For more than eleven hundred kilometres it flows between banks redolent of history and legend to so great an extent that it is but natural that the art and architecture of its environment should have been some unique type which, lending its influence to the border countries, left its impress throughout an area which can hardly be restricted by the river's banks themselves.
We know how, in Germany, it gave birth to a variety of ecclesiastical architecture which is recognized by the world as a distinct Rhenish type. In Holland the architectural forms partook of a much more simple or primitive character; but they, too, are distinctly Rhenish; at least, they have not the refulgence of the full-blown Gothic of France.
Taine, in his "Art in the Netherlands," goes into the character of the land, and the struggle demanded of the people to reclaim it from the sea, and the energy, the vigilance required to secure it from its onslaughts so that they, for themselves and their families, might possess a safe and quiet hearthstone. He draws a picture of the homes thus safeguarded, and of how this sense of immunity fostered finally a life of material comfort and enjoyment.
All this had an effect upon local architectural types, and the great part played by the valley of the Rhine in the development of manners and customs is not excelled by any other topographical feature in Europe, if it is even equalled.
Coupled to the wonders of art are the wonders of nature, and the Rhine is bountifully blessed with the latter as well.
The conventional Rhine tour of our forefathers is taken, even to-day, by countless thousands to whom its beauties, its legends, and its history appeal. But whether one goes to study churches, for a mere holiday, or as a pleasant way of crossing Europe, he will be struck by the astonishing similarity of tone in the whole colour-scheme of the Rhine.
The key-note is the same whether he follows it up from its juncture with salt water at Katwyck or through the gateway of the "lazy Scheldt," via Antwerp, or through Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne.
Sooner or later the true Rhineland is reached, and the pilgrim, on his way, whether his shrines be religious ones or worldly, will drink his fill of sensations which are as new and different from those which will be met with in France, Italy, and Spain as it is possible to conceive.
From the days of Charlemagne, and even before, down through the fervent period of the Crusades, to the romantic middle ages, the Rhine rings its true note in the gamut, and rings it loudly. It has played a great part in history, and to its geographical and political importance is added the always potent charm of natural beauty.
The church-builder and his followers, too, were important factors in it all, for one of the glories of all modern European nations will ever be their churches and the memories of their churchmen of the past.
III
THE CHURCH IN GERMANY
There have been those who have claimed that the two great blessings bestowed upon the world by Germany are the invention of printing by Gutenberg, which emanated from Mayence in 1436, and the Reformation started by Luther at Wittenberg in 1517. The statement may be open to criticism, but it is hazarded nevertheless. As to how really religious the Germans have always been, one has but to recall Schiller's "Song of the Bell." Certainly a people who lay such stress upon opening the common every-day life with prayer must always have been devoted to religion.
The question of the religious tenets of Germany is studiously avoided in this book, as far as making comparisons between the Catholic and Protestant religions is concerned.
At the finish of the "Thirty Years' War," North Germany had become almost entirely Protestant, and many of the former bishops' churches had become by force of circumstances colder and less attractive than formerly, even though many of the Lutheran churches to-day keep up some semblance of high ceremony and altar decorations. It is curious, however, that many of these churches are quite closed to the public on any day but Sunday or some of the great holidays.
In the Rhine provinces the Catholic faith has most strongly endured. In the German Catholic cathedrals the morning service from half-past nine to ten is usually a service of much impressiveness, and at Cologne, beloved of all stranger tourists, nones, vespers, and compline are sung daily with much devotion.
The ecclesiastical foundation in Germany is properly attributable to monkish influences. Between the Rhine and the Baltic there were no cities before the time of Charlemagne, although the settlements established there by the Church for the conversion of the natives were the origin of the communities from which sprang the great cities of later years.
The monkish orders were ever a powerful body of church-builders, and north of the Alps in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, even though they were the guardians of literature as well as of the arts, the monks were possessed of an energy which took its most active form in church-building.
Whatever may have been the origin of the later Romanesque church-building, whether it was indigenous to Lombard Italy or not, it was much the same in Spain, France, England, and Germany, though it took its most hardy form in Germany, perhaps with the cathedral of Speyer (1165-90), which is one of the latest Romanesque structures, contemporary with the early Gothic of France. In Italy, and elsewhere along the Mediterranean, the pure Romanesque was somewhat diluted by the Byzantine influence; but northward, along the course of the Rhine, the Romanesque influence had come to its own in a purer form than it had in Italy itself.
Here it may be well to mention one pertinent fact of German history, in an attempt to show how, at one time at least, Church and state in Germany were more firmly bound together than at present.
The Germanic Empire, founded by Charlemagne in the year 800, was dissolved under Francis II., who, in 1806, exchanged the title of Emperor of Germany for that of Emperor of Austria, confining himself to his hereditary dominions.
In the olden times the Germanic Empire was in reality a league of barons, counts, and dukes, who, through seven of their number, elected the emperor.
These electors were the Archbishops of Mayence (who was also Primate and Archchancellor of the Empire), Trèves, and Cologne; the Palatine of the Rhine, Arch-Steward of the Empire; the Margrave of Brandenburg, Arch-Chamberlain; the Duke of Saxony, Arch-Marshal; and the King of Bohemia, Arch-Cupbearer.
In no part of the Christian world did the clergy possess greater endowments of power and wealth than did those of the Rhine valley.
The Archbishop of Cologne was the Archchancellor of the Empire, the second in rank of the electoral princes, and ruler of an immense territory extending from Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle; while the Archbishops of Mayence and Trèves played the rôle of patriarchs, and were frequently more powerful even than the Popes.
All the bishops, indeed, were invested with rights both spiritual and temporal, those of the churchman and those of the grand seigneur, which they exercised to the utmost throughout their dioceses.
St. Boniface was sent on his mission to Germany in 715, having credentials and instructions from Pope Gregory II. He was accompanied by a large following of monks versed in the art of building, and of lay brethren who were also architects. This we learn from the letters of Pope Gregory and the "Life of St. Boniface," so the fact is established that church-building in Germany, if not actually begun by St. Boniface, was at least healthily and enthusiastically stimulated by him.
Among the bishoprics founded by Boniface were those of Cologne, Worms, and Speyer, and it may be remarked that all of these cities have ample evidences of the round-arched style which came prior to the Gothic, which followed later. If anything at all is proved with regard to the distinct type known as Rhenish architecture, it is that the Lombard builders preceded by a long time the Gothic builders.
Charlemagne's first efforts after subduing the heathen Saxons was to encourage their conversion to Christianity. For this purpose he created many bishoprics, one being at Paderborn, in 795, a favourite place of residence with the emperor.
Great dignity was enjoyed by the Bishop of Paderborn, certain rights of his extending so far as the Councils of Utrecht, Liège, and Münster. The abbess of the monastery at Essen, near Düsseldorf, was under his rule; and the Counts of Oldenberg and the Dukes of Clèves owed to him a certain allegiance; while certain rights were granted him by the cities of Cologne, Verdun, Aix-la-Chapelle, and others.
These dignities endured, in part, until the aftermath of the French Revolution, which was the real cause of the disrupture of many Charlemagnian traditions.
After the Peace of Lunéville, in 1801, the electorates of Cologne, Trèves, and Mayence were suppressed, together with the principalities of Münster, Hildesheim, Paderborn, and Osnabrück, while such abbeys and monasteries as had come through the Reformation were dissolved.
Besides Charlemagne's bishoprics, others founded by Otho the Great were suppressed.
Upon the restoration of the Rhenish provinces to Germany in 1814, the Catholic hierarchy was reëstablished and a rearrangement of dioceses took place. A treaty with the Prussian state gave Cologne again an archbishopric, with suffragans at Trèves, Münster, and Paderborn, and Count Charles Spiegel zum Desenburg was made archbishop. Other provinces aspired to similar concessions, and certain of the suppressed sees were reërected.
The Lutherized districts, north and eastward of the Rhine, were very extensive, but the influence which went forth again from Cologne served to counteract this to a great extent.
The Catholic hierarchy in Germany is made up as follows:
The religious population of Germany to-day is divided approximately thus: Protestants, 63 per cent; Catholics, 36 per cent; Jews, 1 per cent.
The reign of the pure Gothic spirit in church-building, as far as it ever advanced in Germany, was at an end with the wars of the Hussites and the Reformation of Luther. During these religious and political convulsions, the Gothic spirit may be said to have died, so far as the undertaking of any new or great work goes.
Just as we find in Germany a different speech and a different manner of living from that of either Rome or Gaul, we find also in Germany, or rather in the Rhenish provinces, a marked difference in ecclesiastical art from either of the types which were developing contemporaneously in the neighbouring countries.
The Rhine proved itself a veritable borderland, which neither kept to the strict classicism of the Romanesque manner of building, nor yet adopted, without question, the newly arisen Gothic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Architecture and sculpture in its earliest and most approved ecclesiastical forms undoubtedly made its way from Italy to France, Spain, Germany, and England, along the natural travel routes over which came the Roman invaders, conquerors, or civilizers – or whatever we please to think them.
Under each and every environment it developed, as it were, a new style, the flat roofs and low arches giving way for the most part to more lofty and steeper-angled gables and openings. This may have been caused by climatic influences, or it may not; at any rate, church-building – and other building as well – changed as it went northward, and sharp gables and steep sloping lines became not only frequent, but almost universal.
The Comacine Masters, who were the great church-builders of the early days in Italy, went north in the seventh century, still pursuing their mission; to England with St. Augustine, to Germany with Boniface, and Charlemagne himself, as we know, brought them to Aix-la-Chapelle for the work at his church there.
The distinctly Rhenish variety of Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture came to its greatest development under the Suabian or Hohenstaufen line of emperors, reaching its zenith during the reign of the great Frederick Barbarossa (1152-90).
The churches at Neuss, Bonn, Sinzig, and Coblenz all underwent a necessary reconstruction in the early thirteenth century because of ravages during the terrific warfare of the rival claimants to the throne of Barbarossa.
Frederick, one claimant, was under the guardianship of Pope Innocent III., and Philip, his brother, was as devotedly cared for by the rival Pope, Gregory VIII. Finally Innocent compromised the matter by securing the election of Otho IV., of Brunswick.
With that "hotbed of heresies," Holland, this book has little to do, dealing only with three centres of religious movement there.
Holland was the storm-centre for a great struggle for religious and political freedom, and for this very reason there grew up here no great Gothic fabrics of a rank to rival those of France, England, and Germany. Still, there was a distinct and most picturesque element which entered into the church-building of Holland in the middle ages, as one notes in the remarkable church of Deventer. In the main, however, if we except the Groote Kerk at Rotterdam, St. Janskerk at Gouda, the archbishop's church at Utrecht, and the splendid edifice at Dordrecht, there is nothing in Holland architecturally great.
IV
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF RHENISH
ARCHITECTURE
It cannot be claimed that the church-building of one nation was any more thorough or any more devoted than that of any other. All the great church-building powers of the middle ages were, it is to be presumed, possessed of the single idea of glorifying God by the building of houses in his name.
"To the rising generation," said the editor of the Architectural Magazine in 1838, "and to it alone do we look forward for the real improvement in architecture as an art of design and taste."
"The poetry of architecture" was an early and famous theme of Ruskin's, and doubtless he was sincere when he wrote the papers that are included under that general title; but the time was not then ripe for an architectural revolution, and the people could not, or would not, revert to the Gothic or even the pure Renaissance – if there ever was such a thing. We had, as a result, what is sometimes known as early Victorian, and the plush and horsehair effects of contemporary times.
In general, the churches of Germany, or at least of the Rhine provinces, are of a species as distinct from the pure Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance as they well can be. Except for the fact that of recent years the art nouveau has invaded Germany, there is little mediocrity of plan or execution in the ecclesiastical architecture of that country, although of late years all classes of architectural forms have taken on, in most lands, the most uncouth shapes, – church edifices in particular, – they becoming, indeed, anything but churchly.
The Renaissance, which spread from Italy just after the period when the Gothic had flowered its last, came to the north through Germany rather than through France, and so it was but natural that the Romanesque manner of building, which had come long before, had a much firmer footing, and for a much longer period, in Germany, than it had in France. Gothic came, in rudimentary forms at any rate, as early here as it did to France or England; but, with true German tenacity of purpose, her builders clung to the round-arched style of openings long after the employment of it had ceased to be the fashion elsewhere.
This, then, is the first distinctive feature of the ecclesiastical edifices erected in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the new Gothic forms were elsewhere budding into their utmost beauty.
One strong constructive note ever rings out, and that is that, while the Gothic was ringing its purest sound in France and even in England, at least three forces were playing their gamut in Germany, producing a species quite by itself which was certainly not Gothic any more than it was Moorish, and not Romanesque any more than was the Angevin variety of round-arched forms, which is so much admired in France.
One notably pure Gothic example, although of the earliest Gothic, is found in Notre Dame at Trèves, with perhaps another in the abbey of Altenburg near Cologne; but these are the chief ones that in any way resemble the consistent French pointed architecture which we best know as Gothic.
The Rhenish variety of Romanesque lived here on the Rhine to a far later period, notably at Bonn and Coblenz, than it did in either France or England.
German church architecture, in general, is full of local mannerisms, but the one most consistently marked is the tacit avoidance of the true ogival style, until we come to the great cathedral at Cologne, which, in truth, so far as its finished form goes, is quite a modern affair.
In journeying through Northeastern France, or through Holland or Belgium, one comes gradually upon this distinct feature of the Rhenish type of church in a manner which shows a spread of its influence.
All the Low Country churches are more or less German in their motive; so, too, are many of those of Belgium, particularly the cathedral at Tournai and the two fine churches at Liège (Ste. Croix and the cathedral), which are frankly Teutonic; while at Maastricht in Holland is almost a replica of a Rhenish-Romanesque basilica.
At Aix-la-Chapelle is the famous "Round Church" of Charlemagne, which is something neither French nor German. It has received some later century additions, but the "octagon" is still there, and it stands almost alone north of Italy, where its predecessor is found at Ravenna, the Templars' Church in London being of quite a different order.
Long years ago this Ravenna prototype, or perhaps it was this eighth-century church of Charlemagne's, gave rise to numerous circular and octagonal edifices erected throughout Germany; but all have now disappeared with the exception, it is claimed, of one at Ottmarsheim, a fragment at Essen, and the rebuilt St. Gérêon's at Cologne.
These round churches – St. Gérêon's at Cologne, the Mathias Kapelle at Kobern, and, above all, Charlemagne's Münster at Aix-la-Chapelle, and others elsewhere, notably in Italy – are doubtless a survival of a pagan influence; certainly the style of building was a favourite with the Romans, and was common even among the Greeks, where the little circular pagan temples were always a most fascinating part of the general ensemble.
It would hardly be appropriate in a book such as this to attempt to trace the origin of Gothic, as we have come to know that twelfth and thirteenth century variety of pointed architecture, which, if anything, is French pointed. It has been plausibly claimed that, after its introduction into France and England, it developed into the full-blown style of the fourteenth century, which so soon fell before the Renaissance in the century following.
In Germany the process, with differences with regard to its chronology, was much the same.
It has been the fashion among writers of all weights of opinion to break into an apparently irresistible enthusiasm with regard to Gothic architecture in general, and this, so far as it goes, is excusable. Most of us will agree that "the folk of the middle ages had fallen in love with church-building, and loved that their goldsmith's work, and ivories, their seals, and even the pierced patterns of their shoes should be like little buildings, little tabernacles, little 'Paul's windows.' Some of their tombs and shrines must have been conceived as little fairy buildings; and doubtless they would have liked little angels to hop about them all alive and blow fairy trumpets."
In the building of the great cathedrals it must certainly be allowed that there is an element that we do not understand. Those who fashioned them worked wonder into them; they had the ability which children have to call up enchantment. "In these high vaults, and glistening windows, and peering figures, there was magic even to their makers."
Gothic art must ever, in a certain degree, be a mystery to us, because we cannot entirely put ourselves in the place of the men of those times. "We cannot by taking thought be Egyptian or Japanese, nor can we again be Romanesque or Gothic," nor indeed can we explain entirely the motif of Burmese architecture, which, appearing as a blend of Chinese and Indian, stands out as the exotic of the Eastern, as does the Gothic of the Western, world.
Only in these latter two species of architectural art does stone-carving stand out with that supreme excellence which does not admit of rivalry, though one be pagan and the other Christian.
Germany, above all other nations of the middle ages in Europe, excelled in the craftsmanship which fashioned warm, live emotions out of cold gray stone, and to-day such examples of this as the overpowering and splendid cathedrals at Cologne, Ratisbon, Strasburg, and Münster rank among the greatest and most famous in all the world, in spite of the fact that their constructive elements were reminiscent of other lands.
The distinction between French and German building cannot better be described than by quoting the following, the first by James Russell Lowell on Notre Dame de Chartres, and the second by Longfellow on the cathedral at Strasburg:
CHARTRES
"Graceful, grotesque, with every new surprise of hazardous caprices sure to please, heavy as nightmare, airy, light as fun, imagination's very self in stone."
STRASBURG
".. A great master of his craft,
Ervin von Steinbach; but not he alone,
For many generations laboured with him,
Children that came to see these saints in stone,
As day by day out of the blocks they rose,
Grew old and died, and still the work went on,
And on and on and is not yet completed."
The first is typical of the ingenuity and genius of the French, the second of the painstaking labour of the Teuton; what more were needed to define the two?
"In Germany and throughout all the territory under the spell of Germanic influence the growth of Gothic was not so readily accomplished as in France," says Gonse.
"At best such Gothic as is to be seen at Bacharach, Bonn, Worms, etc., is but a variety, so far as the vaulting goes, of superimposed details on a more or less truthful Romanesque framework. At Mayence, Roermond, and Sinzig, too, it is the domical vault which still qualifies the other Gothic essentials, and so depreciates the value of the Gothic of the Rhine valley when compared with that of the Royal Domain of France."
The range of mediæval art and architecture has been said to run between the fourth century and the fourteenth, or from the peace of the Church to the coming of the Renaissance.
This is perhaps definite enough, but the scope is too wide to limit any special form of art expression, so that one may judge it comparatively with that which had gone before or was to come after.
Mostly, mediæval art groups itself around the two distinct styles of Byzantine and Gothic, and they are best divided, one from the other, by the two centuries lying between the tenth and the twelfth.
In truth, the architecture of Germany, up to the end of the tenth century, was as much Byzantine as it was Romanesque, and the princes and prelates alike drew the inspiration for their works from imported Italians and Greeks, a procedure which gave the unusual blend that developed the distinct Rhenish architecture.
The Popes themselves gave a very material aid when they sent or allowed colonies of southern craftsmen to undertake the work on these great religious edifices of the Rhine valley.
The grander plan of the cathedrals at Speyer, Worms, Mayence, Basel, and even Trèves are all due somewhat to this influence, and for that reason they retain even to-day evidences of these foreign and even Eastern methods, though for the most part it is in the crypt and subterranean foundations only that this is found.
Carlovingian architecture was perhaps more indigenous to Germany than to any other part of the vast Empire. "This extraordinary man," as the historians speak of Charlemagne, did much toward developing the arts.
In the southeast, the Grecian Empire was already become decrepit in its influences, and a new building spirit was bound to have sprung up elsewhere. "If Charlemagne," says Gibbon, "had fixed the seat of his empire in Italy, his genius would have aspired to restore, rather than violate the works of the Cæsars." He confined his predilections to the virgin forests of Germany, however, and he despoiled Lombardy to enrich his northern possessions; as witness the columns which he brought from Ravenna and Rome wherewith to decorate his palace and church at Aix-la-Chapelle.
No country has preserved finer or more numerous examples of Romanesque architecture than Germany. The Rhine was so powerfully under Roman sway that it adopted as a matter of course and without question quite all of the tenets and principles of the Romanesque; not only with respect to ecclesiastical structures, but as regards civil and military works as well.
On the Rhine, as in Lorraine, Lyonnaise, and Central France, the Romanesque endured with little deviation from Latin traditions till quite the end of the thirteenth century.
Later, in the Gothic period, Germany returned the compliment and sent Zamodia of Freiburg and Ulric of Ulm to lend their aid in the construction of the grand fabric at Milan; and John and Simon of Cologne to Spain to erect that astonishingly bizarre cathedral at Burgos.
Beginning with the revival of the arts in Italy, the Renaissance German architects, in other countries than Germany, were apparently few in number and not of their former rank.
Not alone did Italy aid Germany in the erection of ecclesiastical monuments, but France as well, with the Norman variation of the Romanesque and the later developed Gothic, sent many monkish craftsmen to lend their aid and skill. Their work, however, was rather the putting on of finishing touches than of planning the general outlines.
German architecture on the Rhine then was but a development and variation of alien importations, which came in time, to be sure, to be recognized as a special type, but which in reality resembled the Lombardic and the Romanesque in its round-arched forms, and the Gothic of France in its ogival details. German architecture in time, though not so much with respect to churches, even went so far as to imitate the rococo and bizarre ornamentation fathered and named by the Louis of France.
Germany was a stranger to the complete development of Gothic architecture long after it had reached its maturity elsewhere; so, too, it was quite well into the fifteenth century before the slightest change was made toward the interpolation of Renaissance details, and even then it was Renaissance art, more than it was Renaissance architecture, which was making itself felt.
The Renaissance came to Germany through the natural gateway of the north of Italy; although it spread perhaps to some extent from France into the Rhine district.
In truth, German Renaissance has ever been heavy and ugly, though undeniably imposing. In both the ecclesiastical and the secular varieties it lacked the lightness and grace which in France, so far as domestic architecture went, soon developed into a thing of surprising beauty.
What the Renaissance really accomplished in Germany toward developing a new or national style is in grave doubt, beyond having left a legacy of bizarre groupings and grotesque and superabundant ornament. In France the case was different, and, while in ecclesiastical edifices the result was poor and banal enough, there grew up the great and glorious style of the French Renaissance, which, for civic and private buildings of magnitude, has never been excelled by the modern architecture of any land.
In Germany proper, as well as in Switzerland, one finds house-fronts and walls covered with paintings, which is certainly one phase of Renaissance art. But the brush alone could not popularize the new style, and in religious edifices, at least, the Renaissance, as contrasted with the earlier Romanesque, never attained that popularity along the Rhine that it did in France or England, or even in Belgium.
Civic architecture took on the new style with a certain freedom, but religious architecture almost not at all. Possibly the "Thirty Years' War" (1618-48) had somewhat to do with stunting its growth; certainly no church-building was undertaken in those years, and they were the very ones in which, elsewhere, the Renaissance was making its greatest headway.
Another very apparent reason is that, as the major part of the population became Protestant, the need of a beautiful church edifice itself, as a stimulus to the faith, had grown less and less. There was a steady growth, perhaps one may as well say a great development, in civil architecture throughout Germany at this time, but, to all intents and purposes, from the early seventeenth century onward, the founding and erecting of great churches was at an end.
If one would study the Renaissance in Germany he must observe the town halls of such cities as Cologne, Paderborn, or Nuremberg, or the great châteaux or castles, such as are best represented by ruined Heidelberg.
Of religious architecture Renaissance examples are practically lacking; the most convincing details along the Rhine being seen in the western tower of the cathedral at Mayence.
At Hildesheim, at Nuremberg, and at Prague there are something more than mere "evidences" of the style, and throughout Germany, as elsewhere, there are many sixteenth and seventeenth century accessories, such as altars, baldaquins, tombs, and even entire chapels, which are nothing but Renaissance in motive and execution. But there are no great Renaissance ground-plans, façades, or clochers, which are in any way representative of the style which crept in to ring the death-knell of Gothic in France and England.