His death caused a universal sorrow among the fair sex of Mayence, who gave his funeral such honours as were never before known.
The majority of the great procession which conducted his remains to the tomb, which had been prepared in the cathedral, were women, "eight of the most beautiful bearing a crown of roses, lilies, and myrtle." This is a pretty enough sentiment, but it seems quite inexplicable to-day. History records that the master-singer's favourite drink was the noble wine of the Rhingau, and it is commonly supposed to have inspired many of his beautiful songs.
Legend steps in and says that "the naves of the cathedral were inundated by the libations which went on at this funeral ceremony."
A modern white marble monument, put into place in 1842, and replacing one that had previously disappeared, stands as a memorial to the sweet singer of the praises of women.
XVII
BACHARACH, BINGEN, AND RUDESHEIM
Bacharach is famous for its legends and its wine. With the former is associated the ruins of St. Werner's Church, a fragment of exquisite flamboyant Gothic, though built of what looks like a red sandstone. The Swedes demolished it in the Thirty Years' War, but the lantern and the eastern lancet window still remain to suggest its former great beauty.
This beautiful chapel was built as a memorial to the child Werner, whose body was fabled to have been thrown by the Jews, his supposed murderers, into the Rhine at Oberwesel. Instead of floating down-stream with the current, it went up-stream as far as Bacharach, where it was recovered.
There is at Bacharach a twelfth-century church in the Byzantine style, which is now a Protestant temple. It is an incongruous affair in spite of the fact that the style is fairly pure of its kind, so far as the body of the church is concerned. Surmounting it is a needle-like spire which rises above the crenelated battlement of its tower in a most fantastic manner.
The city walls have great ornamental and picturesque qualities, and were, in former days, defended by twelve towers of imposing strength.
The evolution of the name of Bacharach is decidedly non-Christian. It is frankly pagan, being descended from Bacchi ara, – the altar of Bacchus, – which was the name originally given to a rock in the midst of the river, which, in varying seasons, is sometimes covered by the flood, and again quite dry. When its surface appears to the light of day, the vineyard owner hails it as a sign of good vintage.
In proof of the quality of the wines of Bacharach, it is said that Pope Pius II. used every year to have a great tun of it brought to Rome for his special use, and that the Emperor Wenceslas granted their freedom to the citizens of Nuremberg in return for four tuns of the wine of Bacharach. To-day Bacharach is, with Cologne, the great wine centre of the Rhine valley.
Asmanhausen, a few miles up the river, is the central mart for the red wines of the Rhine. Near Asmanhausen is Ehrenfels, where the Archbishops of Mayence had a château in the thirteenth century. The château is still there, but it is nothing more than a magnificent ruin.
Opposite Ehrenfels is Bingen, with its Mäuseturm. The chief sentimental memory of Bingen is unquestionably the legend of Bishop Hatto and his "Mouse Tower on the Rhine."
The legend of Hatto, versified by Southey, has stamped the memory of the Mouse Tower and its associations so indelibly upon the mind that it overshadows in interest all else in the vicinity.
" 'Tis the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high, and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong and the water deep."
How the rats came and —
".. whetted their teeth against the stones
And how they picked the Bishop's bones" —
is an old story with which children have been regaled for generations past.
The great white "Mouse Tower" stands to-day on its tiny island in the middle of the waters of the Rhine, between Bingen and Ehrenfels, to perpetuate the story, while its ruined walls look down, as they always have, on the steady flow of the Rhine water, making its way from the place of its birth in the Canton of Grisons to the cold waters of the German ocean off the coast of Holland.
Rudesheim
Rudesheim, but a small town of less than three thousand inhabitants, is noted for its wines and its ruins. Its church, though a fifteenth-century edifice of more than ordinary beauty, – if we except its nondescript spire, – comes decidedly last in the city's list of attractions.
The remains of the four châteaux in the neighbourhood are the chief object of the casual tourist.
The town is the centre of a vineyard, the grapes being grown in great profusion near it. The favourable nature of the locality for grape-growing was discovered, it is said, by Charlemagne, who, remarking the rapid disappearance of the snow on the slopes about Rudesheim, declared his belief that fine wine might be grown there. Sending to France for some plants, they were placed in the earth, and have ever since yielded a grape worthy of their parentage, a grape still called Orleans.
From this town the tourist may make a pleasant excursion to the Niederwald, – having first given his attention to the history of Rudesheim, once the seat of an imperial court held in the Nieder Burg, – and scan its four ancient castles. Of these, one belonged for a time to Prince Metternich, who, however, sold it to Count Ingelheim, its present possessor; another is picturesquely posted at the upper part of the town, and still retains some curious relics of the Bromser family, its old possessors. A tradition still exists, telling how Hans Bromser, being taken captive in Jerusalem, made a vow to Heaven that if released he would dedicate his only daughter to the service of the Church. Gaining his liberty soon afterward, he returned to the Rhine to find the child he had left when he started for the Crusades grown to womanhood; and he learned also that, secure of her father's sanction, she had betrothed herself to a youthful knight. Love and duty well-nigh rent the maiden's heart in twain, till love conquered, and she begged her stern parent to relent. This he refused to do, and threatened her with a father's curse should she marry.
Despairing, she threw herself into the Rhine, and her body floated down-stream as far as Bishop Hatto's Mouse Tower, at Bingen. This gave rise to another legend, that when the surface of the waters is troubled it is caused by the uneasy spirit of Bromser's daughter, wrestling with the dreadful fate to which she was driven.
XVIII
LIMBURG
The cathedral of Limburg-on-Lahn, not farther from the juncture of the Lahn and Rhine than is Frankfort-on-the-Main, may well be considered a Rhine cathedral.
The Lahn is by no means so powerful a stream as is the Main or the Neckar; nor is it either picturesque, or even important as a waterway.
It has this one virtue, however: it forms a setting to Limburg's many-spired cathedral that is truly grand.
Limburg played a great part in the middle ages, and its origin goes far back into antiquity. Under Drusus a castellum was erected here, which was destroyed by the Franks and the Alemanni.
The counts of the lower Lahn province were among the most powerful in all Germany. They gave their city the name of Roemercastel, which name, to some extent, may be said to live up to to-day. Later the Franks called it Lintburc, from the little river Linther, which flows into the Lahn at this point.
The cathedral of Limburg is the most imposing and homogeneous of all the romano-ogival edifices of Germany.
Consecrated to St. George, this church dates from the latter years of the twelfth century and the early part of the thirteenth. It was erected by Count Henry of Nassau, and replaced two more ancient edifices on the same site.
Without a doubt it is a mediæval monument which stands supreme in its class, though its grandeur comes not so much from mere magnitude as it does from the general disposition of its plan, and the wonderful blending of the transition elements which, after all is said and done, in Germany, are not elsewhere very pronounced.
The seven spires and towers of this cathedral form a wonderful grouping and make a sky-line more broken than that of any other great church in all Europe.
There is a certain symmetry about this outline, but it is not pyramidal, after the manner of the cathedral at Bonn. In short, it is reminiscent only of itself.
On the west are a pair of massive towers with conical caps, which give a façade at once remarkable and distinguished.
Flanking the north transept are two smaller towers, and the same arrangement is found just opposite on the south.
Above rises the great central octagon, surmounted in turn by a dwindling octagonal spire, not beautiful in itself with its steeply inclined slate or lead roofing, but which, under all atmospheric conditions, lends a harmony to and is a key-note of the whole structure which is wonderfully effective.
The interior plan is conventional and simple enough, consisting of the usual three naves, with an easterly apse, surrounded by an ambulatory and flanking chapel.
Within, as well as from the outside, the effect is one of an ampleness which is not borne out by the actual dimensions, which fact, of course, shows most able design and execution.
The elevation of the nave, choir, and transepts is divided into four ranges of openings, such as are seen at Soissons in the Isle of France, and, in a less complete form, in Notre Dame at Paris.
This has always been a daring procedure, but in this case it has been carried out with success, and gives the desired effect, – that of ampleness and height.
In the clerestory windows are found the rounded arches which mark the link which binds the Gothic arches elsewhere in the fabric with the earlier Romanesque style.
The vaulting is of the Gothic order throughout, with gracefully proportioned shafts and full-flowered capitals.
All this preserves the simple elements of early Gothic in so impressive a way that the observer will quite overlook, or at least make allowance for, the row of round-headed windows aloft.
The triforium gallery is a charming feature, and has seldom been found so highly developed outside of an early Gothic church. In general the feature is French, and this is perhaps the only example outside France which is so reminiscent of that variety frequently to be met with in the cathedrals of the Isle of France.
The triforium is pierced through to the nave by a series of double narrow arches enclosed within a larger broad-framed arch, while in the transepts and choir the desired effect is accomplished by tripled arches with the same general scheme of arrangement.
With regard to furnishings and accessories, this great cathedral is singularly complete.
There is a highly ornate pulpit in sculptured wood which some will consider the peer of any seen elsewhere. It is decorated further by a series of painted wooden statues of the saints, Nicholas, Ambrose, Augustin, Gregory, and Jerome.
There is a fine custode covering a pyx, which is surmounted by a fifteenth-century baldaquin, and a tomb of a former canon, ornamented in bas-relief.
There is also a pair of baptismal fonts, enormous in size and said to be contemporaneous with the foundation of the cathedral.
A tomb of Daniel of Mutersbach, a knight who died in 1475, is placed in one of the chapels at the crossing, and near by is a mausoleum to that Conrad who, by virtue of a charter given by Louis in 909, founded the church which preceded the present edifice on this site.
It bears the following inscription in the barbarous Latin of the time:
CLAUDITUR HOC TUMULO PER QUEM
NUNC SERVITUS ISTO
FIT CELEBRIS TEMPLO, LAUS, VIRTUS,
GLORIA CHRISTO
XIX
COBLENZ AND BOPPART
Coblenz
It is an open question as to whether the charming little city of Coblenz is more delightful because of itself, or because of its proximity to the famous fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, – "the broad stone of honour."
"Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shatter'd wall
Black with the miner's blast upon her height,
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball
Rebounding idly on her strength did light."
The city occupies a most romantically and historically endowed situation at the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine.
At Coblenz the sons of Charlemagne met to divide their father's empire into France, Germany, and Italy; there also Edward III. in 1338 met the Emperor Louis, and was by him appointed vicar of the empire; and at Coblenz the French raised a monument to commemorate the subjugation of Russia. Soon after the inscription was finished, the Russian commander entered Coblenz in pursuit of Napoleon. With memorable and caustic wit he left the inscription as it stood, just adding, "Vu et approuvé par nous, Commandant Russe de la Ville de Coblence, Janvier 1er, 1814." Here also is the monument to the young and gallant General Marceau, killed at the battle of Altenkirchen, 1796.
"By Coblenz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid,
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound:
Beneath its base are hero's ashes hid."
The Moselle, which joins the Rhine at Coblenz, was, like the Rhine itself, referred to by Cæsar.
The pleasant valley of the Moselle – indeed it is one of the pleasantest (which is a vague term, but one easily understood by all) in all Europe – was celebrated by one of the longer poems of Ausonius, who wrote in the fourth century.
For those who would translate the original, his description will not be found inapropos to-day:
"Qua sublimis apex longo super ardua tractu
Et rupes et aprica jugi, flexusque sinusque
Vitibus adsurgunt naturalique theatro."
Vines then, as now, clothed the slopes of the hills and cliffs which sheltered the deep-cut stream.
A Roman governor of Gaul once proposed to unite the Moselle with the Saône (as it is to-day, by means of the Canal de l'Est), and thus effect a waterway across Europe from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
The church of St. Castor stands on the spot of the famous conference between the sons of Charlemagne. It is one of the most ancient of the Rhine churches, and was founded by Louis the Pious in 836.
Of this early church but little remains to-day except some distinct features to be noted in the choir.
The four towers form a remarkable outline, and two of them, at least as to their lower ranges, are undoubtedly of the eleventh century.
In this church are a series of remarkable decorations, one on the wall above the spring of the nave arches, another above the entrance of the choir aisle, and yet another in the semicircular roofing of the apse. It may be a question as to how far such decorations are in really good taste, but they certainly lend a warmth and brilliancy to an edifice that might otherwise be cold and unfeeling.
Many are the historic incidents connected with this venerable building. The notification of the sons of Louis the Pious took place in 870; the reconciliation of Henri IV. of Germany with his sons occurred in 1105; St. Bernard preached the Crusades here before a vast congregation, recruiting for the army for the East over one thousand citizens of Coblenz alone.
Near the church of St. Castor is the house of the Teutonic Order, of fine Gothic design, but to-day turned into a military magazine.
On a hill overlooking the city was the famous Chartreuse convent, the ruins of which are now swallowed up by Forts Constantine and Alexander.
The bridge which crosses the Moselle at this point is in itself a wonderful old relic. It spans the river on fourteen arches, and dates from 1344, save that its watch-tower was built at a later day.
The bridge of boats which crosses the Rhine, on thirty-six pontoons, partakes of the same characteristics as its brother at Mayence, though by no means is it so celebrated.
Above Coblenz the Rhine narrows considerably, and the mountains and hilltops draw in until one's progress, by water, is almost as if it were through a cañon.
Niederlahnstein has a fine ruined church in St. John's, whence it is but a short distance to Boppart.
Boppart
Boppart was the ancient Bandobriga of the Romans, and, like many another place along the Rhine, is closely linked with the memory of Drusus.
Boppart was made an imperial city, and many Diets were held within its walls.
The Hauptkirche, with its twin-jointed spires, was built about the year 1200.
It is thoroughly Romanesque, if we except the spires which are linked together by a sort of galleried vestibule, after a manner that is neither Romanesque nor anything else.
The inside galleries over the aisles (männerchöre) are interesting, though by no means a unique feature in Rhine churches.
There is a queer intermixture of pointed and round-headed arches in both the nave and choir, but nothing to indicate that it was anything but a Romanesque influence that inspired the builders of this not very appealing church.
The vestibule which joins the spires, and the most unusual groining of the vaulting of the body of the church, are two features which the expert will linger over and marvel at, but they have not much interest for the lay observer who will prefer to stroll along the river-bank and pick out charming vistas for his camera.
The convent of Marienburg, which rises high on the hillside back of the town, has an ancient history and was a vast foundation to which references are continually met with in history. To-day it is a hydropathic establishment for semi-invalids and devotees of bridge and tea parties.
The Carmelite church contains some richly carved sixteenth-century monuments, now somewhat mutilated, but very beautiful.
The Templehof perpetuates the fact that it was the Knights Templars of Boppart who first mounted the breach at the storming of Ptolemais in the third crusade.
This completes the list of Boppart's ecclesiastical monuments.
In the fourteenth century the town was a "free imperial city"; but, following upon political dissension with its neighbours, it was returned to the guardianship of the Archbishop of Trèves.
Previously it would appear that the inhabitants had not been very religious, but the archbishop was able to induce them to build him a château here as a place of temporary residence; "the first service," says the chronicle of the time, "which we have rendered our gracious master."
XX
LAACH AND STOLZENFELS
Laach
Back of Coblenz is the charming little lake of Laach, at the other end of which is the picturesque but deserted abbey of Laach, one of the most celebrated, architecturally and historically, of all the religious edifices along the Rhine.
Once a Benedictine convent, it was pillaged and its inmates dispersed during the overflow of the French Revolution, and is now naught but a ruin, though in many respects a grandly preserved one.
The abbey was founded in 1093 by Henry II. of Laach, Count Palatine of Lower Lorraine, and the first Count Palatine of the Rhine.
Its magnificent church, built in the most acceptable Gothic, contains the remains of its founder and many nobles.
The monks of the abbey were, in the middle ages, greatly celebrated for their knowledge of the sciences and their hospitality. Their library was richly stored with bibliographical treasures, and they possessed a fine collection of paintings. To-day the abbey and its dependencies is but a shadow of its former self; its library and its picture-gallery have disappeared, and, early in the nineteenth century, the establishment was sold for a price so small that it would be a sacrilege to mention it.
Stolzenfels
The mention of the castle of Stolzenfels hardly suggests anything churchly or devout, though those who know the history of this most picturesque of all Rhine castles (restored though it be) know also that it was an early foundation of Archbishop Arnold of Trèves in the thirteenth century, and was, during the century following, the residence of his successors.
Placed high upon its "proud rock," the restored fabric to-day wonderfully resembles the castled-crag of one's imagination.
Archbishop Werner of Strasburg also made it his residence in turn, and later the English princess betrothed to the Emperor Frederick II. of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was entertained there.
The castle was nearly destroyed by the French in 1688, and in 1825 the ruin was made over to the then prince royal, afterward King of Prussia.
Within the reconstructed walls, topped with a series of crenelated battlements, after the true mediæval manner, one finds an ample courtyard, from which lead the entrances to the various parts of the vast fortress.
Innumerable apartments open out one from the other, all forming a great museum filled with all manner of curios and relics.
In a corner of one great room was long kept (they may or may not be there yet; the writer does not know) the Austrian and Swiss standards taken in the Thirty Years' War.
There was also a cabinet containing the sabre of Murat, taken at Waterloo; the sabres of Blucher, of Poniatowski, and Sobieski; and the swords of the Duc d'Albe and De Tilly; and, incongruously enough, a knife and fork said to have belonged to Andreas Hofer, the hero of the Tyrol.
In the chamber of the king is a magnificent piece of ecclesiastical furniture in the form of a processional cross said to date from the eighth century.
The fine Gothic chapel is decidedly the gem of the whole fabric and its accessories, and, though only finished in its completeness, during the present day, it is a master copy of the best style of the Gothic era.