The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine

On the exterior of the southern wall is affixed an immense Calvary, which is theatrical in the extreme, and is not dignified nor churchly.

The Jesuit church is not remarkable architecturally, but there are a number of tombs therein of the princes of the house of Neubourg.

The ruins of the ancient château of Düsseldorf suggest but faintly its former glories before it was destroyed by the French bombardment of the city in the eighteenth century.

It has been restored, in a way, but with little regard for historical traditions, and a part of the edifice was made the home of the famous Düsseldorf academy of painting, founded in 1777 by Charles Theodore and reëstablished in 1822. It gave birth to a celebrated school of painting, now all but dead. Among the famous and well-known names connected therewith are: Cornelius, Schadow, Lessing, Schirmer, Hildebrand, and Koehler; the American, Lentzen; the Norwegians, Tiédemann and Gude; the landscape painters, Weber and Fay; and the historical painters, Knaus, Hübner, and Scheuren; and finally the celebrated engraver, Keller.

The museum and the gallery of paintings are still superb, and form a contribution to the history of the art of all ages which would be quite incomplete without it.

There are ten churches in Düsseldorf, and a synagogue, but in truth there is not much of interest in them all, and the "handsomest city of Germany" must rest its fame on something more than its appeal to the lover of churches.

Neuss

There is not much about the compact, though rather ungainly, little city of Neuss to interest any but the lover of churches, though its history is very ancient, and the development of its patronymic through Novesium, Niusa, and Nova Castra bespeaks volumes for the part it has played in the past.

Its origin dates back to the time of Drusus, and it is mentioned by Tacitus as the winter quarters of the Roman Army. The city was ravaged by Attila in 451, and by the Normans in the ninth century. Emperor Philip of Suabia captured it in 1206, and gave it to the Archbishop of Cologne. A chapter of nobles was founded here in 825, and Count Evrard of Clèves and Bertha, his wife, erected, in the first years of the thirteenth century, its principal church dedicated to St. Quirinus.

This church stands to-day, with its great square tower looming bulkily over the house-tops, and is reckoned as the prototype of many similar structures elsewhere. It has the almost perfect disposition and development of the double apse so frequently met with in German churches.

In general, its architecture is of a heavy order, and the whole structure is grim, though by no means gaunt nor cold.

St. Quirinus is of the epoch when the Romanesque was being replaced nearly everywhere by the new-coming Gothic.

In spite of this, its style is, curiously enough, neither one nor the other, nor is it transition, though the pointed arch has crept in and often eliminated the Romanesque attributes of the round-arch style round about. It is manifestly not transition, because there was no transition here from Romanesque to Gothic. It remained palpably Romanesque in spite of Gothic interpolations.

In the windows one can but remark the indecision which prompted the builders to fashion them in such extraordinary squat shapes, and they certainly serve their purpose of lighting the interior very badly.

The nave and aisles of St. Quirinus are ample, and its spacious männerchöre in the triforium is like all its fellows in the German churches, an adjunct which adds to the general effect of size.

The church dates from 1209, the period when the Gothic influence was not only making itself felt over the border, in the domain of France and Burgundy, but was already extending its influence elsewhere. But here, westward even of the borders of the Rhine, the round arch lingered on, to the exclusion of any very marked Gothic tendency.

There is an inscription in stone on the south wall of the church which places the date of its erection beyond all doubt. It reads thus:

ANNO. INCARNADNI. MC.C.V.I.I.I.IPMO. IPERII. ANNO. OTTONIS. ADOLFO. COLONEPO. SOPHIA. ABBA. MAGISTERWOLBERO. POSUIT. PMU. LAPIDE. FUNDAMENTI. HUI. TEMPLI. I. DIE. SCI. DIONISII. MAR

When a former Count of Clèves founded the primitive church here in the ninth century, it was a collegiate church attached to the abbey of which the mother superior was the Abbess Sophia, presumably the same referred to in the above inscription. The abbey itself was destroyed in 1199 during a civil warfare.

Though not really a massive structure, the church of St. Quirinus is, in every particular, of a strength and solidity which rank it as a masterwork of its age. There is nothing weak and attenuated about it, and its transepts and apses make up in general effect what it lacks in actual area.

The façade is imposing, though decidedly bizarre when compared with the simple flowing lines of Gothic; but, on the whole, the effect is one of a certain grandeur.

The aisles are astonishingly tall when compared with the nave.

There are various meetings of round-arched windows and arcades with those of a pointed nature, but there is not the slightest evidence of a development or transition from one to the other, hence the Gothic strain may be said not to exist.

The general effect of the exterior is polychromatic, which is not according to the best conceptions of ecclesiastical decorations in architecture. A twilight or a moonlight view, however, tones it all down in a manner that makes the fabric appear quite the most imposing church of its size that one may find in these parts.

The great central tower, reminiscent enough of the parish church in England, but not so frequent in Germany, and still less so in France, forms a great lantern which rises over the crossing in a marvellous and exceedingly practical manner, in that it affords about the only adequate means of admitting light into the interior.

The triforium of the nave is the chief interior feature to be remarked, and is most spaciously planned. It forms the männerchöre before mentioned.

The clerestory windows are decidedly Rhenish in character, resembling, says one antiquary, who is a humourist if nothing else, an ace of clubs. At any rate, it is a most unusual and inefficient manner of lighting a great church. These windows are practically trefoils of most unsymmetrical proportions, and are in every way unlovely.

The choir is raised on a platform, beneath which is the crypt. Three flights of steps lead to this platform, which gives it a far more grand appearance than its actual dimensions would otherwise allow.

The choir-stalls are of the fourteenth century, and are the only mediæval furnishings to be seen in the church to-day.

The apses contain only moderately effective glass.

The frescoes in the cupola of St. Quirinus, which are the work of Cornelius of Düsseldorf (about 1811), are most interesting, and are among the most successful of the great number of modern works of their kind to be seen in Germany.

München-Gladbach

München-Gladbach is one of those "snug" little German towns that one comes across now and then when wandering along off the beaten track. Its streets are trim and clean, and its houses likewise, with a brilliancy of fresh paint which is consistently and proverbially Dutch. Beneath one's foot is a sea of cobblestones all worn to a smoothness which argues the tramp of countless hordes of feet over centuries of time, if paving-stones have really been invented so long. With all its air of prosperity and providence, München-Gladbach is not a highly interesting town in which to linger.

Its name is compounded of its prefix, meaning monk's, with its original patronymic, Gladbach. The monks of Gladbach were a part of the establishment which founded the minster church of Gladbach, an old abbey or monastic edifice which stands to-day, a great transeptless thirteenth-century structure with an elevated choir reached from the nave by two flights of ten or a dozen steps.

The crypt is entered from between these two flights of steps, and forms all that is left to mark the primitive church.

The round-arched style and Gothic, of a sort, intermingle in the nave in bewildering fashion until one wonders in what classification it really belongs. The openings from the aisles to the nave are pointed, while above is an unpierced triforium with a clerestory of round-headed arches.

In the aisles are what Jacobean architects called fanlights, a series of peculiarly shaped openings like an oddly shaped fan. They are distinctly Rhenish; indeed they are not acknowledged to be found elsewhere, and hence may be considered as one of the chief points of distinction of this otherwise not remarkably appealing church.

There are no aisles in the choir, which dates from the thirteenth century and terminates with a multi-sided apse pierced by long lancet windows.

The Stadt Kirche of Gladbach, or the parish church as it properly takes rank, is still a Catholic edifice and shows the advantage of having been kept in active use. There is nothing musty or moss-grown about it, but in every way it is as warmly appealing as the monks' church is coldly unattractive.

There is no marked choir termination, its great aisles extending completely to the rear with just a suspicion of a rudimentary pentagonal apse to suggest the easterly end. This is a common enough arrangement in German churches, which more frequently than not, in the fourteenth century, the date of this structure, possessed nothing but a squared-off east end, after the English manner of building.

At the westerly end is a well-planned tower distinctly Rhenish – if it were not it would be thought heavy – and where the choir is supposed to join the nave the roof is surmounted by a tiny spire, which, in truth, is no addition of beauty.

The interior shows great height, and, if of no great architectural splendour, has enough mural embellishment and attractive glass to stamp it as a livable and lovable edifice for religious worship, which is a good deal more than most modern church buildings ever acquire.

The six bays of the nave show pointed arches springing from rounded columns. There is an arcaded triforium, and an elaborate series of clerestory windows which show the geometrical and flamboyant Gothic in its perfection.

The apse is lighted with five windows of great height. The glass is a mixture of colour and monotone, but the effect is undeniably good.

The chancel is so shallow that the choir flows over, as it were, into one bay of the nave, while the choir-stalls themselves are placed in the aisles. Certainly a most unusual, and perhaps a unique, arrangement.

An altar fronts the west end of either range of stalls, and back, at the easterly end of the aisles, is found another altar.

The high altar has a handsome modern screen in the form of a gilt triptych, which is singularly effective and imposing.

Beneath the tower, at the westerly end, is the baptistery, entrance to which from the body of the church is gained through a low, pointed arch.

XXX

ESSEN AND DORTMUND

Essen

Lying just to the eastward of the Rhine are Essen and Dortmund.

The former was once the site of a powerful abbey of Benedictine nuns, which was dissolved in 1803. The abbess of Essen was always a titled person, and was a member of the Westphalian circle of the Imperial Estates, in which capacity she held a governing right over a large tract of country immediately surrounding the abbey.

There are the spires of five churches hidden away in the forest of chimneys of the manufactories of Essen which rise skyward from the Rhineland plain. It is not a very beautiful picture that one sees from across the railway viaduct, but a remarkable one, and one that has undeniable elements of the picturesque.

The cathedral at Essen is a conglomerate group of buildings of many epochs. The church proper consists of a three-aisled nave, with the usual choir appendage in what must pass for acceptable Gothic.

There are Romanesque features which date back as far as 874, when the original edifice was built by Bishop Alfred of Hildesheim. The crypt, the transept, and possibly a part of the choir foundation, are of the eleventh century, and are of Romanesque motive; but the Gothic fabric superimposes itself upon these early works in the style in vogue in the fourteenth century.

There are evidences of a central octagon, like that at Aix-la-Chapelle, and St. Gérêon's at Cologne, but the fourteenth-century rebuilding has practically covered this up, though three of the original faces are left, and bear aloft a series of tall Corinthian columns.

The nave, for some reason, inexplicable on first sight, is low and unimpressive, caused doubtless by the grandeur of the supporting pillars of the roof and the shallowness of the groining above.

The pillars are single cylinders with curiously plain capitals.

The choir rises a few steps above the nave pavement, in order to give height to the crypt ambulatory, as is frequently the custom in German churches.

The windows of the south aisle are good in their design and glass, which, though modern, reflects the Gothic mediæval spirit far better than is usual.

There is an elevated gallery along the aisle walls, which forms a sort of tribune or männerchöre. In one of the recesses beneath the gallery is a highly coloured sculpture group of an "Entombment."

The easterly portion of the cathedral is by far the most pleasing, and partakes of the best Gothic features, and indeed is far superior to the nave. The supporting columns of the vaulting have foliaged capitals, while the vaulting itself is even more elaborate.

The aisles, as they approach the choir, are rectangular-ended, and extend quite to the end of the choir termination, showing a very singular cross-section of this portion of the church.

The screen is a modern stone work after the Gothic manner. It sits beneath a not unbeautiful Gothic window, rather richly traceried with four lights. The glass of this window is modern, but, like that in the nave aisles, is excellent.

The crypt is entered from the south transept, and also from the nave by an entrance which passes between the steps which rise to the choir pavement.

There is an elaborate seven-branched candlestick at the juncture of the nave and choir, modelled on one known to have existed in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is of the conventional form, but is a rare piece of church furniture in that it dates from 1003, when it was presented by the Abbess Matilda, sister of the Emperor Otho II. Since it stands six or eight feet in height, this candlestick is a notable and conspicuous object.

Before the steps leading to the crypt is the tomb of Bishop Alfred of Hildesheim. The crypt is all that a crypt should be, – a dim-lighted, solemn chamber of five aisles, the pavement of the church above being supported on stubby square pillars. It is used also for devotional purposes, the altar at the easterly end of the central aisle bearing the inscription, "Heilige Maria, Trösterin der Betrubten, bitt fur uns."

The cloisters of this interesting edifice are, in part, of the primitive style of early Gothic, while the southern and western sides are an approach to the full-blown Gothic of a later epoch, with foliaged capitals.

Dortmund

Dortmund is the largest town of the province of Westphalia, and possesses four mediæval churches of more than usual interest.

St. Reinhold's is the chief, and is a cruciform edifice of more than ordinary proportions. It is a picturesque mélange of many parts. Its western tower is of no style in particular, and is hideous, but most curious considering its environment. The nave and transepts are supposedly of the thirteenth century, but they are certainly not good Gothic as we know it elsewhere.

The choir is of the early fifteenth century, and is much more gracefully conceived than is any other portion of this nondescript edifice.

The transepts are square boxlike protuberances, which link the choir with the nave in most unappealing fashion.

In the interior the most astonishing features are the low truncated nave of three bays, the grimness of the walls of the entire fabric, – excepting the well-lighted and aspiring choir, – and the straight-backed pews.

The clerestory windows of the nave are semicircular, but the aisles are lighted by Gothic openings.

There are two altars, one at the choir entrance and the other in the apse, each surmounted by a triptych.

The windows of the choir-apse, tall, ample, and of admirable framing, are the chief glory of this not very beautiful, though interesting, church.

St. Mary's is a late twelfth-century Romanesque structure, without transepts, but possessed of a towering apsidal choir.

The nave is an attenuated affair with no triforium, leaving a vast blank wall space, as though it were intended to have been decorated.

Dortmund's "Pfarr Kirche" was a former Dominican foundation. Its general proportions are far greater than those of any other of the city's churches. The nave is ample, and the great choir of four bays, with spacious, lofty windows, is of the same generous proportions.

The church dates only from the mid-fourteenth century, and its three-bayed nave is even later. The aisles of the nave are curious in that they are not of similar dimensions. That on the street side is separated from the nave proper by square piers, with a slender shaft running to the vaulting. The other aisle is more ample, and has its arched openings to the nave composed of four shafts superimposed upon a central cylinder.

The nave lighting is amply provided for by a series of four light windows, bare, however, of any glass worthy of remark.

The south wall, which has no windows, has two large frescoes, a "Descent of the Holy Ghost" and an "Assumption." There is also a series of paintings by two native artists, Heinrich and Victor Dunwege.

XXXI

EMMERICH, CLÈVES, AND XANTEN

Emmerich and Clèves

Just below Emmerich, which is the last of the German Rhenish cities, the Rhine divides itself, and, branching to the north, takes the Dutch name of Oud Rijn, which name, with the variation Neder Rijn, it retains until it reaches the sea. The branch to the west takes the name of the Waal and passes on through Nymegen, bounding Brabant on the north, and enters the sea beyond Dordrecht.

Emmerich has, in its church of St. Martin, a tenth-century church of no great architectural worth, but charming to contemplate, nevertheless.

Four kilometres away is Clèves, which, under the Romans, was known as Clivia and attained considerable prominence and prosperity. The Normans sacked it in the ninth century, but it was shortly rebuilt, and became the chief town of the County, afterward the Duchy, of Clèves.

Under the Empire the city belonged to France. The town's principal church is quite attractive, but, beyond the distinction which it has in its twin spires, terminating a singularly long line of roof-top of nave and choir, there are no architectural features of note.

Xanten

At a little distance from the Rhine, just before the frontier of Holland is reached, is Xanten, the ancient Ulpia Castra. Near by, in the neighbouring village of Mirten, one sees the remains of an ancient amphitheatre, which denotes a considerable importance for the neighbourhood in Roman times. If more proof were needed, it will be found in the museum at Bonn, where are many Roman antiquities coming from the neighbourhood.

Xanten is celebrated for having given birth to St. Norbert, the founder of the order of Premonstratension monks, and for having been the cradle of Siegfried, the hero of the "Nibelungen Lied."

The city was captured by the French in 1672.

The collegiate church of Xanten is known as St. Victor's, and is truly celebrated for the grace and beauty of its early twelfth-century Gothic.

Without transepts or clerestory, it shows in its one ample chamber, comprising both nave and choir, an exemplification of the art of combining the accessories of the Latin-cross structures of France with the hall-church idea so frequently met with in Germany, and so well recognized as a distinct German type.

This arrangement does not give the church the appearance of being in any way confined or limited; quite the reverse is the case, and the double range of windows in the apse indicates, at least, a loftiness and hardiness of construction which is highly commendable.

There are, moreover, double aisles to both nave and choir which give an ampleness to the interior which even its abundance of furnishings does not overcrowd.

There are few five-aisled churches such as this in Germany, or indeed elsewhere, Cologne being Germany's chief example in this style.

In general, the Gothic of this highly interesting church is of the best, though it dates from various periods. The primitive church, we know, was a Romanesque structure; but, beyond the foundations of the western towers, and possibly other fragmentary works yet hidden, there is nothing but the most acceptable Gothic in evidence.

A distinctly curious feature is the apse-sided termination to the aisles, radiating from the main apse at an angle of forty-five degrees. It is a distinct innovation in the easterly termination of a church; a sort of a compromise between the French, English, and German styles, and wholly a successful one.

In the chancel is a sort of screen before the high altar, worked in brass at Maastricht in 1501.

The windows contain a great deal of beautiful old glass, and some other that is by no means as good.

The clerestory windows are elaborately traceried, and there is much detail of church furnishings, a choir screen, some elaborate stalls, a little tapestry, – which looks well and is certainly old, – and a modern tiled floor which is not offensive.

As is frequently seen in Germany, the pillars and shafts have a series of statues superimposed upon them; always a daring thing to do, but in this case of far better execution and design than is frequently encountered. Before the church is a monument in honour of Cornelius de Pauw, the friend of the great Frederick, a canon of the church and a famous spiritual writer. He was born at Amsterdam in 1739 and died at Xanten in 1799.

XXXII

ARNHEIM, UTRECHT, AND LEYDEN

Arnheim

The Rhine in Holland is a mighty river. It divides itself into many branches, all of which make their way to the sea through that country which Butler in the "Hudibras" calls:

"A land that draws fifty feet of water,In which men live as in the very hold of nature,And when the sea does in upon them break,And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."

The Rhine proper, the Oud Rijn and the Neder Rijn, enfolds three great ecclesiastical centres of other days, Arnheim, Utrecht, and Leyden.

Arnheim is the chief town of the Guelderland, and seats itself proudly on the banks of the Neder Rijn just above its juncture with the Yssel. Of its fifty-five thousand inhabitants, twenty-five thousand are Roman Catholics, which fact makes it one of the most strongly Catholic cities, if not the strongest, in the Netherlands.

Formerly the city was known as the Arenacum of the Romans, and served as the residence of the Dukes of the Guelderland up to 1538. In 1579 it gave adherence to the "Union of Utrecht," and in 1672 was taken by the French, when it became one of the principal fortresses of Holland. To-day the fortifications serve the purpose to which they are so frequently devoted in the cities and towns of Continental Europe, and form a fine series of promenades.

In 1813 the town was taken by the Prussians, but in spite of all this changing of hands, it remains to-day as distinctly Dutch as any of the Low Country cities and towns. Its houses are well built of brick and equally well kept, and its sidewalks are as cleanly and well cared for as the courtyard of a palace.

To-day the aspect of Arnheim is that of a quaint though modern-looking Dutch city. It is a favourite place of residence for "messieurs du sucre," – rich Hollanders and Orientals from the Dutch East Indies. Altogether the atmosphere of its streets and cafés is decidedly cosmopolitan and most interesting.

The Groote Kerk, built in 1452, rises from the market-place with a considerable purity of Gothic style. The church was formerly dedicated to St. Eusebe. Its tower is a landmark for miles around, and rises to a height approximating three hundred feet. It is built of brick and is square for the first two tiers, flanked with sustaining buttresses, then it tapers off into an octagon. It contains a fine set of chimes, so frequently an adjunct to the churches and municipal belfries of the Low Countries.