Part 24

The north transept, however, contains something better than these monuments, and one of the greatest curiosities of the church--the chapel, as they call it, of S. Elizabeth. It never had an altar, and was not a chapel, but simply a very beautiful kind of tabernacle, within which was deposited the marvellously beautiful shrine in which were preserved the relics of the saint, and which--now removed to the sacristy--is still the great treasure of the church. The relics were all dispersed, I believe, at the time of the Reformation, though the church is still held by the Catholics. This tabernacle, if I may so call it, is a rectangular erection, narrow at the east and west, and with its principal front towards the south. A trefoiled arch on each face, supported upon clusters of shafts at the four angles, forms the design, the arches inclosed within a square projecting moulding, with their spandrels not carved but bearing marks of painting. The great beauty of the work is the exquisite foliage which is carved in such masses all round the arches and elsewhere as quite to take the place of mouldings. All this foliage is natural, much varied, and undercut with such boldness as to stand out in very great relief. I would that every carver in England could have the opportunity to study this exquisite work, and still more, the sense to profit by it. All the openings are filled in with iron grilles; and the whole is just large enough to contain and protect the shrine. It stands upon double steps, which are prolonged to form a footpace for an altar which has been built against its west side, and which, on the south, are worn into hollows by the knees of pilgrims.

Above the stone work is an open wooden railing, apparently of the same date; and this incloses a space which is reached by a staircase from behind. In the reredos of the altar erected against the shrine are some sculptures from the life of the saint, her death, her burial, and the exaltation of her relics after canonization, etc., whilst on the shutters are paintings representing some of the more remarkable subjects in her story.

The shrine has been removed for safety to the sacristy, and is carefully guarded and fenced about with ironwork, as well it may be. It is an exquisite work of the best period--_circa_ 1280–1300--covered with the most delicate work in silver-gilt and adorned profusely with jewels and enamels, and on the whole I think the finest shrine I have ever seen.

The doors in the sacristy and elsewhere throughout the church are of deal, and were originally covered with linen or leather, which as far as I could make out was always coloured a bright red; it is a most curious evidence of the extent to which colour was introduced everywhere, and must have been most effective. It is not, however, the only instance with which I have met; and I may mention the magnificent north transept doors of the cathedral at Halberstadt as examples of the same thing.

Between the north transept and the sacristy is a passage, which leads to the external passages which I have already described as surrounding the whole exterior of the church.

My notice of Marburg has already extended far beyond what I purposed, though not beyond its deserts; and yet I cannot conclude without saying a few words about the castle, which so grandly towers over the old tower and church.

The climb up to it is really a serious business; and when I reached the summit I had to exhibit no little adroitness in passing a sentinel who obstinately wanted to send me back, in order that I might ascend by some more tortuous and more legal path than I had chosen.

I went first into the chapel. This is raised to a considerable height upon other buildings, and approached by a newel staircase. It is a very curious and very satisfactory little building, its entire length 39 ft., and its width 18 ft. 6 in. There is a three-sided apse at either end, and one bay only between them; this central bay has projections on either side, which inside have the effect of very small transepts, and externally are treated as bay windows. The windows are all geometrical, of two lights, and very good detail. Externally, there are buttresses at the angles of the apse, which rise out of the much thicker walls of the rooms below the chapel, and do not go down to the ground. In the eastern apse there are a piscina and a locker. The old pavement still remains; it is all of red tile, arranged in large circles, with tiles generally triangular in shape and of various sizes. Unfortunately, this little chapel is full of galleries and pews.

From hence I ascended to the Ritter-Saal, a fine large groined hall, somewhat like the well known hall in the Stadt-Haus at Aix-la-Chapelle. It is divided by a row of columns down the centre, from which the groining-ribs spring, and is about 100 feet long by 42 feet wide. Each bay has a very fine four-light transomed window, and the whole is of early date. Below it, on the ground floor, is a smaller hall, the groining of which springs from a central shaft, and the windows in which are of three and five transomed lights, and of very early character.

The interest of both these halls is very great, as they are quite untouched, and of a rare date for domestic work on such a scale. The exterior of this portion of the buildings is very fine, boldly buttressed, with great angle turrets, and occupying just the edge of the cliff.

The castle stands upon a narrow prong of hill, very precipitous on three sides, and all around its base the town clusters; on one side is the grand church of S. Elizabeth, looking most admirable in this capital bird’s-eye view, and on the other a long flight of steps leads to a church which from above looks very well, but which did not repay examination, its only interesting feature being an old _Sakraments-Häuslein_.

I walked back from the castle by a roundabout path all through the old town, and reached my inn too late to get on to Frankfort by the train I had fixed on; but I was not sorry, as I had an excuse for getting some more sketches of the exterior of the cathedral, and had all the more pleasant thoughts wherewith to solace myself as I travelled through the dark night to Frankfort.

I think I have said enough to show that ecclesiologists may depend upon pleasure of no ordinary kind in visiting such churches as those of Naumburg, Erfurt, and Marburg. They are remarkable, not only for their generally fine character, but more especially for their exquisite sculpture and for the extent to which they have preserved almost untouched and undamaged their extraordinarily beautiful furniture and fittings; and are, therefore, of especial value to us, who have so little of the same kind of thing left in our own churches.

IV

MÜNSTER AND SOEST

In the course of the autumn of last year, I spent a short holiday, 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.

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.