A resemblance still more to be remarked is the great height of the choir and nave. This is most marked at Amiens and still more so at Beauvais. Cologne, as to these dimensions, ranks between the two.[{248}]
There was once a Romanesque cathedral at Cologne, but a fire made way with it in 1248. Certain facts have come down to us regarding this earlier building, but they appear decidedly contradictory, though undoubtedly it was an edifice of the conventional Rhenish variety. It is supposed that this original cathedral had at least a "family resemblance" to those at Mayence, Worms, and Speyer.
These three great ecclesiastical works in the Rhine valley mark the Hohenstaufen dynasty as one of the most prolific in German church-building. Although they are not as beautiful as one pictures the perfect cathedral of his imagination,—at least no more beautiful than many other hybrid structures,—they show an individuality that is peculiarly Rhenish, far more so than the present cathedral at Cologne or any of the smaller churches of the region.
After the fire in 1248 a new cathedral was planned as a commensurate shrine in which to shelter the relics of the "Three Wise Men of the East," which henceforth were to be known as "The Three Kings of Cologne." From this period on, Cologne began to acquire such wealth and prominence as to mark the era[{249}] as the "Golden Age" in the civic and ecclesiastical affairs of the city.
Abandoning the basilica plan entirely, a great Gothic church was undertaken. In its way it was to rival those Gothic masterpieces of France.
The origin of the plan of the cathedral in fact, as well as in legend, is vague. Some have considered Archbishop Engelbert, Count of Altona and Berg, who was murdered in 1225, as the author, but this can hardly have been so, unless it were conceived before the basilica was burned.
Assiduous research has been made from time to time in an effort to discover the identity of the actual designer of the present cathedral: Archbishops Engelbert and Conrad, Albertus Magnus, Meister Gerard, and others have all had the honour somewhat doubtfully awarded to them and again withdrawn.
There is a great painting exhibited at Frankfort called "Religion Glorified by the Arts," by Overbeck, wherein is an ideal portrait of the "Great Unknown of Cologne" pictured as the genius of architecture.
A comparatively recent discovery seems to award the honour to Gerard de St. Trond. A charter of 1257 makes mention of the fact[{250}] that the chapter of the cathedral had given a house, for services rendered, to one Gerard, "a stone-cutter," who had directed the work of construction; this gift being made some years after the foundations were first laid.
The same architect figures among the benefactors of the hospital of St. Ursula as "the master of the works at the cathedral." Perhaps, then, the name of Gerard de St. Trond deserves to be placed with that of Libergier, the designer of Reims, the greatest Gothic splendour of France.