XXI
ANDERNACH AND SINZIG
Andernach
Andernach is one of the oldest cities in the Rhine valley, and grew up out of one of Drusus's camps, which was built here when the town was known as Antonacum.
This was its early history, as given by Ammien Marcellin; and a later authority mentions it as the second city of the electorate of Trèves (Die Andre Darnach).
In the records of Drusus's time, there is a reference to a château here, which was the fiftieth he had built upon the banks of the Rhine.
The kings of Austrasia had their palace here as well, so the place became a political and strategic city of very nearly the first rank.
In the middle ages Andernach shone brilliantly among the centres of commerce in the Rhine valley.
Charles V. was responsible for a battle between the inhabitants of Linz and those of Rhieneck and Andernach, in which nearly all the latter were massacred.
To soften any hard feeling that might still exist, a sermon was always preached, up to the last century, in the market-place, on St. Bartholomew's Day, urging the people to forgive their enemies. The records tell, however, that on one occasion an unfortunate inhabitant of Linz was discovered in Andernach, and that he was forthwith put to death in most unchristianlike fashion.
The Gate of Coblenz at Andernach is generally regarded as an ancient Roman work, though not of the monumental order usual in works of its kind.
The present fortifications date from the fifteenth century, as does the picturesque watch-tower by the waterside.
With Andernach is identified the tradition of a Count Palatine, who, returning from the Holy Wars, was persuaded by a false friend that his lady had proved faithless; and, without listening to excuse, drove her forth to the woods. In the forest she found shelter with her youthful son, lodging in caves and living on fruits and herbs for many years. One day her husband, having lost his companions in the chase, came by accident upon her place of concealment. The wife of his bosom, carefully nurtured in her youth, but now living unattended in the wilds, and his son, now grown into a fine youth, excited his pity. Listening to the truth, he took home the innocent victims of perfidy, and retaliated upon the traducer by hanging him from the highest tower of his castle. After her death, the countess became St. Genofeva, and is the patroness of the parish church of St. Genevieve, which is a lofty structure with four towers which rise high above the surrounding buildings in a fashion which would be truly imposing were the church less overornamented in all its parts.
The actual foundation of the church dates from Carlovingian times, and a tenth-century church is visibly incorporated into the present fabric, but in the main the present structure is of the thirteenth century.
The façade, as is the case with most of the Romano-Byzantine churches on the Rhine, is flanked by two fine towers, showing some slight traces of the incoming ogival style.
Flanking the apside are two other towers, somewhat heavier and thoroughly Romanesque in motive.
The southern doorway is surrounded by a series of remarkably elaborate and excellent sculptures, showing delicate foliage, birds, and human figures disposed after the best manner of the Romanesque. The northern doorway is decorated in a similar manner, with an elaborate grouping of two angels and the paschal lamb in the tympanum. To the right of this portal is a curious coloured bas-relief set in the wall. It represents the death of the Virgin, and dates from the early sixteenth century.
The interior is divided into three naves by two ranges of pillars, square and very short. The arcades between the aisles and the nave are rounded, but the vaulting is ogival.
The second range of pillars forms an arcade quite similar to the lower one, but the pillars are of black marble. A modern balustrade, which has been added, is frightful in its contrast with the more ancient constructive details.
Above all are six windows on a side, which in plan and proportions resemble those of the side aisles.
The choir is in effect a cul-de-four, and is lighted by five windows placed rather high up. Below are a series of niches, in which are placed modern statues, about as bad as can be imagined, even in these degenerate architectural times.
The gallery behind the second tier of columns is known as the mannshaus, being intended for the male portion of the congregation, the women sitting below.
The pulpit came from the old abbey of Laach.
On the left of the grand nave is the tomb of a knight of Lahnstein, who died in 1541.
There is another legend connected with Andernach which may well be recounted here.
One day, during the minority of the Emperor Henry IV., the tutors of the prince, the proud Archbishop Annon of Cologne and the Palatine, Henry the Furious, held a meeting with certain other seigneurs at Andernach. The same day the inhabitants of Güls, a village near Coblenz, lodged a complaint before the Palatine concerning the exactions of the provost of their village. This last, himself, followed the deputies, magnificently clothed and mounted upon a richly caparisoned horse, counting upon his presence to counteract the impression they might make. Among the collection of wild beasts which had been gathered together for the amusement of the princes was a ferocious bear. When the provost passed near him, the animal sprang upon him and tore him to pieces, whereupon it was supposed that the venerable archbishop had exercised a divine power, and delivered up the oppressor to the fury of a wild beast. Like most of the Rhine legends, it is astonishingly simple in plot, and likewise has a religious turn to it, which shows the great respect of the ancient people of these regions toward their creed.
Sinzig
Between Andernach and Bonn is the tiny city of Sinzig, famous for two things, – its charmingly disposed parish church and the wines of Assmanhaus.
The town was the ancient Sentiacum of the Romans, constructed in all probability by Sentius, one of the generals of Augustus.
The church at Sinzig, in company with St. Quirinus at Neuss, has some of the best mediæval glass in Germany.
This small, but typically Rhenish, parish church has also a series of polychromatic decorations which completely cover its available wall space.
There is a vividness about them which may be pleasing to some, but which will strike many as being distinctly unchurchly.
As a Christian edifice, the church at Sinzig, with its central tower and spire, is only remarkable as typifying the style of Romano-ogival architecture which developed so broadly in the Rhine valley at the expense of the purer Gothic.
XXII
TRÈVES
Southwesterly from Coblenz, between the Rhine and Metz, is Trèves, known by the Germans as Trier. Situated at the southern end of a charming valley, which more or less closely follows the banks of the Moselle, it has the appearance of being a vast park with innumerable houses and edifices scattered here and there through the foliage. The city contains many churches, of which the cathedral of St. Pierre et Ste. Hélène is the chief.
At one time the Augusta Trevirorum of the Romans was "the richest, the most fortunate, the most glorious, and the most eminent of all the cities north of the Alps," said an enthusiastic local historian.
The claim may be disputed by another whose civic pride lies elsewhere, but all know that Trèves, as the flourishing capital of the Gaulois belges, actually rivalled Rome itself.
Augustus established a Roman colony here with its own Senate, and many of the Roman emperors of the long line which followed made it their residence during their sojourn in the north.
From the Augusta Trevirorum of the Romans, the city became in time, under the later Empire, Treviri, from which the present nomenclature of Trèves and Trier comes. It was one of the sixty great towns which were taken from the Romans by the Franks and the Alemanni.
The Roman bridge over the Moselle, built probably by Agrippa, existed until the wars of Louis XIV., in 1669, when it was blown up; and all that now remains of the original work are the foundations of the piers, which were built upon anew in the eighteenth century.
As a bishopric, and later as an archbishopric, the see is the most ancient in Germany, having been founded in 327 by the Empress Hélène.
In the twelfth century it became an archbishopric and an electorate, but during the fourteenth century, because of continual struggles between the municipality and the Church, the archbishops removed to Coblenz.
In the cathedral rests the Holy Coat of Trèves, one of the most sacred relics of the Saviour extant, and supposedly the veritable garment worn by him at the crucifixion, – the seamless garment for which the soldiers cast lots (John xix. 23, 24).
When exposed to public view, which ceremony used to take place only once in thirty years, the holy robe is placed upon the high altar, which has previously been dressed for the occasion. The altar is approached by many steps on each side, and there are several steps at intervals in the aisles, so that the appearance of the long line of pilgrims on their way down the side aisles and up to the altar is most picturesque. As many as twenty thousand pilgrims are said to have paid their devotions to this relic in a single day. They come in processions of hundreds, and sometimes thousands; and are of all classes, but mostly peasants. The lame, the blind, and the sick are included in their ranks, and it is noticeable that the majority are women. They are constantly arriving, pouring in at several gates of the city in an almost continual stream, accompanied by priests, banners, and crosses, and alternately singing and praying. There are many of them heavily laden, their packs on their backs, their bright brass pans, pitchers, and kettles of all shapes in their hands, or slung on their arms, while their fingers are busily employed with their beads. Wayworn and footsore, fatigued and hungry, they yet pursue their toilsome march, intent upon the attainment of the one object of their pilgrimage. It is curious and picturesque to see their long lines of processions in the open country, wending their slow way over the hills, and to hear their hymns, mellowed by distance into a pleasant sound across the broad Rhine. From Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Hungary, and even Switzerland and Italy they come, and during the whole of their journeys the pilgrims sing and pray almost continually. The accomplishment of their pilgrimages entitles them, by payment of a small offering, to certain absolutions and indulgences. The pure-minded peasant girl seeks remission of sins, the foodless peasant a liberty to eat what the expenses of this pilgrimage will perhaps deprive him of the means of obtaining. The city is literally packed with pilgrims, and the scene in the market-place at nightfall is in the highest degree interesting and picturesque.
"The Holy Coat of Trèves" is a simple tunic, apparently of linen or cotton, of a fabric similar to the closely woven mummy-cloth of the Egyptians. Undoubtedly it is of great antiquity, which many sacred reliques may or may not be, judging from their appearances. In appearance it is precisely the same as is that worn by the modern Arab.
This form of tunic, then, has come down from the ages with but little change in the fashions, and seems to be worn by all classes in the East. In colour the relic may originally have been blue, though now of course it is much faded; in fact, is a rusty brown.
The history of this holy robe, according to a Professor Marx, who wrote an account of it which had the approval of the Archbishop of Trèves, is authenticated as far back as 1157 by written testimony, it having been mentioned as then existing in the cathedral of Trèves by Frederick I. in a letter addressed to Hillen, Archbishop of Trèves in that year. Its earliest history depends wholly on tradition, which says that it was obtained by the Empress Hélène in the year 326, while in the Holy Land, whither she went for the express purpose of obtaining relics of our Saviour and his followers; that she gave it to the see of Trèves, and that it was deposited in the cathedral of that city; that it was afterward lost, having been hidden in disturbed times within the walls of the cathedral, and rediscovered under the Archbishop John I., in 1196; that it was again hidden for the same reason, brought to light, and exposed to the wondering multitude in 1512, on the occasion of the famous Diet of Trèves, under the Emperor Maximilian. "Since this last epoch," says the author of the work already quoted, "the history of the Holy Robe has been often discussed, written, and sung, because it has been often publicly exposed, and at short intervals, whenever political troubles have not prevented."
At Trèves is an ancient tomb to Cardinal Ivo, with heavily sculptured capitals surmounting four small columns, whose pedestals are crouching lions. But for the crudity of the sculpture, and the weird beasts at its base, one might almost think the tomb a Renaissance work.
The cardinal died in 1142, and the work is unquestionably of the Romanesque period. It is reminiscent, moreover, of the southern portal of the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Embrun in the south of France; indeed, a drawing of one might well pass for the other were it not labelled, though to be sure there is a distinct difference in detail.
Among the treasures of Trèves is a censer, one of the most elaborate ever devised. It is in the form of an ample bowl, with its cover worked in silver in the form of a church on the lines of a Greek cross. The device is most unusual, but rather clumsily ornate.
There are two curious statues in the portal of Notre Dame; one representing the Church and the other the synagogue; the one with a clear, straightforward look in her eyes, the other blindfolded and with the crown falling from her head. The symbol is frequently met with, but the method of indicating the opposition of the new religious law to that of the old is, in these life-size statues, at Trèves, perhaps unique. The figures are somewhat mutilated, each lacking the arms, but in other respects they stand as originally conceived.
The cathedral of St. Pierre et Ste. Hélène is situated in the most elevated portion of the city, and, like the cathedral at Bonn, above Cologne, presents that curious pyramidal effect so often remarked in Rhenish churches.
There is no very great beauty in the outlines of this church, which is a curious jumble of towers and turrets; but there are some very good architectural details, quite worthy of a more splendid edifice. Ste. Hélène, the mother of Constantine, herself placed the first stone in the easterly portion of the present church, a fact which was only discovered in the seventeenth century, when the foundations were being repaired. It is supposed originally to have been a part of the palace of the Empress Hélène, afterward converted into a house of God.
One notes in the interior a remarkably beautiful series of Corinthian columns with elaborately carved capitals of the eleventh century. In later years these have been flanked by supporting pillars which detract exceedingly from the beauty of the earlier forms.
In parts the edifice is frankly French Gothic, Byzantine, and what we know elsewhere as Norman, – a species of the Romanesque.
In 1717 the church suffered considerably by fire, but it was repaired forthwith, and to-day gives the effect of a fairly well cared for building of three naves and a double choir.
There are sixteen altars, some of which are modern, and two organs, cased as usual in hideous mahogany.
The high altar and the pulpit are excellently sculptured, and there are some notable monuments to former archbishops and electors.
Beneath the church are vast subterranean passages, and a great vault where repose the ancient regents of the province.
Architecturally, Trèves's other remarkable church (Notre Dame) quite rivals the cathedral itself in interest. It is one of the best examples of German mediæval architecture extant.
In the year 1227 when St. Gérêon's at Cologne, one of the earliest examples of ogival vaulting in Germany, was just finished, there was commenced the church of Notre Dame at Trèves. It was the first church edifice in Germany to consistently carry out the Gothic motive from the foundation stones upward.
For fifty years the well-defined Gothic had been knocking at the gateway which led from France into Germany, and at last it was to enter at a period when the cathedrals at Soissons and Laon had already established themselves as well-nigh perfect examples of the new style.
The first foundation stone was laid in 1227, and the work was completed in less than twenty years. The general plan is grandiose and it has a central cupola – replacing a tower which was in danger of subsiding – held aloft by twelve hardy columns, on which are ranged in symmetrical order statues of the apostles.
The plan is unusual and resembles no Gothic structure elsewhere, hence may be considered as a type standing by itself.
The exterior shows little or nothing of the highly developed Gothic which awaits one when viewing the interior. There are no flying buttresses, the walls seemingly supporting themselves, and yet they are not clumsy. The piers of the chapel somewhat perform the functions of buttresses, and that perhaps makes possible the unusual arrangement.
The church of St. Gangolphe, on the market-place, has a singularly beautiful and very lofty tower, which gives to whoever has the courage to make its rather perilous ascent one of the most charming prospects of the valley of the Moselle possible to imagine.
The chief of Trèves's other churches are: the church of the Jesuits, since ceded to the Protestants; St. Gervais, which has a tomb to Bishop Hontheim, a most learned man and a great benefactor of Trèves in days gone by; St. Antoine; and St. Paul.
The country around Trèves, on the Moselle, – the famous Trèves Circle, – ranks high as a wine-growing region, though your true German wine-drinker calls all Moselle wine "Unnosel Wein."
These wines of the Moselle are, to be sure, secondary to those of the vineyards of the Rhine and the Main, but the varieties are very numerous.
A Dutch burgomaster once bought of the Abbey of Maximinus – a famous wine-growing establishment as well as a religious community – a variety known as Gruenhaüser, in 1793, for eleven hundred and forty-four florins a vat of something less than three hundred gallons. It was known as the nectar of Moselle, and "made men cheerful, and did good the next day, leaving the bosom and head without disorder." Such was the old-time monkish estimate and endorsement of its virtues.
XXIII
BONN
Bonn in the popular mind is noteworthy chiefly for its famous university, and for being the birthplace of Beethoven.
The city was one of the fifty fortresses built by Drusus on the Rhine, and the only Rhenish city, with the exception of Cologne, which has kept its Roman appellation. It is mentioned by Tacitus both as Bonna and Bonensia castra.
The cathedral is as famous as the university. It was funded by the mother of Constantine the Great, who, according to tradition, consecrated the primitive church here in 319.
Really, it is not a very stupendous pile, the present cathedral, but it looks far more imposing than it really is by reason of its massive central tower and steeple.
It is one of the most ancient and most remarkable of the cathedrals on the banks of the Rhine.
The effect of its five towers is that of a great pyramid rising skyward from a broad base.
In the main, it is a construction of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but it is known beyond doubt that the choir and the crypt were built in 1157. To-day there are visible no traces of even the foundations of the primitive church.
There are two polygonal apsides, more noticeable from without than within.
The main portal, or the most elaborate at least, is that of the north façade.
The interior is not as sombre and sad as is often the case with a very early church. To enter, one ascends eight steps to the pavement, when the rather shallow vista of the nave and choir opens out broadly.
There are a series of white marble statues representing the birth and baptism of Christ, and some paintings of notable merit, including an "Adoration."
In the crypt, already mentioned, are the bones of the martyrs, Cassius, Florentinus, and Malusius.
The chief interest of the interior, outside of the constructive elements of the fabric, centres in a great statue of St. Hélène in bronze, which is placed in the middle of the grand nave. It is a fine monument, and was cast in the seventeenth century as a somewhat tardy recognition of the founder of the church at Bonn.
At the western extremity of the nave is the Gothic tomb of Archbishop Englebert, and another of Archbishop Robert.
The choir is somewhat raised above the pavement of the nave, being placed upon the vaulting of the crypt. The walls of the choir are hung with gilded Cordovan leather, which is certainly rich and beautiful, though it has been criticized as being more suitable to a boudoir than a great church.
At the foot of the choir, to the right, is a tabernacle, a feature frequently met with in German churches. It is of Renaissance design and workmanship, and is ungainly and not in the best of taste.
Behind the great pillars of the choir are found, back to back, two imposing altars, to which access is had by mounting a dozen more steps, far above the pavement of the nave. They are most peculiarly disposed, and are again a Renaissance interpolation which might well have been omitted.
In this dimly lighted cathedral, as well as in many other churches of Germany, you may at times hear that hymn known as "Ratisbon," the words of which begin:
"Jesus meine Zuversicht
Lebt, und ich soll mit ihm leben."
There is a legend – or it may be a true tale – connecting these verses with a German soldier who died at the fateful battle of Jena.
Fleeing from the French, he had fallen into the waters of the Saale. Recovering himself, he crawled out, only to find his pursuers on the bank, their firearms levelled at his head. His first thought was to thank God for his safety from the flood, and, kneeling, he played upon his bugle the familiar air to which the hymn, "Jesus meine Zuversicht," is sung. Deeply moved, his pursuers dropped their guns, but, just as the last notes of the tune were dying away, another detachment came up, and one of its members fired a shot which ended the life of the devout Prussian.
There is heard here also a legend, of the time of the Crusades, concerning the Siebengebergen, – the Seven Mountains, – which lie just back of Bonn.
Stimulated by religious fervour, the overlord of a castle perched upon one of the Seven Mountains, enlisted in the army of the Crusaders, and fought gallantly in the very forefront of those who sought to plant the Cross upon the walls of the Holy City. After a prolonged absence, he returned to find that a rival had won the love of his lady, who, to escape his wrath, had fled to a convent.
The usurper of affections escaped, but the injured husband met near Godesberg, in his old age, a youth in whom he thought he recognized the likeness of his wife. Questioning the boy, he visited the sin of the mother upon the child, and slew him on the highroad, on the spot where the Hoch Kreuz now stands, – a monument which tradition says was erected to warn weak wives and faithless friends.
Drachenfels, whose fame to English ears has mostly been made by Byron's verses, lies not far south of Bonn. Byron's "peasant girls with deep blue eyes" are mostly engaged in husbandry to-day, instead of poetically and leisurely gathering "early flowers."
"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,"
and is still one of the tourist sights of the Rhine, and as such it must be accorded its place.
Bonn was formerly the residence of the Electors of Cologne, after their removal from that city in 1268, at which time it was also the shelter of Archbishop Englebert, who had fled from Cologne.