George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund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George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers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
S. Castor at Coblentz, at the end of the twelfth century, Andernach
a little later, Zinzig, S. Gereon and S. Cunibert, Cologne, at the
beginning of the thirteenth century, give us a fairly complete
evidence of the succession of styles. After these we have Limburg and
Gelnhausen, taking us on to the time at which the German complete
Gothic was in other places in full perfection.
In the early churches there are many features worthy of remark:--
First, the curiously early development of a kind of heavy cusping, of
which Worms, Zinzig, Boppart, Andernach, and S. Gereon at Cologne, are
good examples. It is essentially German, and I know nothing like it out
of the Rhine district.
Secondly, the treatment of the apsidal terminations is very remarkable.
S. Castor at Coblentz, e.g., at the end of the twelfth century, has
three stages in its apse, whereof that next the ground has a trefoiled
arcade, the next is pierced with round-headed windows, whilst under
the eaves is a recessed arcade and a cornice, which, in one form or
other, was almost the invariable finish of these early apses. Zinzig
has the same kind of apse, but it is polygonal, and each side is
gabled. The eaves-cornice has a row of square sunk panels below it; and
this singular feature we see reproduced very often, as at S. Gereon.
The apse at Andernach is nearly identical with that at Coblentz, as
also is that of Bonn. The fine cathedral at Worms has a very singular
arrangement. The apse is polygonal, with the eaves-cornice and ground
arcade as at Coblentz, but in the intermediate stage it has circular
windows, filled in with quatrefoils and sexfoils. The apse and steeple
of S. Martin, at Cologne, are extremely noble examples of these
portions of the early German churches. Generally speaking, these early
apsidal terminations are most remarkable for their similarity of
design, but their external effect is, nevertheless, always striking.
The third and chief feature of the early German churches is the
treatment of their steeples. They are square or octangular in plan,
without buttresses, arcaded or pierced with windows pretty regularly
all over their surface, and roofed in the most varied manner. You are
all, no doubt, familiar with some examples of these really striking
towers, and you will feel, I think, that in their whole composition
they generally look too much like turrets, and are often too uniform
in their height to be perfectly satisfactory. The towers were often
gabled, and had square spires rising from the points of the gables;
or, as in the fine example at Soest, they had octagonal spires. This
Soest example has great interest: it is the first perfect example,
so far as I know, of a long series of very remarkable steeples. At
Paderborn, indeed, there is no doubt that the tower had a spire; but it
is destroyed, and Soest is therefore the more interesting. At a later
date, this kind of steeple was reproduced at Lüneburg and Lübeck, in
the steeples which adorn their churches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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