not unprofitably, I hope, in the examination of some of the old towns
in the north of Germany; and, as the interest of the architectural
remains in this district is very great, and our acquaintance with
them too slight, I cannot help thinking that a mere transcript of my
diary during the time that I was examining them may be of some use
and interest. I have already printed notices, drawn up from the same
journal, of the churches of Lübeck, and the cathedral at Marburg; and
I shall now employ myself in giving shorter descriptions of the other
chief features of this journey.
Crossing by Calais, and taking hurried glances only at S. Omer, with
its noble cathedral, and the fine relic of the abbey of S. Bertin,
remarkable among great French churches for its _single_ western tower,
I went on to Lille,--a town whose interest to architects just now is
rather in the future than in the past, but whose church of S. Maurice
is a striking example of the difference in the conception of a town
church on the Continent and in this country in the Middle Ages. It
has two aisles on each side of the nave and choir, and is groined
throughout. Here we should look on such a church almost in the light of
a cathedral; there, on the contrary, it is a not very remarkable parish
church. Some old brick work at the back of the Hotel de Ville is the
only other old feature which I remember in Lille; but its streets and
market-place are busy and picturesque.
From Lille, passing by Courtrai, I reached Ypres in time to spend
the afternoon in sketching and studying what is perhaps the noblest
example of the domestic work of Germany. Les Halles, as this great
pile of building is called, seems to have been a great covered mart,
rather than a mere town hall; and when I was there, a fair was being
held within its walls, and, filled with picturesque groups of people,
and stalls for the sale of every conceivable kind of merchandise, the
grandeur of its size and design was well seen. The main portion of the
building is of uniform early middle-pointed date, and forms an immense
and rather irregular parallelogram, enclosing some long and narrow
courts. The principal front towards the market place is, by a rough
measurement which I made, about 375 feet in length; very uniform in
its design, but broken in the centre by a fine lofty engaged tower,
surmounted with a spire, finishing in a sort of louvre, of modern
character. The whole effect of the building is inconceivably grand,
leaving behind it in point of general effect even (I am bold in saying
it) the Ducal Palace at Venice. In elevation the main building is
divided into three stages. The ground stage consists of a succession
of openings with square heads, trefoiled; the next of a long series
of two-light windows with quatrefoils in the head, the openings in
which are square, the tracery not being pierced; and the third stage
has again an immense succession of traceried openings alternately
glazed and blank. The whole is surmounted by a lofty traceried parapet
corbelled out, and the steep and original timber roof is surmounted
with a ridge-crest of stone, of more delicate character than I have
ever seen elsewhere. The front is finished at the angles with immense
octangular pinnacles, corbelling out at their base from the wall,
and the tower, which rises two stages above the ridge of the roof,
has also at its angles similar pinnacles. The general _motif_ of the
entire front is continued happily in the steeple, the faces of which
are occupied with rows of lofty windows of two lights. From the belfry,
and from within another corbelled parapet, springs the spire, which, at
first square, becomes, below the tourelle on its summit, an octagon.
Immediately behind Les Halles, stands the cathedral. This has a fine
western tower, built _circa_ A.D. 1380, and remarkable for the triple
buttresses at its angles. The west door is double, and set within an
enclosing arch with the west window, in a common German fashion. The
interior is lofty and spacious, with cylindrical shafts, whose capitals
have simple foliage of the thirteenth century. The triforium is good,
and some of the clerestory (e.g. that in the south transept) is also
early and good; but the whole church is not by any means of the first
order. The south transept has recently been very creditably restored,
the new carving being executed with much spirit. The east end is
remarkable externally for its tall buttresses, without weatherings, and
for the deep arches under which the windows are set, and which give
the building too much of a skeleton effect to be pleasing. A rather
graceful turret (of Renaissance character) surmounts the crossing.
The cathedral and Les Halles, though close together, are not absolutely
parallel, but the combination of the two buildings, with their towers
and turrets, and two other towers, is very good, and gives an imposing
effect to the general views of the old city.
It is to be observed, that though in Les Halles the pointed arch
and the very best window-tracery are everywhere used, there is no
possibility of mistaking it for a church, or even for a religious
building.
There are many old houses in the town, generally of the sixteenth
century, with stepped gables, and four-centred window-heads with carved
tympana; but their effect generally is not satisfactory.
Between Ypres and Courtrai (whither I next journeyed) are some large
churches, of which that at Comines would, I think, repay examination.
Courtrai has not much to call for remark; though its market place is
quaint, picturesque, and irregularly grouped, with a clock-tower,
turreted at the angles and with a spire-like capping, rising suddenly
out from among its houses, out of whose windows sound forth constantly
those cheery chimes which give so much colour to the recollection of
all the towns in this chime-loving part of the world. At the back of
the market place a fine middle-pointed church tower rises, capped with
a most picturesque slated tourelle. The church to which it is attached
is the largest in Courtrai, but not remarkable. It has an apsidal
projecting chapel in the second bay from the west, noticeable in that
the axis of the apse is north and south. The other churches are of
little value, and much mutilated. Notre Dame has a western tower, and a
chapel added on the south side of the choir which has pinnacles, and a
bell-turret on the gable, of very good character.
Perhaps the most interesting building in the town is the town hall.
It is of late date, and the tracery of the windows, and the figures
which once adorned the front between the windows, are all destroyed.
The doors are original, and an old staircase with panelled sides, and
partly old metal balustrade, leads to the hall on the first floor.
This has a fine simple open roof of timber, with double collar-beams
and arched braces: this, I fear, is no longer visible, as, when I was
there, workmen were just about to begin the erection of a ceiling under
it, to make the room fit for the reception of the King of the Belgians.
In two side rooms there are very remarkable fireplaces, one of which
is well known by Haghe’s drawing. The finer of the two is adorned with
a profusion of sculptures representing the Vices and Virtues and very
striking in their treatment.
From Courtrai, a short journey by railway brought me to Tournai--a
town not, I think, so well known as it ought to be for its magnificent
cathedral--doubtless the finest, by very far, in Belgium. The nave
and transepts are Romanesque. In the former, there is that quadruple
division in height so frequent in the thirteenth century churches in
the neighbouring part of France. The transepts are very noble, and
ended with grand apses, and both they and the choir are very much
more lofty than the nave. They owe much of their grandeur to the
number of detached shafts of great size, and to the fact that the
aisle, triforium, and clerestory, are all carried round the apses.
The choir is all of the thirteenth century, and very lofty and light
in its proportions. The windows are being carefully restored; but
some bad stained glass has been recently put up. In the sacristy there
is a little old plate, of which I may mention a fine monstrance, and
two shrines; one of which, of the thirteenth century, is one of the
most exquisite I have ever seen, being adorned with a great deal of
enamelling and silversmith’s work, of most delicate character. There is
also here a fine cope-chest; but I found only one old vestment,--the
orphrey of a chasuble, with figures of saints; date about A.D. 1450;
the rest were modern, and generally very tawdry. But they possess here,
in addition to these vestments, an altar frontal, of great interest;
it is embroidered on a white silk ground, with a tree of Jesse: the
figures are well executed in high relief, and the effect of the whole,
with the stiff conventional arms of the tree encircling the figures, is
very striking. The embroidery is executed in the same way as our old
English work; but I never saw any figures worked with so much spirit or
so much character in their faces. The old fringe of red silk over gold
thread remains.
The external view of the cathedral presents one of the most singular,
and, at the same time, most grand assemblages of steeples I have ever
seen. There are two tall towers, richly arcaded and capped with square
slated spires, to each transept, and over the crossing a much lower
though larger lantern also capped with a spire. These five spires are
well seen from the market place, and with a tall campanile at its upper
end, of the thirteenth century, combine in a very grand group. I should
have mentioned that the central spire is octagonal with four square
slated turrets at the angles. The east end of the cathedral deserves
notice; its scale is great, and its flying buttresses and detail
generally very good. Chapels are formed between the buttresses and
roofed with gables running back to the aisle walls.
The Maison de Ville was formerly a convent and still retains a few old
portions built up in the more modern additions.
In the market place is a small church, the entrance to which is at
the east, and the altar at the west end. Over the east door are two
triplets, quite first-pointed in their character. There are round
turrets at the west angles and to the transepts, and a picturesque
slated spire over the crossing; the whole is groined, and reminded me
of the style of the transepts of the cathedral, though it is not very
effective.
Another church on the way to the railway station has an eastern
apse, and a tower and slated spire over the crossing. The nave has
a continuous clerestory, with two or three windows in each bay; the
effect of which is satisfactory. Across the nave, one bay west of the
choir, there is an arch with a kind of triforium gallery across it,
pierced on each side, and serving apparently for a passage-way only. It
is not continued up to the groining.
[Illustration: THE GREAT S. MARTIN, COLOGNE]
Nearer the railway there is another large church with a continuous
clerestory and large unfinished-looking tower at the south-west angle.
There are some other churches, but not, I think, of great interest.
This, however, is amply afforded by the magnificent cathedral towering
so grandly over the town, whose only defect in the distant view is the
low height of the nave as compared with the choir and transepts.
A sluggish train took me in five or six hours to Namur to sleep, and
thence early the next morning by a strikingly beautiful line of railway
along the banks of the Meuse; and passing by the picturesque old town
of Huy, with its fine church and castle, I found my way to Liège.
The churches here are really too often visited and too well known to
require any description from me. I think the little church of S. Croix,
with its gabled aisles (the gables running back into the main roof),
pleased me as much as anything; it is just the kind of special town
church which we want to see more in fashion in our own large towns,
adapting itself boldly to every variation in the boundary of the land
on which it is built, and giving a very considerable effect of height
without extravagant expense.
The metal font in the church of S. Bartholomew is a very admirable work
of art, and most interesting in every way.
In the cathedral is a new pulpit, by Geefs, much praised in guide
books, but not a favourable specimen of his powers, I trust.
S. Jacques, S. Martin, and other churches in Liège are remarkable for
the richness of their internal polychromatic decorations. They are
all, however, of very late date, quite Renaissance in their design and
colouring, and very tawdry in effect and in detail. The east end of S.
Jacques is, however, very impressive owing to the rich colour of the
glass in the windows, which carries the decoration down from the roof
to the floor, whilst elsewhere, the roof only being painted, and the
whole of the walls left in the coldest white, the effect is heavy and
unsatisfactory. We have, in short, here a good practical proof--worth
a thousand arguments--that colour to be successful must be generally
diffused and not confined to one part of a building.
From Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle, of which too I shall say but little.
The choir of the cathedral, which had been entirely despoiled of its
tracery, is being gradually and well restored. It is both a noble and a
very peculiar church, and perhaps the best view of it is to be obtained
from the staircase in the old Rathhaus. How striking is the immense
height of the choir as compared to its length, and how thoroughly
fine and picturesque is the kind of dome, surrounded at its base with
gables, which crowns the polygonal nave.
No one who visits Aix should omit to see the treasures in the sacristy
of the cathedral. I have never seen anywhere so fine a gathering of
mediaeval goldsmith’s work, and a little study of these old remains
would immensely improve the work of the few men who are attempting to
revive the old glory of their craft.
The Rathhaus contains in its upper stage a fine large groined hall,
called the Kaiser-Saal, divided down the centre by columns and arches;
it is approached by a good groined staircase, and is now being restored
and decorated in fresco, by a Düsseldorf artist, with subjects from the
life of Charlemagne.
Near the cathedral is a valuable remnant of good domestic work; it has
windows with plate tracery, and above them a row of niches or arcading,
the divisions of the arcade being filled in with figures of kings
in a very effective manner. It reminded me of the famous Maison des
Musiciens, at Rheims.
At Aix I was too near Cologne to omit the pleasure of spending another
day among its crowd of architectural treasures, and so, instead of
going to Düsseldorf direct, I gave myself a holyday, and renewed all my
old recollections of its many glories.
I cannot think that the new works at the cathedral are so satisfactory
as they are generally said to be. When I was there the scaffolding had
just been removed from the south transept, and the effect was very far
from good; there was a degree of poverty in the execution which is not
felt in the old work; it looks thin, “liney” and attenuated, and makes
me doubt very much, first, whether it is a fair reproduction of the old
design; and next, whether the following out of an old design drawn to a
small scale is possible without very great powers of designing. So much
depends upon detail.
I believe that the building in Cologne which above all others ought
most to be studied, is that wonderful church of S. Gereon, the interior
of which is so fine, and so unlike what we ever think of doing in our
new work. Its nave consists of an irregular decagon, entered from a
western narthex, and surrounded by chapels, from the east of which
runs a long and spacious choir, approached by a great flight of steps.
This nave is about 65 feet from east to west, and slightly more from
north to south; forming a very grand unbroken area, all within easy
reach of any one voice, and, from its height and rich character, very
impressive. The choir is of considerable length, and raised on a crypt.
A large modern altar placed on the steps leading to it from the nave,
completely conceals it in the general view, and much mars the whole
effect.
The filth of the church when I was there was extreme, and the noble
crypt which extends under the whole length of the choir was thoroughly
desecrated. I noticed an original altar in a side chapel in the crypt,
used as a receptacle for candle-ends! The sacristy of S. Gereon is a
noble middle-pointed addition, fitted with old presses, and with some
very beautiful glass in the windows. This, in the tracery, is very
light in colour, spotted with ruby.
Next in grandeur, perhaps, to this church, is the east end of S.
Martin’s. Seen from the street below the east end, its great height,
and the combination of the apsidal transepts and choir with the fine
central steeple produce very great effect. It is worthy of notice, how
completely similar all these apsidal terminations are in Cologne, and
how like those of the same date in the north of Italy. The apses here,
for instance, are almost exactly like that of the choir of S. Maria
Maggiore at Bergamo.
Cologne is rich in metal-work and early stalls. In S. Cunibert is a
fine brass standard for lights, with a crucifix; in the choirs of S.
Pantaleon and S. Andrew, some good thirteenth century stalls; S. Gereon
has also some old candlesticks, and some woodwork worth notice, as also
have some of the other churches.
Perhaps the best example of later work in the city is the fine church
of the Minorites, a good fourteenth century building, with a lofty and
elegant lead turret rising out of the centre of the roof.
I found in several of the Cologne churches services in the morning,
attended exclusively by children. They had no seats, but a succession
of boards, with small kneeling-stools at regular intervals, were
provided for them. The singing was uncommonly good and hearty, and
after one of the services (at S. Maria in Capitolio), I asked the
children about it, and they told me that they went every day before
school. I looked at some of their school-books, and found that they
had a rather full Scripture history abridgment; and among other books
one full of songs and hymns, which seemed to be particularly good
and spirited--hearty, merry songs, which would be sure to take with
children. We should do well if we could have such a service and such
books for our English children.
There was an exhibition of early German pictures of considerable
interest in the old hall called the Gurzenich. I found that it was
organized by a Christian Art Society, which has a large number of
members, and seems to be very actively at work. In the great hall of
the Gurzenich is a magnificent fire-place, of late middle-pointed
date, and much like the Courtrai fire-place in general idea; there
are some very spirited figures in armour in its niches. This building
is well known on the exterior by its general ancient character, and
particularly by the lead canopies over the figures in its lowest stage.
But Cologne is too well known to make any more of my notes (which might
be extended to tenfold length) palatable; and I shall, therefore, hurry
on to what is, I believe, newer ground to most ecclesiologists than
are its time-honoured and well known buildings.
From Deutz (the bridge to which place from Cologne affords the best
general view of the city) a few hours of railway took me to Hamm, and
thence by a branch I reached Münster. The country here is cheerful and
English-looking; though rather flat, it is woody and well cultivated,
and thickly populated,--at least, so I gathered by the multitude of
passengers who swarmed at every station, all in blue smocks, and all
smoking vehemently.
The churches and domestic buildings at Münster are almost equally
interesting. Of the latter, the Rathhaus is the most remarkable. It
is very elaborate and beautiful in all its details, but (like most
of the house-fronts here) boasts of a regular show front. The ground
stage consists of four open arches; the next, of four richly-traceried
windows, divided by figures in niches, carved with great spirit; and
above this is an immense stepped gable-end, divided into seven panels
in width, and rising to about twice the height of the real roof. It is
pinnacled, and filled with open traceries, which, being pierced above
the roof, show the sky through their openings. The lower part of the
building is of the best middle-pointed, but in the gable some of the
tracery is ogee and poor.
This front was followed in Münster throughout the rest of the Middle
Ages, as also by the Renaissance school, so that the whole town is
full of arcaded streets, like an Italian town, and all the houses have
more or less exaggerated fronts, stepped and pinnacled high above the
roof-line. The _tout ensemble_ of such a town, it may be imagined, is
picturesque in the extreme, though not so valuable as at first sight
it seems likely to prove to the architectural traveller. The endless
repetition of the same--and that a bad--idea, is very tiresome, and so,
beautiful as is the Rathhaus in some of its detail, and striking as it
certainly is in its general effect, I have not forgiven it as being the
first example with which I am acquainted of a long series of barbarisms.
The only old apartment in this building, so far as I could discover, is
a room called the Frieden-Saal. It is a low council-chamber, of late
date, which has been most elaborately restored, and renovated with much
rich colour. There are some very good hinges and locks on a series of
closets here.
Of the churches, there are some five or six old, besides some modern.
The cathedral is very curious. Its plan shows two western towers,
then a transept; a nave of two (!) very wide bays; transept again;
and an apsidal choir, with several apsidal chapels round its aisle.
The internal effect of the nave is singular. It is very simple, but
from the great width of the bays rather bold-looking. The most notable
things here are,--a very noble brass font; a brass corona in the
choir; a stand for eleven candles, also in the choir; a magnificent
stone rood-screen of late date; a very good _Sakraments-Häuslein_, and
some niches for relics, etc., with their old doors; another stand for
lights, something like that at S. Cunibert, Cologne; and some stalls of
the seventeenth century, founded very closely upon mediaeval examples.
The brass font is circular, supported upon five lions, the two eastern
of which are standing, the others recumbent. The stem is covered with
tracery and moulding, and the bowl has five large quatrefoiled circles,
the eastern containing the Baptism of our Lord, and the other four the
emblems of the four Evangelists, with scrolls and inscriptions in red
letters; above them, a trefoiled arcade contains half-figures of the
twelve Apostles. The corona is large, containing fifty candles in one
row; but it is of late date, and frittered away in elaborate tracery
and crocketing. The rood-screen has two doorways--one on each side of
an altar in the centre of its west front. This altar still remains,
with a sculpture of the Crucifixion at its back, but is not used now,
a modern altar having been put up in front of it. Two very light open
staircases on the eastern side of the screen lead to the Gospel and
Epistle sides of the loft. There is also a very fine and large crucifix
against one of the nave piers.
The main entrance to the cathedral is through a sort of Galilee of
Romanesque date adorned with a number of fine statues; this is at
the south-west of the church, whilst on its north side are some fair
middle-pointed cloisters.