Charlemagne was the last important inter nationalist, ruling like the old emperors of Rome, not only over his own people but also over the whole western civilized world. His successors were unable to maintain their power; great changes took place in the world; and when the next great emperor, Otto I (936 973) ordered the emperor's crown to be placed on his head, he was a national ruler, holding sway, himself and his successors, in their native Germany and only occasionally also in con quered Italy. Germany as well as France had become distinct nationalities, each with a well defmed national consciousness. This is the first characteristic of the ensuing art. Another is the result of the submission of the individual to the doctrines of the Church. It was the age of the Crusades, of blood shed copiously and exultantly in the service of the Lord of Peace. It was the great age of contradictions, of splendid edifices housing men and women who had dedicated their lives to poverty; of humility toward God and their fellow-men; of contempt for worldly goods but devotion to the finest that art could give. Art in any age depends on man's relation to nature. The ancient Greeks and Romans had laved her, and this had shown in their art. In the Middle Ages reli gion attempted to draw man's thoughts away from nature. Saint Augustine exclaimed that God can be known only to the extent to which He is loved. The love of God and of the saints is at the bottom of German church-architecture of the Middle Ages, which can be understood and appreciated only from this point of view. At first the technical knowledge at the disposal of the architects was insufficient to accomplish their aims, but when the principles underlying Gothic architecture had freed artists from the demands made by the weight of the material in which they built, the structures they erected were the adequate expression of man's yearning for God and His Heaven. Living in nature, the mediaeval architects had to borrow their forms from nature. But it was not the simi larity of these forms to nature, but their ability to express ideas and emotions which counted. The so-called Romanesque architecture is a Germanic product, springing up during the Middle Ages independently in every country where Germans lived or where the admixture.of Germanic blood was very strong, as in the northern part of France, in Normandy, Bur gundy, Lombardy and England. The ground plan of the Romanesque churches was practi cally the same as that of the modified basilica as used in Germany. Secular and ecclesiastic princes vied with each other in the erection of costly and huge buildings. Cologne had her art-loving Archbishop Bruno, the brother of Emperor Otto I. Heinrich II did most for Regensburg and Bamberg; Conrad II for Lim burg and Spires; Henry III for Goslar; while Henry IV ordered a new cathedral for Spires. Among the art-loving princes of the Church, Bemward von Hildesheim, Poppo von Stablo, Benno von Osnabriick, Adalbert von Bremen and Otto von Bamberg are the most famous.
Instances of the early Romanesque style dur ing the 10th century are to be found in Reich enau, Quedlingburg,. Gernrode and Paderborn. These buildings are heavy in appearance, being far more massive than structural necessity de mands. Everywhere the artist is the slave of his material. During the 11th century greater freedom was obtained, at first in Lower Saxony and soon everywhere. The Michaels kirche in Hildesheim (dedicated in 1033) is a basilica with a flat ceiling. Other magnificent basilica-like structures are the cathedral of Hildesheim (1061), the abbey-church of Gan dersheim, the emperor's cathedral in Goslar (dedicated in 1050 and destroyed in 1820), and the palace church in Quedlingburg (1070 1129). Often columns took the places of pi lasters and great attention was paid to the elevation, as e.g., in the Saint Moritz Church
of Hildesheim (latter half of the 11th century), the monastery church of Hersfeld (1038-1144), and the cathedrals of Minden, Bremen and Paderborn. In the Rhenish provinces the at tempt was sometimes made to attain greater space by combining the ground plans of the basilica with that of the vaulted central hall. as for instance in Santa Maria of the Capitol in Cologne (1049). On the whole, however, the pure basilica type held its own also there, as in the splendid cathedrals of Mayence (1016), Spires (1030) and Worms (1036), all of which received vaulted ceilings in later days, and in the cathedrals of Wiirzburg and Con stance, and the monastery church of Limburg on the Hardt. During the 12th century, when the architects had attained considerable f ree dom, and the religious fervor, which had been kindled by the Crusades, was reflected in art, the Romanesque style enjoyed a period of un wonted splendor. Vaulted ceilings are the rule, and in loftiness many of the churches erected at this time approach the magnificence of the Gothic style. It is the great building period, which makes it impossible to mention more than a mere fraction of the finest structures. Among the finest is the cathedral of Limburg on the Lahn (dedicated in 1235), with its seven most imposing steeples. The cathedrals of Soest, Osnabruck, Munster and Paderborn, all in Westphalia, while stately, do not approach the magnificence of the Rhenish churches. Among the Saxon churches those of Paulinzelle, Wecheselburg and Riddaghausen, and the cathedrals of Brunswick (1194) and Naumburg may be mentioned. In the district of Fran conia, the cathedral of Bamberg is the most stately, while along the upper !dune, where the influence of the technical ability displayed in Burgundy was strongest, the cathedrals of Basel, Zurich and Strassburg are well known. Else where in Germany fine churches were built but few of them deserve mention by the side of those given above. Of the many secular build imp of this period the castles (Burgen) of the knights and the palaces of the princes (e.g., the emperor's house in Goslar) deserve mention. Long before the Romanesque style had run its course or had exhausted its possibilities, the Gothic style, invented in the neighborhood of Paris during the middle of the 12th century, swept everything before it, first by introducing modifications, and then by completely super seding the Romanesque style. The most not able outward characteristic of the Gothic style is the pointed arch. This is first found in soli tary instances in the church of Saint Gereon in Cologne (1219-27), in the cathedral of Lim burg, mentioned above, and in the monastery church of Heisterbach. Its first use as an integral part of the construction of a German church may be noted in the cathedral of Magde burg (begun in 1207). The Leibfraunkirche in Treves and the Elisabethkirche in Marburg are the first distinctly Gothic German churches. On the upper Rhine the Gothic style made the quickest headway, and the cathedrals of Frei burg and of Strassburg (in part) are its finest monuments there. In Cologne the cathedral was begun in 1248 in imitation of the cathedral of Amiens. It was, however, left unfinished until the end of the 19th century. In Saxony and elsewhere in Germany the Romanesque and Gothic styles were as first mixed, with an ever stronger emphasis being placed on the Gothic (e.g., the cathedrals of Halberstadt, Meissen and Minden). In 1275 the cathedral of Regensburg was begun, which has been called the finest ex ample of German Gothic architecture. Among the secular buildings of this period the homed. of the orders of the knights deserve special mention, and among them again the Marien burg near Danzig.