+SECULAR ARCHITECTURE.+ Little remains to us of the secular architecture of this period in Germany, if we except the great feudal castles, especially those of the Rhine, which were, after all, rather works of military engineering than of architectural art. The palace of Charlemagne at Aix (the chapel of which was mentioned on p. 172) is known to have been a vast and splendid group of buildings, partly, at least of marble; but hardly a vestige of it remains. Of the extensive +Palace of Henry III.+ at +Goslar+ there remain well-defined ruins of an imposing hall of assembly in two aisles with triple-arched windows. At Brunswick the east wing of the +Burg Dankwargerode+ displays, in spite of modern alterations, the arrangement of the chapel, great hall, two fortified towers, and part of the residence of Henry the Lion. The +Wartburg+ palace (Ludwig III., _cir._ 1150) is more generally known--a rectangular hall in three stories, with windows effectively grouped to form arcades; while at Gelnhausen and Münzenberg are ruins of somewhat similar buildings. A few of the Romanesque monasteries of Germany have left partial remains, as at +Maulbronn+, which was almost entirely rebuilt in the Gothic period, and isolated buildings in Cologne and elsewhere. There remain also in Cologne a number of Romanesque private houses with coupled windows and stepped gables. +GREAT BRITAIN.+ Previous to the Norman conquest (1066) there was in the British Isles little or no architecture worthy of mention. The few extant remains of Saxon and Celtic buildings reveal a singular poverty of ideas and want of technical skill. These scanty remains are mostly of towers (those in Ireland nearly all round and tapering, with conical tops, their use and date being the subjects of much controversy) and crypts. The tower of Earl’s Barton is the most important and best preserved of those in England. With the Norman conquest, however, began an extraordinary activity in the building of churches and abbeys. William the Conqueror himself founded a number of these, and his Norman ecclesiastics endeavored to surpass on British soil the contemporary churches of Normandy. The new churches differed somewhat from their French prototypes; they were narrower and lower, but much longer, especially as to the choir and transepts. The cathedrals of +Durham+ (1096-1133) and +Norwich+ (same date) are important examples (Fig. 102). They also differed from the French churches in two important particulars externally; a huge tower rose usually over the crossing, and the western portals were small and insignificant. Lateral entrances near the west end were given greater importance and called _Galilees_. At Durham a Galilee chapel (not shown in the plan), takes the place of a porch at the west end, like the ante-churches of St. Benoît-sur-Loire and Vézelay. [Illustration: FIG. 102.--PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL.]