Milburg Mansfield - The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine

The Rhine provinces stand for all that is best and most characteristic of the ecclesiastical architecture of Germany, as contrasted with that very distinct species known as French pointed or Gothic.

For this reason the present volume of the series, which follows the Cathedrals of Northern and Southern France, deals with a class of ecclesiastical architecture entirely different from the light, flamboyant style which has made so many of the great cathedral churches of France preëminently famous.

Save Cologne, there is no great cathedral, either in Germany or the Low Countries, which in any way rivals the masterpieces of Paris, Reims, or Amiens, or even Lincoln or York in England.

Strasburg and Metz are in a way reminiscent of much that is French, but in the main the cathedrals and churches of the Rhine are of a species distinct and complete in itself.

Any consideration of the Rhine cities and towns, and the ecclesiastical monuments which they contain, must perforce deal largely with the picturesque and romantic elements of the river's legendary past.

Not all of these legends deal with mere romance, as the world well knows. The religious element has ever played a most important part in the greater number of the Rhine legends. For demonstration, one has only to recall the legends of "The Architect of Cologne," of "Bishop Hatto and His Mouse Tower on the Rhine," and of many others relating to the devout men and women who in times past lived their lives here.

In the Low Countries also, – at Liège, where we have "The Legend of the Liègeois," and at Antwerp, where we have "The Legend of the Blacksmith," – and indeed throughout the whole Rhine watershed there is abundant material to draw from with respect to the religious legend alone.

As for the purely romantic legends, like "The Trumpeter of Sackingen" and "The Lorelei," there is manifestly neither room nor occasion for recounting them in a work such as this, and so, frankly, they are intentionally omitted.

In general, this book aims to be an account of the great churches in the Rhine valley, and of that species of architectural style which is known as Rhenish.

There is a fund of interesting detail to be gathered in out-of-the-way corners in regard to these grand edifices and their pious founders, but not all of it can be even catalogued here. The most that can be attempted is to point out certain obvious facts in connection with these ecclesiastical monuments, not neglecting the pictorial representation as well.

Tourists have well worn the roads along both banks of the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence, but above and below is a still larger and no less interesting country, which has been comparatively neglected.

Not all the interest of the Rhine lies in its castled crags or its vine-clad slopes, and not all the history of the middle ages emanated from feudal strongholds. The Church here, as in France, played its part and played it gloriously.

In this discussion of the Rhine churches from Constance to Leyden, the reader will be taken on what might, with considerable license, be called an "architectural tour" of the Rhine, and will be allowed to ramble along the banks of the river, looking in and out of the various religious edifices with which its cities and towns are crowded.

The valley of the Rhine is no undiscovered land, but it served the purpose of the author and the artist well, for it presents much variety of architectural form, and an abounding and appealing interest by reason of the shadows of the past still lingering over these monuments in stone.

There is no topographical division of Europe which more readily defines itself and its limits than the Rhine valley from Schaffhausen to where the river empties into the North Sea.

The region has given birth to history and legend of a most fascinating character, and the manners and customs of the people who dwell along its banks are varied and picturesque.

Under these circumstances it was but to be expected that architectural development should have expressed itself in a decided and unmistakable fashion.

One usually makes the Rhine tour as an interlude while on the way to Switzerland or the Italian lakes, with little thought of its geographical and historical importance in connection with the development of modern Europe.

It was the onward march of civilization, furthered by the Romans, through this greatest of natural highways to the north, that gave the first political and historical significance to the country of the Rhine watershed. And from that day to this the Rhenish provinces and the Low Countries bordering upon the sea have occupied a prominent place in history.

There is a distinct and notable architecture, confined almost, one may say, to the borders of the Rhine, which the expert knows as Rhenish, if it can be defined at all; and which is distinct from that variety of pre-Gothic architecture known as Romanesque.

It has been developed mainly in the building of ecclesiastical edifices, and the churches and cathedrals of the Rhine valley, through Germany and the Netherlands, are a species which, if they have not the abounding popular interest of the great Gothic churches of France, are quite as lordly and imposing as any of their class elsewhere. The great cathedral at Cologne stands out among its Gothic compeers as the beau-ideal of our imagination, while the cathedral at Tournai, in Belgium – which, while not exactly of the Rhine, is contiguous to it – is the prototype of more than one of the lesser and primitive Gothic cathedrals of France, and has even lent its quadruple elevation to Notre Dame at Paris, and was possibly the precursor of the cathedral at Limburg-on-Lahn.

From this it will be inferred that the builders of the churches of the Rhine country were no mere tyros or experimenters, but rather that they were possessed of the best talents of the time.

There is much of interest awaiting the lover of churches who makes even the conventional Rhine tour, though mostly the tourist in these parts has heretofore reserved his sentiments and emotions for the admiration of its theatrical-looking crags and castles, the memory of its legends of the Lorelei, etc., a nodding acquaintance with the castle of Heidelberg, and a proper or improper appreciation of the waterside beer-gardens of Cologne. For the most part the real romance and history of the Rhine, as it flows from its source in the Grisons to the North Sea, has been neglected.

There are a large number of persons who are content to admire the popular attractions of convention; sometimes they evoke an interest somewhat out of the ordinary, but up to now apparently no one has gone to the Rhine with the sole object of visiting its magnificent gallery of ecclesiastical treasures.

No one glows with enthusiasm at the mention of these Rhenish churches as they do for the Gothic marvels of France. It is, of course, impossible, in spite of Cologne, Speyer, and Strasburg, that they should supplant Reims, Amiens, Chartres, or Rouen in the popular fancy, to say nothing of real excellence; for these four French examples represent nearly all that is best in mediæval church architecture.

The Reformation in Germany, with its attendant unrest, accounts for a certain latitude and variety in the types of church fitments, as well as – in many cases – an unconventional arrangement or disposition of the fabric itself.

One thing is most apparent with regard to German churches in general, – the fittings and paraphernalia, as distinct from the constructive or decorative elements of the fabric, are far more ornate and numerous than in churches of a similar rank elsewhere. It is true that the Revolution played its part of destruction along the Rhine, but in spite of this there is an abundance of sculpture and other ornament still left.