills on which Naumburg stands--refreshing
sight after the dreariness of the country generally in which I had
been journeying. From Naumburg to Erfurt the railway runs through a
really pretty, often very picturesque, country, with hills and rocks
by the river-side, ever and anon capped by those feudal keeps in which
all German rivers seem to be so rich; as picturesque now as they were
formerly advantageous to their predatory chiefs. I had but two or
three hours at Erfurt, but this was enough to show me that much was
to be seen. The Barfüsser-Kirche was the first that I saw--one of
those immensely long churches of which Germans were rather fond; a
nave and aisles, and an apsidal choir, all groined at the same height,
with windows of the same size and character throughout, and the whole
“restored” in that peculiarly chilling fashion, which Lutherans are
so singularly successful in achieving, which makes one’s recollection
of such a church not very grateful. There is, however, some old glass
in the choir windows, and a most prodigious carved and painted reredos
behind the altar, which, though apparently to some extent modern, is
nevertheless striking in its effect. The entrance to this church is by
double doors on the south side which run up into and form part of the
windows, the same jamb mould being continued all round.
I had some difficulty in finding my way to the cathedral--strangely
enough too, for when at last I reached the Dom-Platz, there, rising
high into the air, and approached by an almost endless flight of
steps, stood the magnificent choir of the cathedral, surmounted by
its singular triple arrangement of central steeples, and by its side,
and on the same high plateau, the church of S. Severus emulating, I
should almost say, aping, the cathedral both in height and design very
curiously. The east end of the cathedral, built on the precipitous edge
of a rock, has been under-built with a terrace supported upon arches,
which, concealing the natural rock, gives it an effect of extraordinary
height. These arches have been all modernized, but there are traces
here and there which prove the arrangement to be original.
Let us mount the flight of steps which lead by the entire length of
the north side of the choir to the porch, and we shall see reason to
class one at least of the architects of Erfurt, with the greatest
of his race. No position can be conceived which would present more
difficulty to one who wished to show the doors of his church to the
people who might gather in crowds in the Dom-Platz, and seeing nothing
but the tall east end of their church and the sharp perspective of
its side, shrink from the attempt to find a door at the end of the
long flight of steps before them. Every one must have felt how those
great foreign doorways call upon all to enter; they are always open,
guarded on either side by kings, and saints, and martyrs, and revealing
glimpses, precious because vague, of glorious interiors and worshippers
within on their knees. They call upon all to enter, and who can refuse?
At Erfurt, however, one might have deemed it impossible that people
should be made to feel this, but yet it has been done, and done nobly
and magnificently. There are no transepts, and so against the eastern
bay of the north aisle of the nave is set a triangular porch of grand
size and lovely design and detail. Its base rests against the church,
and its two sides, jutting out at angles of sixty degrees from the
wall, show both from the west and from the east the whole width of
its two glorious doorways. So, as one gazes up from the Dom-Platz,
and wonders at the singularity of the position of the church and the
beauty of the choir, one’s eye follows up the track of those who
ascend the toilsome flight of steps till it rests upon the doorway
at their summit, and one is led at once to find one’s way through its
great opening into the nave of the church. Sad to say, wanton havoc
has destroyed much of the more delicate ornaments of this most noble
piece of early fourteenth century architecture. Of the nave little can
be said, save that it is entirely unworthy and unsatisfactory; between
it and the choir is a great mass of wall, pierced only by a narrow
arch opening into the choir, and supporting a curious combination of
towers--a central tower rising from between one on either side--in a
singular and rather picturesque fashion of which I recollect no other
examples than the imitation of it here in S. Severus, and the cathedral
at Constance. The interior of the choir is very noble; its elevation
very great, and its windows of rather late middle-pointed, full without
exception of brilliant though late glass; too rich in colour however
for the traceries, which it quite conceals, giving a useful warning to
architects in dealing with stained glass.
The only piece of old furniture in this choir of which I made a note,
is a curious figure in brass, supporting three branches for lights, one
in either hand, and one growing out of his back. The effect of this is
not at all satisfactory.
This cathedral is Catholic, as also is S. Severus and some of the other
churches, the Lutherans holding about an equal number.