St. Boniface, who had been sent out by Pope Gregory III. as a missioner
to the Rhine country.
Boniface had given Pepin-le-Bref the sacrament at Soissons in 752, upon
the fall of the Merovingian dynasty, and in return King Pepin gave the
bishopric of Mayence to St. Boniface.
In 813 a numerous council met here, at the orders of Charlemagne, under
the presidency of Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne and chaplain of the
holy palace at Rome.
In the tenth century the church at Mayence did not fall to the sad state
that it did elsewhere. Ecclesiastical writers of France have always
referred to this period as _le siècle de plomb_, but at Mayence it still
steadily approached the golden age.
Mayence was still distinguished by the zeal of its archbishops, whose
good influences were far-reaching.
Under the episcopate of St. Boniface and his immediate successors the
cathedral of Mayence was probably a wooden structure, as were many of
the earlier churches of the evangelizing period in Germany and Gaul.
The work on the mediæval cathedral was completed by 1037, under
Archbishop Bardon, and its consecration took place in presence of the
Emperor Conrad II.
Twelve years after this ceremony, Pope Leo IX. came to Mayence and held
a famous council, at which the emperor was present, accompanied by the
principal nobles of the empire.
The cathedral fell a prey to the flames in 1087, as well as three other
neighbouring churches, say the older chronicles, and the ancient
structure disappeared almost entirely, so far as its original outline
was concerned.
Archbishop Conrad of Wittelsbach restored the nave inside of three
years, and the monument again took on some of its ancient magnificence.
In 1198 Emperor Philip of Suabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa, was
solemnly crowned in this cathedral by the Archbishop of Tarentaise, the
Archbishop of Mayence being at that time in the Holy Land.
The twelfth-century work doubtless was erected on the foundations of
Archbishop Bardon's structure.
The restoration of the transept and the western choir followed, and the
work went on more or less intermittently until the middle of the
thirteenth century, when the fabric approached somewhat the appearance
that it has to-day.
The completed structure was consecrated in 1239, and, save the chapels
of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the body of the edifice
has not greatly changed since that time.
During the Thirty Years' War it became practically a ruin, however,
though its later rebuilding was on the original lines.
In 1793 the revolution which sprang up in France forced its way to the
Rhine, and, when Mayence was besieged, the roof of the cathedral caught
fire and the church itself was pillaged and profaned.
For a long time the old cathedral remained abandoned, as after an
invasion of barbarians, which is about what the revolutionists proved
themselves to be. In 1803 Napoleon saw fit to order it to be restored,
and in the following year it was returned to its adherents.
The ancient metropolis, however, lost the distinction which had been
given to it in Roman times, and the glory first brought upon it by St.
Boniface lapsed when the arch-episcopal see was suppressed. Mayence is
now merely a bishopric, a suffragan of Cologne.
In its general plan the cathedral at Mayence follows the outlines of a
Latin cross, though its length is scarcely more than double its width.
It is most singular in outline and has two choirs, one at either end, as
is a frequent German custom, and the sky-line is curiously broken by the
six towers which pierce the air, no two at the same elevation.
There are three portals which give entrance from various directions.
There is yet a fourth entrance from the market-place, which takes one
through a sort of cellar which is not in the least churchly and is
decidedly unpleasant.
The principal nave is supported by nine squared pillars, which are
hardly beautiful in themselves, but which are doubtless necessary
because of the great weight they have to bear.
In the Gothic choir is a heavy _baldaquin_ in marble, bearing figures of
the twelve apostles. The high altar is directly beneath the cupola, or
lantern, of the principal tower. It is quite isolated, and has neither
flanking columns nor a _baldaquin_. On feast-days it is brilliantly
set forth with candelabra in a fashion which would be theatrical, if it
were not churchly.
[Illustration: MAYENCE CATHEDRAL]
Behind this altar is the space reserved for the clergy, a somewhat
unusual arrangement, but not a unique one. At the extreme end is the
bishop's throne.
The general appearance of the interior constructive elements would seem
to place the work as a whole well within the thirteenth century, though
the extreme easterly portion is more ancient still.
There is very little of pure Gothic to be noted. Mostly the fabric is a
reproduction of the Lombard style, though much undeniably Gothic
ornament is used. The bays of the nave are singularly narrow and of
great height, almost the reverse of the pure Italian manner of building
which elsewhere made itself strongly felt along the Rhine. The height of
these bays is more than two and a half times the width. The bays of
German churches, in general, have a much greater length than those of
Italy, and herein is a marked difference between the Italian and German
styles in spite of other resemblances.
There are in the cathedral numerous paintings of questionable artistic
worth and an abundance of coloured glass, which is condemned as
comparatively modern and of no especial interest.
The altar of St. Martin, with statues of Sts. Martin and Boniface, is
near the baptistery. There are eight lateral chapels, out of fifteen in
all, which are bare and without altars, showing a poverty--whatever may
have been the cause--which is deplorable.
In the Bassenheim chapel is a remarkable marble group taken from the
church of Notre Dame, a Gothic edifice destroyed during the siege of
1793.
There are numerous and beautiful funeral monuments scattered about the
church, the most celebrated being that which surmounts the tomb of
Frastrada, the third wife of Charlemagne, who died in 794, and was
originally interred in the church of St. Alban. The remains were removed
to the cathedral when the former church was burned in 1552.
On the tomb of Frastrada one may read the following eighth-century
inscription:
"_Frastradana, pia Caroli conjux vocitata,
Christo dilecta, jacet hoc sub marmore tecta,
Anno septingentesimo nonagesimo quarto,
Quem numerum metro claudere musa negat
Rex pie, quem gessit Virgo, licet hic cinerescit,
Spiritus hoeres sit patriæ quæ tristia nescit._"
There are also the tombs of thirty-two archbishops,--a veritable
valhalla of churchly fame. Mostly these tombs are ordinary enough, those
of Archbishop Berthould of Hennéberg and of the doyen of the chapter
being alone remarkable.
The chapel of St. Gothard, a dependency of the cathedral, was built by
Archbishop Adelbert I. in 1135-36.
The ancient cloister at Mayence dates from the mid-thirteenth century.
Archbishop Siegfried was responsible for the work which was consecrated
in the year 1243 in the presence of the Emperor Conrad, on the occasion
of a synod which was being held at Mayence at that time. The cloister,
as it exists to-day, is made up in part of this ancient work and in part
of a more modern construction, this latter being the portion which
adjoins the church proper.
The chapter-house was built at the end of the twelfth century or at the
beginning of the thirteenth. It is a square apartment covered with an
ogival vaulting which springs from a range of pillars with delicately
sculptured foliaged capitals. It is decidedly the architectural gem of
this composite edifice.
To the north of the cathedral, in the Speise-Markt, is a remarkably fine
fountain, restored, or perhaps rebuilt, in the sixteenth century by the
Archbishop of Mayence. A _baldaquin_ supported by three pillars rises
above a well or spring, and on a stone slab one reads the following
inscription in letters of gold:
"_Divo Karolo V Cesare semp Augus. post victoria gallicam rege ipso ad
Ticinum superato ac capto triumphante, fatalique rusticor[=u] per
Germnia (sic) cospiratione prostratâ, Alber. card. et archiep. Mog.
font[=e] hanc vetustate dilapsa ad civi[=u] suorum posteritatisque usum
restitui curavit anno MDXXVI._"
The Meistersingers of Mayence owed their origin to Henry Misnie, who,
according to some authorities, was a canon of the Church, and, according
to others, a doctor of theology. He was devoted, at any rate, to poetry,
and was, in the fourteenth century, founder of the school of the
Master-singers.
He dedicated a great part of his songs to the Virgin, his ideal of all
that was pious and good. Later he widened the range of his dedications
to include all of the female sex, and beautiful women in particular. He
is known in the history of German poetry under the name of Henry von
Frauenlob.
His death caused a universal sorrow among the fair sex of Mayence, who
gave his funeral such honours as were never before known.
The majority of the great procession which conducted his remains to the
tomb, which had been prepared in the cathedral, were women, "eight of
the most beautiful bearing a crown of roses, lilies, and myrtle." This
is a pretty enough sentiment, but it seems quite inexplicable to-day.
History records that the master-singer's favourite drink was the noble
wine of the Rhingau, and it is commonly supposed to have inspired many
of his beautiful songs.
Legend steps in and says that "the naves of the cathedral were inundated
by the libations which went on at this funeral ceremony."
A modern white marble monument, put into place in 1842, and replacing
one that had previously disappeared, stands as a memorial to the sweet
singer of the praises of women.
XVII
BACHARACH, BINGEN, AND RUDESHEIM
Bacharach is famous for its legends and its wine. With the former is
associated the ruins of St. Werner's Church, a fragment of exquisite
flamboyant Gothic, though built of what looks like a red sandstone. The
Swedes demolished it in the Thirty Years' War, but the lantern and the
eastern lancet window still remain to suggest its former great beauty.
This beautiful chapel was built as a memorial to the child Werner, whose
body was fabled to have been thrown by the Jews, his supposed murderers,
into the Rhine at Oberwesel. Instead of floating down-stream with the
current, it went up-stream as far as Bacharach, where it was recovered.
There is at Bacharach a twelfth-century church in the Byzantine style,
which is now a Protestant temple. It is an incongruous affair in spite
of the fact that the style is fairly pure of its kind, so far as the
body of the church is concerned. Surmounting it is a needle-like spire
which rises above the crenelated battlement of its tower in a most
fantastic manner.
[Illustration]
The city walls have great ornamental and picturesque qualities, and
were, in former days, defended by twelve towers of imposing strength.
The evolution of the name of Bacharach is decidedly non-Christian. It is
frankly pagan, being descended from _Bacchi ara_,--the altar of
Bacchus,--which was the name originally given to a rock in the midst of
the river, which, in varying seasons, is sometimes covered by the flood,
and again quite dry. When its surface appears to the light of day, the
vineyard owner hails it as a sign of good vintage.
In proof of the quality of the wines of Bacharach, it is said that Pope
Pius II. used every year to have a great tun of it brought to Rome for
his special use, and that the Emperor Wenceslas granted their freedom to
the citizens of Nuremberg in return for four tuns of the wine of
Bacharach. To-day Bacharach is, with Cologne, the great wine centre of
the Rhine valley.
Asmanhausen, a few miles up the river, is the central mart for the red
wines of the Rhine. Near Asmanhausen is Ehrenfels, where the Archbishops
of Mayence had a château in the thirteenth century. The château is still
there, but it is nothing more than a magnificent ruin.
[Illustration: _Bishop Hatto's Mouse Tower_]
Opposite Ehrenfels is Bingen, with its Mäuseturm. The chief sentimental
memory of Bingen is unquestionably the legend of Bishop Hatto and his
"Mouse Tower on the Rhine."
The legend of Hatto, versified by Southey, has stamped the memory of the
Mouse Tower and its associations so indelibly upon the mind that it
overshadows in interest all else in the vicinity.
"'Tis the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high, and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong and the water deep."
How the rats came and--
"...whetted their teeth against the stones
And how they picked the Bishop's bones"--
is an old story with which children have been regaled for generations
past.
The great white "Mouse Tower" stands to-day on its tiny island in the
middle of the waters of the Rhine, between Bingen and Ehrenfels, to
perpetuate the story, while its ruined walls look down, as they always
have, on the steady flow of the Rhine water, making its way from the
place of its birth in the Canton of Grisons to the cold waters of the
German ocean off the coast of Holland.
_Rudesheim_
Rudesheim, but a small town of less than three thousand inhabitants, is
noted for its wines and its ruins. Its church, though a
fifteenth-century edifice of more than ordinary beauty,--if we except
its nondescript spire,--comes decidedly last in the city's list of
attractions.
The remains of the four châteaux in the neighbourhood are the chief
object of the casual tourist.
The town is the centre of a vineyard, the grapes being grown in great
profusion near it. The favourable nature of the locality for
grape-growing was discovered, it is said, by Charlemagne, who, remarking
the rapid disappearance of the snow on the slopes about Rudesheim,
declared his belief that fine wine might be grown there. Sending to
France for some plants, they were placed in the earth, and have ever
since yielded a grape worthy of their parentage, a grape still called
Orleans.
From this town the tourist may make a pleasant excursion to the
Niederwald,--having first given his attention to the history of
Rudesheim, once the seat of an imperial court held in the Nieder
Burg,--and scan its four ancient castles. Of these, one belonged for a
time to Prince Metternich, who, however, sold it to Count Ingelheim, its
present possessor; another is picturesquely posted at the upper part of
the town, and still retains some curious relics of the Bromser family,
its old possessors. A tradition still exists, telling how Hans Bromser,
being taken captive in Jerusalem, made a vow to Heaven that if released
he would dedicate his only daughter to the service of the Church.
Gaining his liberty soon afterward, he returned to the Rhine to find the
child he had left when he started for the Crusades grown to womanhood;
and he learned also that, secure of her father's sanction, she had
betrothed herself to a youthful knight. Love and duty well-nigh rent the
maiden's heart in twain, till love conquered, and she begged her stern
parent to relent. This he refused to do, and threatened her with a
father's curse should she marry.
Despairing, she threw herself into the Rhine, and her body floated
down-stream as far as Bishop Hatto's Mouse Tower, at Bingen. This gave
rise to another legend, that when the surface of the waters is troubled
it is caused by the uneasy spirit of Bromser's daughter, wrestling with
the dreadful fate to which she was driven.
[Illustration]
XVIII
LIMBURG
The cathedral of Limburg-on-Lahn, not farther from the juncture of the
Lahn and Rhine than is Frankfort-on-the-Main, may well be considered a
Rhine cathedral.
The Lahn is by no means so powerful a stream as is the Main or the
Neckar; nor is it either picturesque, or even important as a waterway.
It has this one virtue, however: it forms a setting to Limburg's
many-spired cathedral that is truly grand.
Limburg played a great part in the middle ages, and its origin goes far
back into antiquity. Under Drusus a _castellum_ was erected here, which
was destroyed by the Franks and the Alemanni.
The counts of the lower Lahn province were among the most powerful in
all Germany. They gave their city the name of Roemercastel, which name,
to some extent, may be said to live up to to-day. Later the Franks
called it Lintburc, from the little river Linther, which flows into the
Lahn at this point.
The cathedral of Limburg is the most imposing and homogeneous of all the
_romano-ogival_ edifices of Germany.
Consecrated to St. George, this church dates from the latter years of
the twelfth century and the early part of the thirteenth. It was erected
by Count Henry of Nassau, and replaced two more ancient edifices on the
same site.
Without a doubt it is a mediæval monument which stands supreme in its
class, though its grandeur comes not so much from mere magnitude as it
does from the general disposition of its plan, and the wonderful
blending of the transition elements which, after all is said and done,
in Germany, are not elsewhere very pronounced.
The seven spires and towers of this cathedral form a wonderful grouping
and make a sky-line more broken than that of any other great church in
all Europe.
There is a certain symmetry about this outline, but it is not pyramidal,
after the manner of the cathedral at Bonn. In short, it is
reminiscent only of itself.
[Illustration: LIMBURG CATHEDRAL]
On the west are a pair of massive towers with conical caps, which give a
façade at once remarkable and distinguished.
Flanking the north transept are two smaller towers, and the same
arrangement is found just opposite on the south.
Above rises the great central octagon, surmounted in turn by a dwindling
octagonal spire, not beautiful in itself with its steeply inclined slate
or lead roofing, but which, under all atmospheric conditions, lends a
harmony to and is a key-note of the whole structure which is wonderfully
effective.
The interior plan is conventional and simple enough, consisting of the
usual three naves, with an easterly apse, surrounded by an ambulatory
and flanking chapel.
Within, as well as from the outside, the effect is one of an ampleness
which is not borne out by the actual dimensions, which fact, of course,
shows most able design and execution.
The elevation of the nave, choir, and transepts is divided into four
ranges of openings, such as are seen at Soissons in the Isle of France,
and, in a less complete form, in Notre Dame at Paris.
This has always been a daring procedure, but in this case it has been
carried out with success, and gives the desired effect,--that of
ampleness and height.
In the clerestory windows are found the rounded arches which mark the
link which binds the Gothic arches elsewhere in the fabric with the
earlier Romanesque style.
The vaulting is of the Gothic order throughout, with gracefully
proportioned shafts and full-flowered capitals.
All this preserves the simple elements of early Gothic in so impressive
a way that the observer will quite overlook, or at least make allowance
for, the row of round-headed windows aloft.
The triforium gallery is a charming feature, and has seldom been found
so highly developed outside of an early Gothic church. In general the
feature is French, and this is perhaps the only example outside France
which is so reminiscent of that variety frequently to be met with in the
cathedrals of the Isle of France.
The triforium is pierced through to the nave by a series of double
narrow arches enclosed within a larger broad-framed arch, while in the
transepts and choir the desired effect is accomplished by tripled arches
with the same general scheme of arrangement.
With regard to furnishings and accessories, this great cathedral is
singularly complete.
There is a highly ornate pulpit in sculptured wood which some will
consider the peer of any seen elsewhere. It is decorated further by a
series of painted wooden statues of the saints, Nicholas, Ambrose,
Augustin, Gregory, and Jerome.
There is a fine _custode_ covering a pyx, which is surmounted by a
fifteenth-century _baldaquin_, and a tomb of a former canon, ornamented
in bas-relief.
There is also a pair of baptismal fonts, enormous in size and said to be
contemporaneous with the foundation of the cathedral.
A tomb of Daniel of Mutersbach, a knight who died in 1475, is placed in
one of the chapels at the crossing, and near by is a mausoleum to that
Conrad who, by virtue of a charter given by Louis in 909, founded the
church which preceded the present edifice on this site.
It bears the following inscription in the barbarous Latin of the time:
CLAUDITUR HOC TUMULO PER QUEM
NUNC SERVITUS ISTO
FIT CELEBRIS TEMPLO, LAUS, VIRTUS,
GLORIA CHRISTO.
XIX
COBLENZ AND BOPPART
_Coblenz_
It is an open question as to whether the charming little city of Coblenz
is more delightful because of itself, or because of its proximity to the
famous fortress of Ehrenbreitstein,--"the broad stone of honour."
"Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shatter'd wall
Black with the miner's blast upon her height,
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball
Rebounding idly on her strength did light."
The city occupies a most romantically and historically endowed situation
at the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine.
At Coblenz the sons of Charlemagne met to divide their father's empire
into France, Germany, and Italy; there also Edward III. in 1338 met the
Emperor Louis, and was by him appointed vicar of the empire; and at
Coblenz the French raised a monument to commemorate the subjugation of
Russia. Soon after the inscription was finished, the Russian commander
entered Coblenz in pursuit of Napoleon. With memorable and caustic wit
he left the inscription as it stood, just adding, "Vu et approuvé par
nous, Commandant Russe de la Ville de Coblence, Janvier 1er, 1814." Here
also is the monument to the young and gallant General Marceau, killed at
the battle of Altenkirchen, 1796.
"By Coblenz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid,
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound:
Beneath its base are hero's ashes hid."
The Moselle, which joins the Rhine at Coblenz, was, like the Rhine
itself, referred to by Cæsar.
The pleasant valley of the Moselle--indeed it is one of the
_pleasantest_ (which is a vague term, but one easily understood by all)
in all Europe--was celebrated by one of the longer poems of Ausonius,
who wrote in the fourth century.
For those who would translate the original, his description will not be
found inapropos to-day:
"_Qua sublimis apex longo super ardua tractu
Et rupes et aprica jugi, flexusque sinusque
Vitibus adsurgunt naturalique theatro._"
Vines then, as now, clothed the slopes of the hills and cliffs which
sheltered the deep-cut stream.
A Roman governor of Gaul once proposed to unite the Moselle with the
Saône (as it is to-day, by means of the Canal de l'Est), and thus effect
a waterway across Europe from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
The church of St. Castor stands on the spot of the famous conference
between the sons of Charlemagne. It is one of the most ancient of the
Rhine churches, and was founded by Louis the Pious in 836.
Of this early church but little remains to-day except some distinct
features to be noted in the choir.
The four towers form a remarkable outline, and two of them, at least as
to their lower ranges, are undoubtedly of the eleventh century.
In this church are a series of remarkable decorations, one on the wall
above the spring of the nave arches, another above the entrance of the
choir aisle, and yet another in the semicircular roofing of the apse.
It may be a question as to how far such decorations are in really good
taste, but they certainly lend a warmth and brilliancy to an edifice
that might otherwise be cold and unfeeling.