ith no base Renaissance
interpolation in its fabric.

V

THE ACCESSORIES OF GERMAN CHURCHES

Up to the tenth century the German basilicas were but copies of the
Roman variety. Even the great cathedral at Treves, with its ground-plan
a great square of forty metres in extent, was but a gross imitation of
the Romanesque form of the sixth century.

Later, in the eighth century, came the modified Byzantine form which one
sees at Aix-la-Chapelle.

With the eleventh century appeared the double-apsed basilicas, but, from
this time on, German ecclesiastical art divorced itself from Latin
traditions, and from the simple parallelogram-like basilica developed
the choir and transepts which were to remain for ever.

The crypt is a distinct and prominent feature of many German churches.
On the Rhine curious and most interesting examples are very frequent,
those at Bonn, Essen, Muenchen-Gladbach, Speyer, Cologne (St. Gereon's),
Boppart, and Neuss being the chief. All of these are so constructed that
the level of the pavement is broken between the nave and choir,
producing a singularly impressive interior effect.

Speyer has the longest, and perhaps the largest, crypt in all Germany.

Where the edifice has remained an adherent of Catholicism, the crypt
often performs the function of a place of worship independent of the
main church, it being fitted up with one or more altars and frequently
other accessories.

As the crypt, instead of being only an occasional attribute, became
general, squared, or even more rude, capitals replaced the antique and
classical forms which Christian Italy herself had adopted from pagan
Greece.

These squared or cubic capitals are particularly noticeable at Neuss, at
Muenchen-Gladbach, in St. James at Cologne, and in the old abbey of
Laach.

Towers came to be added to the west fronts, but the naves often remained
roofed with visible woodwork, though, by the end of the century, the
stone-vaulted nave had appeared in the Rhine district, and the pillars
of pagan birth had given way to the columns and _colonnettes_ of Latin
growth.

What is known as the German manner of church-building had more than one
distinguishing feature, though none more prominent than that of the
columns of the nave and aisles. The naves were in general twice the
width of their aisles, and the bays of the nave were made twice the
width of those of the aisles. Hence it followed that every pier or
column carried a sha