The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine Part 14

XV

FRANKFORT

There is a legend which connects the foundation of Frankfort with a saying of Charlemagne's when he was warring against the Saxons.

Having fortunately escaped an attack from a superior force, by crossing the river Main during a thick fog, Charlemagne thrust his lance into the sand of the river-bank and exclaimed: "It is here that I will erect a city, in memory of this fortunate event, and it shall be known as '_Franken Furth_,'--'the Ford of the Franks.'"

The city owes its ancient celebrity, in part, to the crowning of the emperors, which, before Frankfort became an opulent commercial city, always took place here according to the laws promulgated in 1152 and 1356. Later the ceremony was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle.

The first historical mention of the city was in 794, when Charlemagne convoked a Diet and a council of the Church.

Frankfort suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, in the War of Succession, and in the Revolution in 1793. Napoleon made the city a grand duchy in favour of the Prince-Primate Charles of Dalberg.

Of the ancient gateways of the city, but one remains to-day, that of Eschenheim, a fine monument of characteristically German features of the middle ages. It dates from the fourteenth century.

One of the princ.i.p.al attractions of Frankfort for strangers has ever been the Juden Ga.s.se,--the street of the Jews. It dates from 1662. As one enters, on the left, at No. 148, is the _maison paternelle_ of the celebrated Rothschilds.

The cathedral at Frankfort is consecrated to St. Bartholomew. It was begun under the Carlovingians and was only completed in the fourteenth century.

At the extreme western end is a colossal tower which ranks as one of the latest and most notable pure Gothic works in Germany (1415-1509). Its architect was John of Ettingen, and it rises to a height of one hundred and sixty-three feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKFORT CATHEDRAL]

The facade of the cathedral is entirely lacking in a decorative sense, and the lateral portal, on the south, is much enc.u.mbered by surrounding structures, though one sees peeping out here and there evidences of a series of finely sculptured figures.

Above the entrance to the cloister is an equestrian statue of St.

Bartholomew, a masterwork of sixteenth-century German sculpture. The skull of the apostle is preserved in the church proper.

The general plan of the church is that of a Greek cross, but the termination which holds the choir is of much narrower dimensions than the other three arms.

The grand nave offers nothing of remark, but the side aisle to the right contains a fine "Ecce h.o.m.o" in bas-relief, placed upon the tomb of the Consul Hirde, who died in 1518. Unfortunately the heads of many of the figures, including that of the Christ, are badly scarred and broken.

In the right transept are a series of very ancient German paintings and a number of escutcheons, coloured and in high relief, commemorating benefactors of the church.

The walls in the choir are covered with ancient frescoes of the frankly German school. They undoubtedly date back to the fifteenth century, at least.

At the right of the choir is the tomb of the Emperor Gunther of Schwarzburg, who died here in 1349.

Above the high altar is a fine tabernacle,--a feature frequently seen in German churches,--of silver-gilt. To the left is an ancient iron grille of remarkable workmanship.

At the head of the left aisle of the nave is a chapel containing a "Virgin at the Tomb," a coloured sculpture of the fifteenth century, surmounted by a very ornate Gothic _baldaquin_.

In the left transept is the tomb of a knight of Sachsenhausen bearing the date of 1371. Here, too, is a somewhat dismantled and fragmentary astronomical clock of the species best seen at Strasburg.

The Protestant church of St. Nicholas is a fine ogival edifice, which in more recent times was profaned by commercial uses. It has since been restored and its red sandstone fabric is surmounted by a fine spire.

The interior shows a remarkably fine ogival choir as its chief feature, an organ-buffet carried out in the same style, which is most unusual, and a charming wooden staircase with an iron railing leading to a tribune at the crossing. All of the accessories are modern, but the effect is unquestionably good.

The church of St. Leonard dates from the thirteenth century and possesses as its chief exterior features two rather diminutive spires.

The Emperor Frederick II. ceded the site to the city, for the erection of a church, at the above mentioned period.

The church of St. Catherine is of the seventeenth century, and, like most religious erections of its age, is in no way remarkable. The exterior, however, shows a rather pleasing square tower, which is surmounted by an octagonal campanile. The interior has some fine modern paintings, well painted and equally well displayed.

The church of St. Paul was formerly a Carmelite foundation. It is strictly modern, and was only completed in 1833. Its form is rather more pagan than Christian, being simply a great oval, one hundred and thirty odd feet in length by one hundred and eight in width. The interior is surrounded by a fine Ionic colonnade.

In 1848 St. Paul's was appropriated to the sessions of the German parliament, to which purpose the structure was well suited.

The Liebfrauenkirche has a fine "Adoration" sculptured above its princ.i.p.al portal. It is a good example of German sculpture in stone.

Within the walls is a painting attributed to Martin Schoen which merits consideration.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XVI

MAYENCE

Mayence has been variously called the city of Gutenberg, and of the Minnesingers. The Romans in Augustus's time had already fortified it and given it the name of Magontiac.u.m.

Near Mayence is the cenotaph of Drusus, where his ashes were interred after the funeral oration by Augustus, who came expressly from Rome into Gaul for the purpose.

Mayence as a Roman colony was a military post of great importance, and the key to the fertile provinces watered by the Rhine.

An episcopal seat was established here in the third century, but Christianity had a hard struggle against wars and internal disorders of many kinds.

Many times the city has been devastated and rebuilt. In 718 Bishop Sigibert surrounded the city by a series of walls, and between 975 and 1011 Archbishop Willigis built the cathedral and the church of St.

Stephen, at which time the real Christianizing of Mayence may be said to have begun.

The venerable old cathedral has many times been battered and bruised, and fire and bombardment have reduced its original form into somewhat of a hybrid thing, but it remains to-day the most stupendously imposing and bizarre cathedral of all the Rhine valley.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In general its architecture is decidedly not good, but it is interesting, and therein lies the chief charm of a great church.

During the siege of the French the cathedral at Mayence, in 1793, again took fire, and the western end of the roof of the choir, the nave, and the transept all succ.u.mbed.

For ten years it remained in this state, until the order for restoration came from the omnific Bonaparte, then first consul. In 1804 the edifice was consecrated anew.

In the year 636 there was held at Mayence an a.s.sembly of the bishops of the Frankish kingdom convoked by Dagobert, then king.

Among the bishops of Mayence none had a reputation so popular as that of St. Boniface, who had been sent out by Pope Gregory III. as a missioner to the Rhine country.

Boniface had given Pepin-le-Bref the sacrament at Soissons in 752, upon the fall of the Merovingian dynasty, and in return King Pepin gave the bishopric of Mayence to St. Boniface.