Every part of the church becomes decorated and symbolical and harmonious, though infinitely variegated. The altars have pictures over them. Shrines and monuments appear in the niches. The dresses of the priests are more gorgeous. The music of the choir peals forth hallelujahs. Christ is risen from the tomb. "The purple of his blood colors the windows." The roof, like pinnacles and spires, seems to reach the skies. The pressure of the walls is downwards rather than lateral. The vertical lines of Cologne are as marked as the old horizontal lines of the Parthenon. The walls too are not so heavy, and are supported by buttresses, which give increased beauty to the exterior,--greater light and shade. "Every part of the church seems to press forward and strive for greater freedom, for outward manifestation." Even the broad and expansive window presses to the outer surface of the walls, now broken by buttresses and pinnacles. The window--the eye of the edifice--is more cheerful and intelligent. More calm is the imposing facade, with its mighty towers and lofty spires, tapering like a pyramid, with its round oriel window rich in beautiful tracery, and its wide portal with sculptured saints and martyrs. And in all the churches you see geometrical proportions. "Even the cross of the church is deduced from the figure by which Euclid constructed the equilateral triangle." The columns present the proportions of the Doric, as to diameter and height. The love of the true and beautiful meet. The natural and supernatural both appear. All parts symbolize the passion of Christ. If the crypt speaks of death, the lofty and vaulted roof and the beautiful pointed arches, and the cheerful window, and the jubilant chants speak of life. "The old church reminds one of the Christ that lay in the tomb; the new, of the Christ who arose the third day." The old fosters meditation and silence; the new kindles the imagination, by its variety of perspective arrangement and mystic representation,--still reverential, still expressive of consecrated sentiments, yet more cheerful. The foliated shaft, the rich tracery of the window, the graceful pinnacle, the Arabian gorgeousness of the interior,--as if the crusaders had learned something from the East,--the innumerable shrines and pictures, the variegated marbles of the altar, with its vessels of silver and gold, the splendid dresses of the priests, the imposing character of the ritualism, the treasures lavished everywhere, all speak greater independence, wealth, and power. The church takes the place of all amusements. Its various attractions draw together the people from their farms and shops. They are gaily dressed, as if they were attending a festival. Their condition is so improved that they have time for holidays. And these the Church multiplies; for perpetual toil is the grave of intellect. The people must have rest, amusement, excitement. All these things the Catholic Church gives, and consecrates. Crusader, baron, knight, priest, peasant, all resort to the church for benedictions. Women too are there, and in greater numbers; and they linger for the confessional. When the time comes that women stay away from church, like busy, preoccupied, sceptical men, then let us be on the watch for some great catastrophe, since practical paganism will then be restored, and the angels of light will have left the earth.
Paris and its neighborhood was the cradle of this new development of architecture which we wrongly call the Gothic, even as Paris was the centre of the new-born intelligence of the era. The word "Gothic" suggests destructive barbarism: the English, French, and Germans descended chiefly from Normans, Saxons, and Burgundians.
This form of church architecture rapidly spreads to Germany, England, and Spain. The famous Suger, the minister of a powerful king, built the abbey of St. Denis. The churches of Rheims, Paris, and Bourges arose in all their grandeur. The facade of Rheims is the most significant example of the wonderful architecture of the thirteenth century. In the church of Amiens you see the perfection of the so-called Gothic,--so graceful are its details, so dazzling is its height. The central aisle is one hundred and thirty-two feet in altitude,--only surpassed by that of Beauvais, which is fourteen feet higher. It was then that the cathedral of Rouen was built, with its elegant lightness,--a marvel to modern travellers.
Soon after, the cathedral of Cologne appears, more grand than either,--but long unfinished,--with its central aisle forty-four feet in width, rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with its colossal towers, grandly supporting the lofty openwork spires, five hundred and twenty feet in height. The whole church is five hundred and thirty-two feet in length. I confess this church made a greater impression on my mind than did any Gothic church in Europe,--more, even, than Milan, with its unnumbered pinnacles and statues and its marble roof. I could not rest while surveying its ten thousand wonders,--so much lightness combined with strength; so grand, and yet so cheerful; so exquisitely proportioned, so complicated in details, and yet a grand unity; a glorious and fit temple for the reverential worship of the Deity. Oh, how grand are those monuments which were designed to last through ages, and which are consecrated, not to traffic, not to pleasure, not to material wealth, but to the worship of that Almighty God to whom every human being is personally responsible!
I cannot enumerate the churches of Mediaeval Europe,--projected, designed, and built certainly by men familiar with all that is practical in their art, with all that is hallowed and poetical. Iglance at the English cathedrals, built during this epoch,--the period of the Crusades and the revival of learning.