The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860

The pyramidal form has ever possessed peculiar fascinations for men, and, from its simplicity, grandeur, and power, has been used in all ages with innumerable modifications in those structures whose object was to impress and overawe,—as in the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of India and Mexico, and in all the earliest funereal monuments. It involved a rude symbolism, which recommended itself to the barbarous childhood of nations. But it was not until the pyramid was sharpened and spiritualized into the spire that it gained its completest triumph over the secret emotions of men. The Egyptians made the nearest approach to it in the obelisk. That mysterious people felt very keenly the suggestiveness of the pyramidal form, and refined the language of its sentiment into some very beautiful expressions. Yet between the mausoleums of Gizeh and the hieroglyphic shafts of Luxor and Karnac there existed a modification, the intensity of whose meaning they were not prepared to understand. Neither their civilization nor their religion required such an exponent; so they exhausted themselves with their mountainous bulks of stone and their pictured monoliths.

We know not how the first view of a Christian spire would affect the mind of an alien; but so far as our own experiences are concerned, though perhaps familiar only with the lowliest and most unpretending of its kind, we are conscious that it deeply impressed even the "unsunned temper" of our childhood. The wisest among us may not be able to define precisely these impressions, or trace to their source the admiration and satisfaction it occasions, yet all are ready to acknowledge its beautiful fitness to adorn and glorify the Christian temple. But to the thoughtful mind how suggestive it is of pleasant imagery! It is "the silent finger" that points to heaven; it is an upward aspiration of the soul; a prayer from the depths of a troubled heart; a suspirium de profundis; a hymn of thanksgiving; a pure life, throwing of the worldly and approaching the ethereal; a finite mind searching, till lost in the vastness of the unknown and unapproachable; a beautiful attempt; a voice of praise sent up from the earth, till, like the soaring lark, it "becomes a sightless song." Indeed, our unbidden thoughts, that wild-ivy of the mind, are trained upward by the spire, till it is hung round with the tenderest associations and recollections of all that is sweet and softening in our natures. Thus, when the painter has represented on his canvas some wild phase of scenery, where the gadding vine, the tangled underwood, the troubled brook, the black, frowning rock, the untamed savage growth of the forest,

"Old plash of rains and refuse patched with moss,"

impress us with awe, and a sad, homeless feeling, as if we were lost children, how eloquent is that last touch of his pencil that shows us a simple spire peeping over the tree-tops! How it comforts us! How it brings us home again, and bestows an air

"Of sweet civility on rustic wilds"!

But even if we were not inclined to be sentimental on the subject, even if base utilities had crowded out from our hearts the blessed capacity of shedding rosy light on things about us, the coldest esteem could not but ripen into affection, when we reflected that the spire never adorned the shrine of a pagan god, never glorified the mosque of a false prophet, never, in purity, arose from any unconsecrated ground; but when, at last, the Church of Christ felt the "beauty of holiness," then it developed out of that beauty and pointed the way to God. It exhaled from the growing perfection of the Church, as fragrance from an opening flower. It is, therefore, peculiarly holy. It is a monitor of especial grace. "It marshals us the way that we are going," like the visionary dagger of Macbeth; but the knell that sounds beneath it summons only to heaven.

Practically, it is utterly useless; and this is its honor and its unspeakable dignity. We cannot even climb it, as we could a tower; for it is nearly as unapproachable as the Oracle of God, save to the innocent birds, who love to flock and wheel about it in the sunshine, and build their nests in its "coignes of vantage," or, in the night-time, to the troops of stars which touch it in their journey through the skies. It is as beautifully idle as the lilies of the field; and yet its expressiveness touches us so nearly, the propriety of its sentiment is so striking, that, when the great test question of this living age is applied to it, and we are asked, What is its use? what is it good for? the heart is shocked at the impiety of the question, and the feelings revolt, as against an insult. Upon the arches of Canterbury Minster is carved,

NON * NOBIS * DOMINE * NON * NOBIS * SED * NOMINI * TVO * DA * GLORIAM *

Nothing can be simpler than the composition of the pure spire. The aesthetics of its development and growth are characteristically natural and apparent. They are like the history of a flower from bud to bloom under a warm sun. Let us become botanists of Art for a while, and analyze those flowers of worship, as they opened "in that first garden of their simpleness."

Considering the growth of the spire from the tower-roof, it might naturally be supposed that the earliest forms would be square or round, in plan. But no sooner had the roof passed into this new sphere of existence, than the fine intelligence of the builders perceived that it needed refinement. They saw that in a square spire there was so coarse a distinction between the tapering mass of light and the tapering mass of shadow, that the delicacy and lightness necessary to express the sentiment they desired to convey did not exist in the new feature;—in a round spire, on the other hand, they found that this distinction of light and shade was too little marked; it was vapid and effeminate, and quite without that delicious crispiness of effect which they at once obtained by cutting off the corners of the square spire, and reducing it to an octagon. With very rare exceptions, as in the southwest spire of Chartres Cathedral, this form was always used. Now it will be seen that a difficulty arises in the beginning, how to unite the octagon of the spire with the square of the tower. There are four triangular spaces at the summit of the tower left uncovered by the superstructure; and how best to treat these, simple as the task may seem, constitutes what may be called the touchstone of architectural genius in spire-building. There are several general ways of effecting this, each of them subject to such modifications, in individual instances, as to give them an ever-varying character.

Perhaps the earliest method was simply to occupy those triangular spaces with pyramidal masses of masonry, sloping back against the adjacent faces of the tower,—an expedient which Nature herself might have suggested in the first snow-storm. Then they boldly cut the Gordian knot by shaving off the corners of the tower at the top, thus creating there an octagonal platform, to which the spire would exactly correspond. Still oftener they chamfered the spire upwards from the corners of the tower: in other words, they placed, as it were, a square spire on their tower, occupying the whole of its summit, and then obtained the necessary octangularity by shaving off the angles of the spire from the apex to a certain point near the base, where the cutting was continued obliquely to the corners of the tower. The latest method was to build pinnacles on the triangular territory. In such cases the spire usually stood wholly within the outer boundaries, and parapets assisted to conceal the first springing of the spire.

The first of these methods is usually considered the most perfect and beautiful, on account of its simplicity and candor. This is called the broach; and it is the only form thus far spoken of wherein the tapering surfaces rise directly from the tower-cornice, without mutilating the tower or violating the pure outlines of the spire. The heavenward aspiration, as it were, ascends without effort from the solidity of the tower. It seems to typify a certain fitness and adaptability to heavenly things even in the gross and earthly nature of man. One cannot fail to admire its unaffected dignity, its harmonious balance, its graceful proportions.

It would be impossible within the limits of this article to give any idea of the wonderful diversity of treatment these simple generic forms received at the hands of the early builders. The changes of combination, proportion, and ornamentation were endless. For the mediaeval spirit was eminently earnest in its labor, and would not be content with copying an old shape merely because it was a good shape. It would not be satisfied with the cold repetition of a written litany of architectural forms; but its ardent piety, its thoughtful zeal, the life of its love, demanded an ever-varying expression in these visible prayers. Emerson himself might find nought to censure there, in the way of undue conformities and consistencies. Its language was written with the infinite alphabet of Nature.

We are speaking now especially of England; and we, her children, may well be proud that these divine enthusiasms of antiquity, which we thought so quaint, so rare, so far away from us, nowhere else found fairer demonstrations. The English spires bear especial witness to the zeal and aspiration of their builders. They belted them with bands of ornament, cut at first in imitation of tiles, and afterwards beautifully panelled with foliations. Moulded ribs began to run up the angles of the spires, and, when they met at the summit, would exultingly curl themselves together in the most precious cruciforms. Quaint spire-lights began to appear. Sometimes curious dormers would project from alternate sides; and the very ribs, as if, in this spring-time of Art, they felt, quickening along their lengths, the mysterious movements of a new life, sprouted out here and there with knots of leafage, timidly at first, and then with all the wealth and profusion of the harvest. The same impulse wreathed the crowning cross with a thousand midsummer fancies, till the circle of Eternity, or the triangle of Trinity, which often mingled with its arms, scarcely knew itself. The pinnacles, too, blossomed into crockets and bud-like finials, and began to gather more thickly about the roots of the spire, and from them often leaped flying-buttresses against it. During this time the spire itself was growing more and more acute, its lines becoming more and more eloquent. After the fourteenth century, the tower began to be crowned with intricate panelled tracery of parapets and battlements, from behind which the spire, an entirely separate structure, shot up into the sky. In this, the period of the perpendicular style, pinnacles, purfled to the last degree, crowded about the base of the spire, reminding one of the admiring throng gathered about the base of some old picture of the Ascension. But there is another English form which perhaps conveys this sentiment even more impressively: We refer to that whose prototype exists in the steeple of the Church of St. Nicholas at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This, however, has four turrets, one on each angle, from which, with great lightness, leap towards each other four grand flying-buttresses, which join hands over an empty void and hold in the air a lantern and spirolet of great elegance. This is a very bold piece of construction. It has been imitated at St. Giles's, Edinburgh, at Linlithgow, in the college tower of Aberdeen, and it is especially made known to the world by Sir Christopher Wren's famous use of it in the steeple of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, London.

The most famous spires of England and Normandy are St. Peter's at Caen, a very early specimen, St. Michael's at Coventry, Louth, that of the parochial church of Boston in Lincolnshire, that of Chichester Cathedral, the three that rise from the famous Lichfield Cathedral, and finally and especially the magnificent spire over the cross of Salisbury. In the judgment of most English connoisseurs, this is the finest in the world. It was probably erected during the reign of Edward III., a very florid period for architecture. It is the highest in England, its summit rising four hundred and four feet from the pavement of the church beneath. It is one of the earliest erected in stone, and is remarkable for skilful construction, the masonry in no part being more than seven inches thick. This spire is belted with three broad bands of panelled tracery, and there are eight pinnacles at its base, two on each corner of the tower. The ribs are fretted throughout the whole height with elegant crockets, thus imparting to the sky-line an appearance similar to the gusty spray on the borders of a rain-cloud. An admirer has said of it, "It seems as though it had drawn down the very angels to work over its grand and feeling simplicity the gems and embroidery of Paradise itself!" England once boasted the loftiest spire in the world, that of old St. Paul's, London, whose summit, five hundred and twenty feet from the ground, seemed to sail among the highest clouds; but the great fire of 1666 destroyed it, and Sir Christopher's stately metropolitan dome now rises in its place.

One could believe in the "merrie" days of Old England, were her abundant spires their only evidence. The ardent zeal that kindled so many thousand answering beacons throughout the length and breadth of the land is the best proof of that concord of souls which is true happiness. We know that the decision of the Council of Clermont about the Crusades was believed to have been instantly known through Christendom, and that the great cry, God willeth it! which shook the council-roof, was echoed from hill to hill, and at once struck awe and astonishment to the hearts of remotest lands. So in the birthplaces of our Pilgrim fathers, over these cherished spots,

"Where the kneeling hamlets drainedThe chalice of the grapes of God,"

arose the "star y-pointing" spire, like a voice of adoration; and then another would be raised in unison in some neighboring village, where they could see and communicate with each other in their silent language; and yet another close by among the hills; and presently, in full view from its summit, twenty more, perhaps,—till the good tidings were known through the whole country, and from hamlet to hamlet, over the streams and tree-tops, was thus echoed the great Te Deum of the land. For it was said among the people, in that antique spirit of worship, as Milton exhorted the birds in his Hymn of Thanksgiving,—

"Join voices, all ye living souls! ye spires,That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise!"

It is a beautiful proof of the spirit of sacrifice which actuated the Masonic builder of the Middle Ages, that his fairest and most precious works were not confined to the great metropolitan churches and cathedrals, where they could be seen of men, but were frequently found in quiet and secluded villages, nestled among pastoral solitudes, far away from the gaze and admiration of the world. Though the spire of Salisbury was, perhaps, an epic in Masonic poetry, yet in humble hamlets of England, beyond her most distant hills, and amid many an unnamed "sunny spot of greenery," were idyls sung no less exquisite than this. Many a village-spire, of conception no less beautiful, arose above the tree-tops among the most untrodden ways. All day long its shadow lingers in the quiet churchyard, and points among the humble graves, as if, over this dial of human life, it loved to preach silent homilies on "the passing away," even to the simplest poor. It must be inexpressibly touching to meet with these beautiful forms in the lonely wilderness, where the ivy alone, as it throws its loving arms around them, appears to recognize their grace and all their tender significance. It is like the chance discovery of a good deed done in the darkness, or like a pure life spent in the sweet and serious retirement of a little hamlet, pointing the way to heaven for its scanty flock of cottagers.

It was the custom in those days, during the celebration of Mass, at the moment when the Host was raised, to ring a peculiar bell in the tower, in order that those not gathered beneath the consecrated roof might be made aware far and wide of the awful ceremony, and be reminded to offer up their devotion in unison. And we remember what Izaak Walton said of quaint George Herbert,—how "some of the meaner sort of his parish did so love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough rest when his saints'-bell rung to prayer, that they might also offer their devotion to God with him, and would then return back contented to their plough." Now it seems to us that the spire is a perpetual elevation of the Host, a never-ending lifting-up of the Symbol of Redemption, a consecrating presence to field and cottage, hillside and highway, ever ready to bless the accidental glance of wayfarer or laborer, and to make in the desert of his daily life a momentary oasis of sweet and hallowed thought. Its peaceful influence extends over the whole landscape and pierces to its remotest corners.

"A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires,And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea."

It may be thought that St. Peter's cock, which so often answers the sunbeams from the spindly spire, and kindles and glitters there like a star, is rather empty of emblematic significance and soul-language. But what saith old Bishop Durandus?—"The cock at the summit of the church is a type of the preacher. For the cock, ever watchful, even in the depth of night, giveth notice how the hours pass, waketh the sleepers, predicteth the approach of day,—but first exciteth himself to crow by striking his sides with his wings. There is a mystery conveyed in each of these particulars: the night is the world; the sleepers are the children of this world, who are asleep in their sins; the cock is the preacher who preacheth boldly, and exciteth the sleepers to cast away the works of darkness, exclaiming, Woe to them that sleep! Awake, thou that sleepest! and then foretell the approach of day, when they speak of the Day of Judgment and the glory that shall be revealed, and, like prudent messengers, before they teach others, arouse themselves from the sleep of sin by mortifying their bodies; and as the weather-cock faces the wind, they turn themselves boldly to meet the rebellious by threats and arguments."

But it was on the Continent, especially in France, the Low Countries, and Germany, that the Gothic flower opened in fullest perfection; and it is here that we find the loftiest and most luxurious spire-forms. They were always the last part of the church completed, the finishing-touch, the last that was needed to perfection. The progress of the building of a cathedral thus embodied a beautiful symbolism. In most cases, the choir, or east end, the holiest part of the church, was the first erected, in order to sanctify and protect the high altar; and then, as the treasures of the church flowed in, after the expiration of years or centuries, the builders, tutored by a legendary science, and harmonized by a wonderful feeling of brotherhood, in the same spirit, perfected the designs of their predecessors, by leading out westward the long naves and attendant aisles, completing northward and southward the transepts, adding a chapel here and a porch there, glorifying the western front with the touches of divine genius; and when at last every niche was occupied with its statue of angel, saint, or pious benefactor, and the holy choir, with its apsis, had been re-adorned with the accumulated art of centuries, and glowed with the iris-light from painted windows,—when the mural monuments of bishops, warriors, and kings had thickened beneath the consecrated roof, and the whole structure had been hallowed by the prayers and chantings of generations,—then, at last, over the ancient tower arose the lofty spire; as if an angelic messenger had spread his wings at its base and mounted upward to heaven, shouting out the glad tidings of the completion of the House of God, and, as he arose, the voice grew fainter and fainter, till at length it melted into the sky!

The finest spires of Europe were erected as late as the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, upon towers prepared for their reception, usually, in much earlier times. This confidence of the old builders in the final completion of their structures is remarkable. They drew without stint on the piety of after ages,—a resource which has not unfrequently proved too feeble to realize their generous expectations. There are few cities in Europe which do not bear sad marks of this misplaced confidence. This is especially witnessed in the unfinished steeples. And, indeed, when we find that not only one, but two, three, four, or even five spires were sometimes required to flame upward from the same building, as in Caen Cathedral, we do not wonder that the kindling spark is often wanting. It would seem as if another fire must come down from heaven, as of old it did upon the first offering of Moses and Aaron, to inflame these censers, rich in frankincense and naphtha.

Now let us see what were the distinguishing attributes of the Continental spires. We know not why it was, but in the gray old towns of Belgium and the Low Countries there existed such exuberance of imagination, such an unbounded luxuriousness of conception, as created more images of Gothic quaintness and intricacy than elsewhere can be seen. If any architecture ever expressed the average of human thought, that of these towns is especially eloquent in its indications that their inhabitants were very happy and contented. Look at a print of any old Belgian town or street, and you will at once see our meaning. What a joyous upspringing of pinnacles and pointed roofs and spires! of no more earthly use, indeed, than so much pleasant laughter. There is no tower without its spire, no turret or gable without its pinnacle, no oriel without its pointed roof, no dormer without some such playful leaping up into the air. Every salient point attacks the sky with its long iron spindle, wrought with strange device and bearing a hospitable cup where the bird makes his nest; and every spindle sings and shrieks with a shifting vane,—so that the wind never sweeps idly over a Belgian town. This innocent and happy people did not frown through the ages from grim battlements, and awe posterity with stern and massive walls. But they loved old childlike associations and fireside tales. They loved to build curious fountains in commemoration of pleasant legends. They loved, too, the huge, delicious-toned bells of their minster-towers, and the sweet changes of melodious, never-ceasing chimes. They carved their Lares and Penates on their house-fronts very curiously, with sun-dials and hatchments, sacred texts and legends of hospitality. The narrow streets of Ghent, Louvain, Liege, Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres, Bruges are thus full of household memories and saintly traditions. So it is not strange that a people whose daily hours were counted out with the music of belfries were fond of fretting their towers with workmanship so precious and delicate that it has been called "the petrifaction of music."

But before we proceed to tell in how florid a manner the Low Countries interpreted the simpler forms of spires, we shall describe generically in what manner not only they, but all the other European kingdoms, were indebted to the old Rhineland towns for some of these forms. When the bell-tower, in about the seventh or eighth century, began to be used in Germany, it at once received certain very important modifications on the earlier Italian campanile. The upper terminations of these latter were horizontal, on account of their flat roofs. Now in more northern climates, where the snow falls, these flat roofs would be unsafe and inconvenient. So we find that the first church-towers that arose in such Rhenish places as Oberwesel, Gelnhausen, Bacharach, Coblentz, Cologne, Bingen, "sweet Bingen on the Rhine," no longer ended in these horizontal lines, but arose in pointed shapes. Indeed, the Germans, who were great rivals of the Italians in those days, not only in matters pertaining to architecture, but to literature also, in the same independent spirit which induced them alone, of all civilized peoples, to retain through all time the cramped, angular letters of monkish transcribers, in preference to the fair and square Roman forms, took particular pride in avoiding horizontal lines entirely at the tops of their towers, as they did at the tops of their letters. Wherever they so occur, they are insignificant,—rather ornamental than constructive. Not so with the English; they kept the square tops to their towers, and contented themselves with the pointed superstructure. Let us see how Teutonic stubbornness arranged the matter. Each separate face of their towers, whether these towers were square or octangular, ended above in a gable; and from these gables, in various ways, arose the octangular pointed roof or spire. This circumstance, more than any other, tended to give a peculiar character to German Gothic. The simplest type of the gabled spire was magnificently used in the spire of St. Peter's at Hamburg. This was the finest in North Germany; it was four hundred and sixteen feet high, and, if still standing, would be the third in height in the world. But it was destroyed by the great fire of 1842. Many a traveller can bear witness to the sweet melody of the chimes that used to sound beneath it every half-hour.