The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine - Mansfield Milburg Francisco

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all of the examples that formerly existed have come down to us undisturbed or even in fragmentary condition. But, in spite of the Protestant succession to many of the noble minsters, many of these cloisters have endured in a fair state of preservation. Attached to the western end of St. Maria in Capitola at Cologne is an admirable example, while the Romanesque types at Bonn, at the abbey of Laach, and at Essen are truly beautiful. Examples of the later pure Gothic construction are those at Aix-la-Chapelle and Trèves.

      But little exterior sculpture has been preserved in all its originality in the Rhenish provinces, revolutionary fury and its aftermath having accounted for its disappearance or mutilation. In the Cistercian church at the abbey of Altenburg, there is a plentiful display of foliaged ornament, and there are the noble statues in the choir of the cathedral at Cologne. Mayence has a series of monuments to the bishop-nobles attached to the piers of the nave, and in the Liebfrau Kirche at Trèves and the cathedral at Strasburg are seen the best and most numerous features of this nature.

      One of the most unusual of mediæval church furnishings, a sort of chandelier, is seen both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Hildesheim. In each instance it is a vast hoop-like pendant which bears the definition of coronæ lucis. Others are found elsewhere in Germany, but not of the great size of these two.

      Organ-cases here as elsewhere are mostly abominations. The makers of sweet music evidently thought that any heavy baroque combination of wood-carving and leaden pipes was good enough so long as the flow of melody was uninterrupted.

      The stained glass throughout the Rhine valley is mostly good and unusually abundant, and the freedom of this accessory from fanatical desecration is most apparent. The same is true of such paintings as are found hung in the churches, though seldom have they great names attached to them; at least, not so great as would mark them for distinction were they hung in any of the leading picture galleries of Europe.

      At Essen the baptistery is separated from the main church, like that at Ravenna, or at Aix-en-Provence, the two foremost examples of their kind. A little to the westward of this minster, and joined to it by a Romanesque ligature, is a three-bayed Gothic church which occupies the site, or was built up from a former chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

      Sooner or later the custom became prevalent of erecting a baptismal font within the precincts of the main church itself, thus doing away with a structure especially devoted to the purpose. This change came in the ninth century, hence no separate baptisteries are found dating from a later epoch only, except as an avowed copy of the earlier custom.

      At this time, too, immersion had given way to sprinkling merely, though in many cases the German name still applied is that of taufstein, meaning dipping-stone.

      Late examples of fonts were frequently in metal, the most remarkable in the Rhine valley being in St. Reinhold's at Dortmund, in St. Maria in Capitola, and St. Peter's at Cologne, and in St. Mary's and St. James's at Mayence.

      One of the most elaborate, and certainly the most beautiful and remarkable of all, is the stone font of the cathedral at Limburg.

      VI

      CONSTANCE AND SCHAFFHAUSEN

Constance

      There is a sentimental interest attached to Constance and the lake which lies at its door, which has come down to us through the pictures of the painters and the verses of the poets. Aside from this, history has played its great part so vividly that one could not forget it if he would.

      The city was founded about 297 A.D. In after years it fell before the warlike Huns, and all but disappeared, until it became the seat of a bishop in the sixth century, the jurisdiction of the bishopric extending for a dozen leagues in all directions.

      In the tenth century it became a ville impériale, and by the fifteenth it had a population of more than forty thousand souls, and the bishopric counted eight hundred thousand adherents. To-day the city proper has decreased in numbers to a population which hovers closely about the five thousand mark.

      The emperors convoked many Diets at Constance, and in 1183 the peace was signed here between the Emperor Barbarossa and the Lombard towns.

      The cathedral, or münster, of Constance is dedicated to "Our Lady", and is for the most part a highly satisfying example of a Renaissance church, though here and there may be noticed the Gothic, which was erected on the eleventh-century foundations.

      The façade has been restored in recent years, and is flanked by two pseudo-Romanesque towers or campaniles in the worst of taste.

      The interior is divided into three naves by columns bearing rounded arches. Above, in the grand nave, are a series of round-headed windows, while those in the aisles are ogival.

      The choir contains a series of Gothic stalls in stone, which, unless it has very recently been scraped off, are covered with the ordinary cheap whitewash.

      The painted vaulting is atrocious, and, while its hideous colouring lasts, it matters little whether it is of the Romanesque barrel style or ogival. The nervures are there, so it must belong to the latter variety, but it is all so thickly covered with what looks like enamel paint and gaudy red and blue "lining" that it is painful to contemplate.

      There is a fine statue of John Huss supporting the pulpit. It is an adequate monument to one who made history so vivid that it reads almost like legend. In the pavement is a plaque of copper which indicates the spot where Huss stood when his sentence was read out to him. According to tradition – some have said that it was the ecclesiastical law – Huss was hurled from the church by a coup de pied.

      The organ-case, of the fifteenth century, which backs up the inside wall of the façade, is one of the most gorgeous of its kind extant, although there is no very high art expression to be discovered in the overpowering mass of mahogany and lead pipes which, with inadequate supports, hangs perilously upon a wall.

      This particular organ-case is richly sculptured with foliage and figures of men, demons, and what not. If it is symbolic, it is hard to trace the connection between any religious motive and the actual appearance of this ungainly mass of carved wood.

      There is in the cathedral an elaborate allegorical painting by Christopher Storer, a native of Constance, and executed in 1659 by the order of Canon Sigismund Müller, who died in 1686, and whose tomb is placed near by.

      An immense retable is placed at the head of the nave. It is of fine marble, and, though a seventeenth-century copy of Renaissance, is far more beautiful than such ornaments usually are outside of Italy.

      At the head of the left aisle is a chapel which also has an elaborate marble retable of the same period. At the summit is a crucifix, and below in niches are statues of St. Thomas, of Constantine, and of his mother, Ste. Hélène. In the same chapel is a "Christ in the tomb", in marble, surrounded by the twelve apostles.

      From the same aisle ascends a charming ogival staircase ornamented with statues and bas-reliefs. Separating the chapels from the aisles are two magnificent iron grilles. In a Gothic chapel near the entrance is a fine cul de lampe sculptured to represent the history of Adam and Eve.

      A cloister exists, in part to-day as it did of yore, to the northeast of the cathedral. It is a highly beautiful example of fifteenth-century work, with its arcades varying from the firm and dignified early Gothic to the more flamboyant style of later years.

      The church of St. Stephen is another ecclesiastical treasure of Constance with a rank high among religious shrines.

      St. Stephen's occupies the site formerly given to a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, while not far away there was, in other times, another known under the name of Maria Unter der Linden. The Bishop Salomon III., who occupied the see from 891 to 919, enlarged the first chapel, which was further embellished in 935 by the Bishop Conrad of Altdorf, who added a choir thereto.

      This in time came to be known as St. Stephen's. It was entirely renovated in 1047-51 by the Bishop Theodoric, who was interred therein upon his death. The church served as the meeting-place of the famous Roman tribunal known as the Sacra Rota Romana. Under the Bishop Otto III., who was Margrave of Hochberg, it was entirely reconstructed in 1428, and to-day it is this fifteenth-century building that one sees. Previously, if the records tell truly,

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