George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund
History
George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic; Church architecture -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel; Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
Such is the cathedral of Naumburg--little known to, and scarce ever
visited by, English tourists; and yet undoubtedly one of the most
interesting and least altered churches in Germany: its two rood-screens
would be alone sufficient to give it high claims upon our admiration,
since they are, so far as I know, the two earliest examples remaining,
and certainly older than any quoted by Mr. Pugin in his work on
Screens. Besides this, the architectural value of some parts of the
building is so pre-eminent, as in itself to repay a long journey.
III
ERFURT AND MARBURG
At Naumburg there was little, save the cathedral, to detain an
ecclesiologist. The Stadt-Kirche deserved little more than a hurried
visit, though the singularity of its plan deserves a note. It has an
immense apsidal west end, a vast semicircle on the plan, embracing both
nave and aisles, and its choir is also terminated with an apse. Beyond
this the only remarkable features are the large multifoiled arches
which occupy the space between the windows and the plinth in each bay
of the eastern apse.
From the railway station one obtains a good view of the cathedral
steeples over the vine-clad hills on which Naumburg stands--refreshing
sight after the dreariness of the country generally in which I had
been journeying. From Naumburg to Erfurt the railway runs through a
really pretty, often very picturesque, country, with hills and rocks
by the river-side, ever and anon capped by those feudal keeps in which
all German rivers seem to be so rich; as picturesque now as they were
formerly advantageous to their predatory chiefs. I had but two or
three hours at Erfurt, but this was enough to show me that much was
to be seen. The Barfüsser-Kirche was the first that I saw--one of
those immensely long churches of which Germans were rather fond; a
nave and aisles, and an apsidal choir, all groined at the same height,
with windows of the same size and character throughout, and the whole
“restored” in that peculiarly chilling fashion, which Lutherans are
so singularly successful in achieving, which makes one’s recollection
of such a church not very grateful. There is, however, some old glass
in the choir windows, and a most prodigious carved and painted reredos
behind the altar, which, though apparently to some extent modern, is
nevertheless striking in its effect. The entrance to this church is by
double doors on the south side which run up into and form part of the
windows, the same jamb mould being continued all round.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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