+SIDE AISLES.+ The most notable structural innovation of the Germans was the raising of the side aisles to the same height as the central aisle in a number of important churches. They thus created a distinctly new type, to which German writers have given the name of _hall-church_. The result of this innovation was to transform completely the internal perspective of the church, as well as its structural membering. The clearstory disappeared; the central aisle no longer dominated the interior; the pier-arches and side-walls were greatly increased in height, and flying buttresses were no longer required. The whole design appeared internally more spacious, but lost greatly in variety and in interest. The cathedral of +St. Stephen+ at Vienna is the most imposing instance of this treatment, which first appeared in the church of St. Elizabeth at Marburg (1235-83; Fig. 140). St. Barbara at Kuttenberg, St. Martin’s at Landshut (1404), and the cathedral of Munich are others among many examples of this type. [Illustration: FIG. 140.--SECTION OF ST. ELIZABETH, MARBURG.] +TOWERS AND SPIRES.+ The same fondness for spires which had been displayed in the Rhenish Romanesque churches produced in the Gothic period a number of strikingly beautiful church steeples, in which openwork tracery was substituted for the solid stone pyramids of earlier examples. The most remarkable of these spires are those of Freiburg (1300), Strasburg, and Cologne cathedrals, of the church at Esslingen, St. Martin’s at Landshut, and the cathedral of Vienna. In these the transition from the simple square tower below to the octagonal belfry and spire is generally managed with skill. In the remarkable tower of the cathedral at Vienna (1433) the transition is too gradual, so that the spire seems to start from the ground and lacks the vigor and accent of a simpler square lower portion. The over-elaborate spire of +Strasburg+ (1429, by Junckher of Cologne; lower parts and façade, 1277-1365, by _Erwin von Steinbach_ and his sons) reaches a height of 468 feet; the spires of Cologne, completed in 1883 from the original fourteenth-century drawings, long lost but recovered by a happy accident, are 500 feet high. The spires of +Ratisbon+ and +Ulm+ cathedrals have also been recently completed in the original style.