582 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
excited the admiration of all ages since. They were not due to the papacy but to the devotion of cities, nobles, and people.
It was a marked progress from the triclinia, or rooms in private houses, and crypts, in which the early Christians worshipped, to the cathedral of St. Sophia, at the completion of which Justinian is said to hav.e exclaimed, " O Solomon, I have excelled thee." And what a change it was from the
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huts and rude temples of worship of Central and Northern Europe to the splendid structures dedicated to Christian worship, — the worship which Augustine of Canterbury, and Boniface, and St. Ansgar had introduced among the bar barous Northern tribes!
It is also characteristic that the great mediaeval structures were not palaces or buildings devoted to commerce, although the Gothic palace of the doges, in Venice, and the town halls of Brussels, Louvaine, and other cities of Belgium and Hol land are extensive and imposing. They were buildings devoted to religion, whether cathedral or conventual struc tures. They were often, as in France, placed on an elevation or in the centre of the city, and around them the dwellings clustered as if for protection.
The great cathedrals became a daily sermon, bearing testi mony to the presence of God and the resurrection of Christ. They served the people as a Bible whose essential teachings they beheld with the eye. Through the spectacle of their walls and soaring spires, their thoughts were uplifted to spiritual things. Their ample spaces, filled or dimly lit with the sunlight piercing through stained-glass windows, reminded them of the glory of the life beyond, which makes itself known through varied revelations to the lonely and mysterious existence of the earth. The strong foundations and massive columns and buttresses typified the stability of God's throne, and that He hath made all things through the word of His power.
Their construction occupied years and, in cases, centuries were necessary to complete them. Who can estimate the prayers and pious devotion which the laying of the first
§ 94. THE CATHEDRALS. 583
stones called forth, and which continued to be poured out till the last layer of stones was laid on the towers or fitted into the finial ? Their sculpture and stained-glass windows, frescoes, and paintings presented scenes from Scripture and the history of the Church. There, kings and queens, war riors, and the men whom the age pronounced godly were laid away in sepulture, a custom continued after the modern period had begun, as in the case of Luther and Melanchthon, whose ashes rest in the Castle Church of Wittenberg. In spite of frequent fires consuming parts of the great churches or the entire buildings, they were restored or reconstructed, often several times, as in the case of the cathedrals of Chartres, Canterbury, and Norwich. Central towers col lapsed, as in the case of Winchester, Peterborough, Lincoln, and other English cathedrals, but they were rebuilt. In the erection of these churches princes and people joined, arid to further this object they gave their contributions of material and labor. The women of Ulm gave up all their ornaments to advance the work upon the cathedral of that city, and to the construction of the cathedral in Cologne Germans in all lands contributed.
The eleventh century is the beginning of one of the most notable periods of architecture in the world's history, lasting for nearly three centuries. It has a distinct character of its own and in its service high talent was consecrated. The monks may be said to have led the way by their zeal to erect strong, ample, and beautiful cloistral establishments. These called forth in France the ambition of the bishops to surpass them. Two styles of architecture are usually distinguished in this period, the Romanesque, called in England also the Norman, and the Gothic. Writers on architecture make a number of subdivisions and some have included all the architecture of the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries under the title Gothic, or Christian Pointed. During these cen turies Europe, from the South to far Northern Scotland and Sweden, was dotted with imposing structures which on the one hand vied with St. Sophia of Constantinople, and on the other have been imitated but not equalled since.