Part 21

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.

In the choir there is a magnificent metal _Sakraments-Haus_, very elaborate, and full of most delicate work; it has been shamefully damaged, but enough remains to make one class it with the best of these often beautiful pieces of church furniture. About twenty feet in height, it stands on lions’ backs, and finishes at the top with the Crucifixion.

One of the relics still preserved in this church is a Dance of Death, in a series of twenty-five paintings round the walls of a chapel which forms part of the north transept; it is a very complete painting, and its date, which is said to be A.D. 1463, makes it one of the earliest paintings of this very curious subject. Mr. Douce, in his treatise on the Dance of Death, mentions older examples at Minden, in the churchyard of the Innocents at Paris, in the cloister of the S. Chapelle at Dijon, and that at Basle, which is the most famous of all. Most, if not all of these, are, however, now destroyed, and the interest of this painting becomes therefore the greater. It is certainly very valuable; if for no other reason, for the variety of costume, of every rank and order of men, which it contains, beginning with the pope, the emperor, empress, cardinal, king, bishop, duke, abbat, and so on to the young woman and the little child.

Besides these paintings are two by Overbeck: one in the Lady-chapel, finished in 1824, of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, is certainly very beautiful, in its calm simplicity and purity of colour, reminding one much of Raffaelle’s early style, or of some work of that great Christian artist, Perugino; and therefore most grateful to me, and far more pleasing than the other, which is a Pietà, painted in 1847, and in a thoroughly different and much more naturalistic style. In the first painting the Lübeck people recognise and point out, with no little pride, Overbeck’s father, mother, and sisters, all of them--as also the great artist himself--natives of Lübeck, and perhaps fairly enough introduced in this his offering to his native town. A lion of the Marien-Kirche is the clock--one of those clumsy pieces of ingenuity which so often annoy one on the Continent. There is also a metal font, said to have been made in 1337 by one Hans Apengeter; but like that at the cathedral, not very satisfactory.

After these two great churches, certainly by far the most interesting church is that of the Minorite convent, S. Katharine, which is in many ways so remarkable, as to leave perhaps a stronger impression on one’s mind than anything else in the city. It is a desecrated church, but desecrated happily in a quiet way; unused, and not much cared for, but as yet not destroyed, and serving now only as a kind of museum of old church furniture, great store of which, from the Burg-Kloster church and elsewhere, is accumulated in its choir.

The date of the foundation of this church is given on an inscription near the door as A.D. 1335, and its founder Bishop Henry Bockholt; but an old chronicler, Reimar Cock, says that the guardian of the church, Brother Emeke, pulled down the church in 1351, and rebuilt it in three years more beautifully than before, with the alms which, during the time of the plague, were given to the monks.

I have drawn out the plan of this church, and, with the help of my sketches, this may, I trust, explain its extraordinary arrangement. This consists in the elevation of the choir, with a kind of crypt below it, above the floor of the rest of the church; the floor of the crypt being level with that of the nave, and divided into three widths with slender shafts, the whole groined, and when seen from the nave, presenting certainly one of the most striking and curious interiors I have ever met with. The west end of the under church opens to the nave with three arches, looking just like the ordinary arrangement of rood-screens in Lübeck; and this is just what it is: the whole choir is simply a prolongation eastwards of the rood-loft, and at the west end there is a raised screen surmounting the three arches, out of which rises a most magnificent and perfect rood, with SS. Mary and John on either side. The entire absence of seats in the nave, the great height of the church, the darkness of the long vista of arch and column under the choir, and the magnificence of the rood, make this interior one of the most satisfactory and least altered things I know; and if its arrangement is not absolutely unique, it is certainly not far from being so. In England I know nothing at all like it, unless such an example as the little church at Compton, near Guildford, be taken, in which there are indeed some points of similarity--the low sanctuary, with its groined roof, and the chapel above opening to the church, and fenced in with its low Romanesque screen-work; all this, though on a far smaller scale, certainly tallies curiously with this Minorite church at Lübeck.[77]

An iron grill shuts off the chapels at the east end of the under church, and in the centre of these is a fine brass, of which I obtained a rubbing. It is to a member of the Lüneburg family, and contains the figure of the burgomaster John Lüneburg, who died in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The inscriptions are curious, the name, etc., all in Latin, ending with “Bidde God vor em”; and another ending “Orate: ah werlt du hest mi bedragen!” It will be seen from the drawing of the interior that the whole detail is of a very severe kind,--all brick, and alas! all whitewashed. The access to the choir is by a staircase in the south aisle, which did not appear to me to be old. There is a space of some ten or twelve feet between the west side of the rood-loft and the choir-stalls, which are returned; and into this space the staircase leads. The stalls are old, and very good; and the whole pavement of the upper choir is of tiles, of a peculiar and interesting kind, if only for its novelty. The only pattern tiles are in the borders, the remainder are green, black, red, and light red, made in various shapes, and very good in their effect. One of the chapels in the Marien-Kirche is similarly paved, but not on so grand a scale, or with so many patterns. The only pavements at all approaching to the same kind which at the present moment I can call to mind, are that which has been so strangely--as it were providentially--preserved in the footpace on which once stood the high altar at Fountains Abbey, perfect and untouched, where all else is ruin and desolation;--and in those most lovely marble pavements in S. Anastasia, at Verona. Some of the arrangements of the patterns approach very near to these, but how much more beautiful the marble of Verona is than the tiles of Lübeck one can hardly say.

And with this ends all that one knows as positively belonging to S. Katharine; for in this unused choir is now a store of triptychs of that kind which, after some acquaintance with German churches, one learns to tire of, covered with carving, quaint, and richly coloured, or painted in Scripture story or strange legend, well enough in their proper place, and giving once doubtless great dignity to the altars they adorned, but here--collected and set out for view as a gallery of paintings--if not worthless, at best very unsatisfactory. But besides all these triptychs, there is a large aumbrye, with its old iron gates and locks still perfect, in which is a large collection of portions of monstrances, chalices, crosses, and the like: many of them very beautiful, but all damaged and in fragments. Among other things I saw a curious leather bag for carrying books, with an ingenious pocket for money contrived in its folds and very securely fastened.

But what is most rare and curious is a collection of ancient linen altar-cloths, which I had great trouble in getting a sight of, and which I could not draw, as the curator of the museum insisted on showing them himself, and when I wished to draw them, told me that he had already himself drawn them: this, as may be imagined, was a very poor source of comfort to me.

There was a corporal about 2 feet square, and fringed; along the edge of which was worked an arcade with figures of saints, the dresses stitched in a regular pattern all over, and the folds left plain: the date of this was about A.D. 1280. There was another embroidered corporal which I managed to get a drawing of: this was 2 feet square, with a large cross in the centre and four smaller crosses in the corners; the whole worked in a cross-stitch with blue and red on the white linen. Date, I think, about 1450.

Then there were two linen cloths for the altar: one, 14 ft. long by 3 ft. 10 in. wide, with a great number of figures of prophets surrounded with branching foliage; from the character of the figures, I date this at about A.D. 1400. All the outlines of the figures, leaves, etc. were marked with coloured ink borders on the linen before the work was done: the hair and points of the dresses here and there were marked with bright colour, but generally the work was all in white thread,--the stitches rather long, and arranged in regular patterns and diapers.

Another linen cloth of the same size has the whole history of Reynard the Fox: a curious subject, it may be thought, for an altar-cloth; but I may remark that I found the same subject in the bosses of the under church.

Besides this there was a magnificent linen dalmatic with apparels beautifully worked and fringed with white, red, white, blue, alternately. The orphreys had been taken off. The apparels of the sleeves were a succession of medallions, six to each sleeve, containing the Twelve Apostles, and the apparel at the bottom of the dalmatic had in front our Lord and two saints, and at the back S. Mary the Virgin, SS. Peter and Paul. The work was most beautiful, and, I have no doubt of the end of the thirteenth century.

I believe there were other things of the same kind, but I fear my curiosity rather disgusted the curator, who was not very anxious to let me see very much of these precious and invaluable relics.

The exterior of S. Katharine will be best understood by my sketches. The most noticeable fact is that some of the tracery in the eastern part is of stone enclosed within a brick arch, and exceedingly good in its effect; proving satisfactorily that this is the real way to use brick and stone together. There is no comparison between these windows and all the other windows in Lübeck. The rest are all ugly: these quite beautiful.

The transept has a double gable, as in the Marien-Kirche, and internally is arranged like an aisle rather than a transept. The west front is curious and indescribable: an irregular assemblage of arcades and windows without order or definiteness, but withal very effective. And as will be seen from the ground-plan, the north aisle being much narrower than the south produces of necessity a great irregularity in the whole elevation, and this irregularity is so carefully managed as really completely to conceal the awkwardness which would otherwise be very apparent. There is no tower, only a turret on the roof, at the intersection of nave, choir, and transept roofs.

In buildings connected with the church is a large library, some cartoons of Overbeck’s, and some work of Godfrey Kneller’s, he, as well as Overbeck, having been born here.

The other churches are not very remarkable. S. Peter’s has a good steeple with metal turrets at the base of the spire, and I believe there is a fine brass there, but I failed to see it.

S. James has a very plain brick tower, and a good triapsidal east end, very much like that of S. Katharine. The steeple is crowned with a modern spire: inside there is a late metal font, of the kind popular in Lübeck--a large vat-like vessel standing on the backs of four kneeling angels, and covered with small and ineffective arcading with figures and subjects. There is a large organ of rather early date, and two curious standard lanterns for carrying lights in procession: they are of very late date, but still so rare as to be worth notice.

S. Giles has no one feature of interest, save its very fine tower and spire.

Of the hospitals the most curious is the Heiligen-Geist-Spital: the ground-plan and general arrangement of which are most remarkable. The chapel is the oblong building at the west end, only two bays in length, but of great width: against its east wall is a rood-screen and loft, under which is the altar, and, on either side of the altar, doors which admit every one under the loft into the hospital. This, like many of our old hospitals (S. Mary’s, Chichester, and Higham Ferrers, are cases in point) is one immense hall, 250 ft. long by 40 ft. wide, and has down its length two passages, and four rows of cubicles for the inmates, and accommodates no less than 150 poor people: truly a most royal provision for the poor. There is an entrance at the sides, but the main entrance is through the chapel, through which there is a constant passing, and it is therefore more like a great hall than a chapel. How much better is the ordinary English arrangement (of which I saw a grand example at Lüneburg), in which the chapel is at the east end of the hall. There the chapel sanctifies the whole, instead of being itself profaned, as is the case at Lübeck.

The hospital was founded by one Bertram Mornewech, in A.D. 1286, and is similar in plan, I believe, to the great Gothic Hospital della Scala at Siena.

In the chapel are some brass screens like those in the Marien-Kirche, but inferior to them. The west front is remarkable and certainly very picturesque, with its three gables and its multitude of turrets.

The most interesting building left to be described is the ruin of the Burg-Kloster. This was a Dominican convent, and at the Reformation was converted into a hospital for the poor. In 1818, a portion of the vaulting of the church fell in, and then they pulled down the rest of the church, sending their stained glass and the organ to the Marien-Kirche, and their triptychs and altar furniture to the Katerinen-Kirche. The north wall only of the church now remains, but this shows traces of stone windows enclosed within brick arches, like those in the apse of S. Katharine, and its destruction is therefore specially to be deplored. The foundation dates from A.D. 1229. The rest of the conventual buildings still in great part remain, but so mixed up with other and modern erections, that it is rather difficult to understand them.

There is, however, a fair cloister on the north side of the church, groined throughout and tolerably perfect: out of this, on one side, is a kind of open groined stall, which looks something like the ambulatories which are so beautiful a feature of our own abbeys; and out of this ambulatory, one enters a large hall once apparently divided by a row of columns down the centre. North of these buildings is a room which seems to have been part of the refectory, remarkable for an exquisite pavement of small tiles--red, black, and white--arranged in an ingenious and intricate pattern, of which I made a careful drawing. My drawing shows the entire remaining portion of this pavement which, it will be seen, continued on beyond the present partition-wall. A central shaft is still left, with an old oak sideboard framed round its base in a most effective manner. In another part of the Burg-Kloster there is a small fragment of similar pavement, which looks as if it had been the hearth under a fire.

Near S. Giles’s church there is another ruined conventual building, S. Anne’s Kloster. This was originally a nunnery of “Clarissernonnen” (I suppose these were nuns of S. Clare, an order who had a few houses in England), but has been converted into a workhouse. Unfortunately a great fire in 1843 consumed the church, and left nothing but the outer walls standing, and when I was there it was used as a place for the workhouse men to break stones or the roads. The church is said to have been designed and built by one Synsingus Hesse of Brunswick, who came to Lübeck in 1502 with five assistants, and completed the work in 1510. With this date the work tallies very well, though I confess there is no mark of the peculiarities of a Brunswick architect, which, as must be known to any who have ever seen that very remarkable city, are decided enough. Part of the west front of the church of S. Anne was built with courses of stone and brick, a most unusual arrangement in Germany, though common enough in Italian pointed, and always very striking in its effect; the domestic buildings retain a good many groined rooms, and a simple cloister in very perfect condition.

We come now to the Rathhaus, whose long line of picturesque front is so great a feature in the principal street of the city. Its history is so confusing and its style so peculiar, that it is very difficult indeed to affix any certain date to its various portions. It was burnt down in A.D. 1276, and there was another fire in A.D. 1358. In A.D. 1389 there were considerable works executed, including the famous cellars, whose still more famous wine was all cleared out by the French, when they sacked the good city in A.D. 1806. The portion of the Rathhaus to the south of the market-place seems to have been built in 1442–44, and the alterations of the Börse towards the street in 1570 and 1673; so that we may well expect a confusing and picturesque mixture of works of various dates. The earliest external portion appears to me to be the screen on the north side in front of the two gabled roofs; and this and the other great screens or parapets towards the market-place and towards the street are the most picturesque portions of the building. They are entirely executed in red and black brick, the cusping being all done in moulded brick. As a rich piece of colour this work is very valuable, but architecturally its sole merit is a kind of picturesqueness, which it certainly has in great force.

The fact is that in northern Germany all the domestic architecture was very full of faults; the fronts of the buildings were very seldom at all ruled by the roof line, and their stepped gables, traceried, mullioned, and pinnacled, had no reference to anything save a desire to look well; and so here some of the most striking portions of the old Rathhaus are done without any regard to constructional wants, and simply as masks of the construction; the fronts are built up to conceal the roofs, arcaded and pinnacled without meaning, and in a style very elaborate as compared with the other brick work throughout the city.