George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

ROOD-SCREEN IN LÜBECK CATHEDRAL

In the great Middle Age cities this never could have been the case, for apart from the fact that their churches stood with their doors ever open, while ours are ever jealously kept shut, they were so vast and spacious, and so crowded together, as it seems to us, that there never could have been a real difficulty in finding some home for the feet of the weary, how poor and how miserable soever they might be!

And Lübeck still shows this most grandly: you approach by a railway through an uninteresting country, passing one of those lakes which give much of its character to this dreary part of Germany, and suddenly dashing through a cutting, and under the shade of fine patriarchal trees which adorn on all sides the outskirts of the old city, you find yourself in such a presence of towers and spires as can scarce be seen elsewhere in Christendom. A succession of great churches standing up high and grand above the picturesque tall old houses which fringe the margin of the Trave, two of them presenting to us their immense west fronts of pure red brick, each finished with two great towers and spires, whilst others on either side rear their single spires and their turrets high against the sky, and here and there detached turrets mark where stands some other old building soon to be made acquaintance with; and all of these forming the background, as you first see it, to the most picturesque and grand old gateway—I am bold to say—in Europe, gives one a wonderful impression, vivid but dreamlike, and reminding one of those lovely cities with which Memling and his contemporary painters so often delight our eyes.

The plan of the city is simple enough. One great street runs the whole length of the peninsula on which it stands, from north to south, finished by the Burg-Thor, a fine old gateway, on the north, and by the cathedral and its close to the south. Right and left of this main street are a multitude of streets descending to the water which almost surrounds the whole town, and on the other side of the water are immense earth-works, rising really into respectable hills, and said to be the largest earth-works known; happily these great mounds—no longer useful for purposes of defence—are eminently so for ornament, and planted with great trees and laid out with walks and gardens form one of the most pleasant features of the place; on the outer side of those earth-works another line of water gives one certainly a very watery impression of the whole city.

The main features of interest to an architect are in the principal street. Beginning at the extreme south is the cathedral with its two towers and spires standing alone and forlorn in the most deserted part of the town, and even in the busiest days of Lübeck scarcely so near to the bulk of the people as a cathedral should ever be; then on either side we pass the churches of S. Giles and S. Peter, and going along under the walls of the picturesque old Rathhaus find ourselves close to the east end of the Marien-Kirche—a cathedral in dignity of proportions and outline, and here superior to the cathedral in its central position and in its greater height and general magnificence; next, the Katerinen-Kirche is left a few steps to the right, then S. James’s is passed, another tall spire, and then the west front of the very interesting Heiligen Geist Hospital; and a hundred yards further on we are in front of the relics of the Burg-Kloster, and close to this find ourselves at the Burg-Thor, a picturesque gateway second only in effect to the Holsteiner gate which I have before mentioned as terminating one of the cross streets which lead to the railway. The Burg-Thor stands just at the neck of the peninsula, and beyond it is the Burg-Feld, a wood intersected with paths, and looking rather like the Thier-Garten outside the Brandenburg gate at Berlin.

And now to describe the architectural beauties of the town we must go back to the cathedral, and as in duty bound begin with what is at once the oldest and the chief in rank of the ecclesiastical buildings.

The tradition is that this church, dedicated in honour of SS. John Baptist and Nicolas, is built on the spot where Henry the Lion, when engaged in the chase, fell in with a stag having a cross growing between its horns and a collar of jewels round its neck, with the produce of which the church was first in part built. There is some account of a church older than this, and octangular in form, having existed near the cathedral about the middle of the seventeenth century; it cannot however have been older by many years than some parts of the cathedral, as the first foundation of the present city seems to have been laid in the middle of the eleventh century, and the cathedral was consecrated in A.D. 1170 by Henry, the third Bishop of Lübeck, having been founded by Henry the Lion, who in A.D. 1154 translated Gerold, Bishop of Oldenburg, and made him the first Bishop of Lübeck; possibly the destroyed octangular church may have been the baptistery of the cathedral, as at this date baptisteries of this shape are not unfrequently met (e.g. at Cremona and Pisa), and I know of but one case of a church of such a plan.

Of the present cathedral, the most ancient portions appear to be the lower part of the steeples and the main arcades throughout. These are all Romanesque, though under the original arches pointed arches have been since inserted. The piers are heavy and square, and the whole effect is poor and ungainly.

Next in date is a magnificent porch on the north side of the north transept, which is altogether about the best piece of architecture in Lübeck, and remarkable as showing much more freedom in the use of stone than is found elsewhere. The shafts are of marble, and the arches and groining-ribs are all of stone, and, on the exterior, stone capitals and shafts are also used, whilst the brick work is far superior to that in any of the later examples. I fear I must say that this one remnant of the art of the thirteenth century is by far the most beautiful thing now left in the city. The sculpture on the inner door is very masterly in its character, but unfortunately the whole porch is now most neglected and uncared for.