Strasbourg Cathedral

“ It is of an older order than the constructions of Erwin of Steinbach; it is perhaps the remainder of the edifice erected by bishop Werner, at the beginning of the eleventh century; the shape of the pillars, their cubical tops or chapters, [37] the arches exclusively semi-circular, bring us back to those times. This crypta, that remained unimpaired during all the changes which the Cathedral must have undergone in the course of so many centuries, forms a nave with two arch-vaults and a round chancel. All along the walls of the nave are stone benches. ”

“ The first aspect of the Cathedral produces on the mind a deep impression. One is seized with admiration and amazed at the first view of this noble edifice whose steeple towers up so gracefully and majestically. No doubt that examined in all its particular parts, one may also be struck with the disproportion that exists between them; the nave is not in harmony with the dimensions of the tower, the chancel and transept still less so: but although this want of uniformity may lessen the symmetry of the monument, the impression it at first produces is no less extraordinary. ”

“ Beneath are the four Evangelists; above four angels holding trumpets, and uppermost the Saviour and three angels with the implements of the Saviour's passion in their hands; it is called the angel's column or Erwin's column. On the large pillar which unites the nave to the chancel, are two inscriptions in commemoration of the famous preacher Geiler of Kaysersberg who, for many years, displayed his eloquence from the pulpit of the Cathedral. In this same aisle is erected the statue of bishop Wernher, meditating the design of the church laid before him. ”

“ The spire, one of the most elevated in Europe, is 440 feet, while that of Cologne is 482 feet, Rouen is 458 feet, and Notre Dame at Paris but 200 feet in height.
Usually church edifices are grim and gray; but Strasburg presents, in its sandstone of the Vosges, a beautiful tone, which in the westering sun of a summer's day can only be described as a rose-pink, and is like no other church edifice in Europe, unless it be the cathedral at Rodez in Mid-France, which Henry James called mouse-coloured, but which in reality is a sort of warm, deep rose. ”

“ Merklin, the skilful organ-builder of Lyons, is a masterpiece of art and taste that enhances indeed the chancel of the Cathedral. In front and a few steps lower down lies the chancel, destined to the inferior clergy and choristers. This chancel surmounted by a large octagonal cupola, the external part of which was struck by lightning in 1759, is placed at the intersection of the transepts and nave; open and lighted on all sides, one can admire the boldness and majesty of the columns and basis that support the arched roofs. ”

“ It is as good as a play, and, as I told Hans, he would have to stay many hours near it to see all the sights."
"I should think a strong man would be needed to wind it up," said his nephew.
"The best part of it is that it does not need to be wound every day," replied Uncle Fritz. "They say it will run for years without being touched. Of course, travellers are coming to Strasburg all the time. They wish to see the clock, but they also come to see the cathedral itself. It is a very grand building, and, as you know, the spire is the tallest one in all Europe. ”

“ The cathedral of Strasburg, preserved as by a series of miracles in spite of every danger that can assail a building, fire, lightning, earthquake, and cannonade, has a very grand west entrance; its tall doors set within a number of receding arches, and the sharply-pointed gable which crowns them flanked and crested with tapering pinnacles. The French artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were unrivalled in the beauty and wealth of statuary with which they adorned their churches, and not least their doors. ”

“ The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a soft and richlytinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. ”

“ And the guns went on thundering and shattering parts of the stone ornaments which adorned the front and sides of the Cathedral. The whole roof came down and the fire died out only for want of fuel. The following morning the ground in the interior was covered with ruins, and through the holes in the vault of the nave one could see the [14] blue sky. The beautiful Organ built by Silbermann was pierced by a shell and the magnificent painted windows were in great part spoiled. Fortunately the celebrated astronomical Clock had escaped unhurt. ”

“ The byzantine taste prevails in the first constructions of the chancel and aisles and even somewhat in the lower part of the nave; higher up, the style in which the ogive was built extends to the other constructions and finally succeeds to the former entirely.
The façade of the church, of an imposing magnitude, cannot [16] be sufficiently admired; the massive walls are hidden by clochetoons, arcades, small pillars and innumerable statues; these decorations all wrought to great perfection, give to that part of the edifice a nicety that makes it resemble a work coming from the hands of a chaser. ”

“ Strasburg Cathedral—not so large as Cologne—has been built at various times; the nave and west front are the work of the best Gothic period. This building has a nave and single aisles, short transepts, and a short apsidal choir. There is great richness in much of the work; double tracery, i.e. a second layer, so to speak, of tracery, is here employed in the windows, and extended beyond them, but the effect is not happy. ”

“ There is no façade portal, and a small door-way in the north side leads into the great vaulted hall, one of the most usual and commonplace forms of the Gothic interior of the South. This room, which is painted, receives light from a beautiful rose-window at the West, and a series of small roses, like miniatures of the greater one, are cut in the upper walls of the nave; and little chapels, characterised by the same heavy monotony which hangs like a pall over the whole Cathedral, are lost in the church's capacious flanks. ”

“ Two galleries, one under the windows, the other below the clochetoons of the counterforts, lead from the towers to the cross-aisle. This, as we have already said, is still byzantine in several parts of it. The southern porch, formed by two semi-circular doors made evidently at one of the remotest periods of the Cathedral, is adorned with bas-reliefs and statues; according to tradition, it is reported that two of these statues are the work of Sabina of Steinbach. One is a woman in a triumphal posture holding in her hands a communion cup and a cross ”

“ Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness.
The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. ”

“ This deficiency gives the building a disfigured appearance, especially as the unfinished tower, which is square, rises but half-way. Externally, Strasburg cathedral is distinguished by a light and airy gracefulness, both of structure and material; the sandstone is cut and carved into a thousand forms, some of them, especially in the finished tower, extremely delicate and beautiful. Even the statues and images, which are very numerous, are chiseled out of sandstone, which has an agreeable color of reddish gray. There is not an image of marble upon the whole building. ”

“ No dates of that period [Pg 106] are sufficiently accurate to rely upon; but its interest lies not so much in chronology as in its portrayal of the general type. The interior is the usual little hall church of the XI century, with its aisle-less nave of five bays, and plain piers supporting a tunnelled roof, with double vault arches. Beyond the last bay, over the choir, is the Cathedral's octagonal dome, and from the rounded windows of its lantern comes much of the light of the interior, which is sombre and without other windows of importance. ”

“ A few stones still exist of the XI century structure, void of form or architectural significance, and the ancient name of Sainte-Marie-Majeure now protects a Cathedral built in the most depressing style of the industrious Philistines of the XVII and XVIII centuries. It is not a Provençal nor a truly “maritime” church, it is not a fortress nor a defence, nor a work of any architectural beauty. It has blatancy, size, pretension,—a profusion of rich incongruities; and although religiously interesting from its chapels and shrines, it is architecturally obtrusive and monstrous. ”

“ The Mediævalism of the old writers seems an endless pageant, in which indefinitely gorgeous armies “march up the hill and then march down again;” in newer histories this has disappeared in the long struggle of one class with another; and in neither do we reach the individual, nor see the daily life of the people who are the backbone of a nation. Yet these are the people we must know if we are to have a right conception of the Cathedral's place in the living interest of the Middle Ages. For the Bishop's church was in every sense a popular church. ”

“ The first glimpse of the interior is so relieving that one is not quick to notice its lack of architectural unity. The few windows give a soft light, and the brown of the stone has a mellowness that is both rich and reposeful. If the Cathedral could have been finished in the style of the first bays of the nave, it would have been a nobly dignified example of the Romanesque. Could it have been re-built in the slender Gothic of the last bay, it would have been [Pg 87] an exquisite example of Provençal Gothic. ”

“ I once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. ”

“ The interior proportions of Rheims are harmonious; the side aisles are relatively right with the central vessel, and the nave leads up well to the sanctuary, which, inside and out, is beyond criticism. As a whole, however, the interior of this cathedral has not the slender upwardness of Amiens nor the ascetic holiness of Chartres. It stands more than it soars. It praises the deity in another fashion than does the mystic cathedral. The keynote here is a right-minded human splendor. ”

“ The piers are heavy and severe; and between them are alcoves, used as chapels. The choir, narrower than the nave, is preceded by the usual dome, and beyond it is a little unused apse, concealed from the rest of the interior by a wall. Unimportant windows built with distinctly utilitarian purpose successfully light this small, simple room, and no kindly shadow hides its bareness or diminishes the unhappy effect of the paintings which disfigure [Pg 180] the walls. The Cathedral's exterior is so surrounded by irregular old houses that the traveller had discovered it with some difficulty. ”

“ It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a great space of ground in proportion to their height. The impression the latter give is of magnitude and mass; this French Cathedral strikes one as lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho but little time-worn by the action of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century. The principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches ”

“ It is not bareness, but beautiful firmness, which refreshes and uplifts the heart of man as the sight of some island mountain rising sheer from the sea.
The exterior of the Cathedral, imposing from a distance, is rather complicated in its unfinished compromise of detail. In the XV century, two towers were built which flank the western end as towers usually flank a façade; and this gives the church a foreshortened effect. Of real façade [Pg 260] there is none, and the front wall which protects the choir is plainly temporary. ”

“ In the centre of the Cathedral, where the transepts meet, is a vast heap of bricks, stone, and powdery dirt. This heap rises irregularly like a range of hills towards the choir; it overspreads most of the immense interior, occupying an area of, perhaps, from 15,000 to 20,000 square feet. In the choir it rises to a height of six or seven yards. You climb perilously over it as you might cross the Alps. This incredible amorphous mass, made up of millions of defaced architectural fragments of all kinds, is the shattered body of about half the Cathedral. ”