Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 by Various

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Surely it is very dull in us, out of our present enlightenment, to
continue to distinguish the mediaeval times as the _Dark_ Ages, as if
they were glimmering and ghostly, and men groped about in them blindly,
living in a sort of dusky romance of feudality. Did you ever study De
la Roche's incarnation of Mediaeval Art in his Hemicycle,--that long
saintly robe with its still and serious folds, that fair dreamy face,
those upturned eyes, "the homes of silent prayer," the contemplative
repose? It is truly an exquisite idealization; yet there is something
wanting. I believe the piety of those days was rather a passion than a
sentiment. Their "beauty of holiness" was rather an active emotional
impulse than a passive spiritualization, and was incomplete without a
material expression, a tangible demonstration of itself. Like the fabled
Narcissus, it yearned for its own image. Hence the joy and luxury of the
ecclesiastical buildings of that period. They were the very blossoming
of the tree of knowledge. This was, indeed, an unenlightened, perhaps
a superstitious principle of worship; but it was enthusiastic,
self-sacrificing, and chivalrous. It, indeed, sent the stylite to his
pillar, the hermit to the wilderness, the ascetic to the scourge and
hair-cloth shirt; but it also led the warrior to the Holy Land, the
beggar to the castle-hearth, and the workman to the building of the
House of God. It is no wonder that a religion born thus in childlike
fervor, and seeking expression in outward signs, built upward. It is
no wonder that out of the prosaic elements of the roof it made the
spiritual essence of the spire. If we look through the whole range of
architectural forms in classic or mediaeval times, we shall find no one
so indicative of any human emotion as this simple outline is of the
highest of all emotions,--prayer. It is a significant fact, that the
sentiment of aspiration is nowhere hinted at in Classic Art, and we look
in vain for it in all pagan architectures. This is not surprising.
The worshippers who built in those schools demonstrated there all the
noblest ideas they were capable of,--intellectual beauty, dignity,
power, truth, chastity, courage, and all the other virtues cherished in
their theologies; but their personal relations with any higher sphere of
existence, vague and undefined as they were, called for no expression in
their temples, and obtained none.

The pyramidal form has ever possessed peculiar fascinations for men,
and, from its simplicity, grandeur, and power, has been used in all ages
with innumerable modifications in those structures whose object was to
impress and overawe,--as in the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of India
and Mexico, and in all the earliest funereal monuments. It involved a
rude symbolism, which recommended itself to the barbarous childhood
of nations. But it was not until the pyramid was sharpened and
spiritualized into the spire that it gained its completest triumph over
the secret emotions of men. The Egyptians made the nearest approach
to it in the obelisk. That mysterious people felt very keenly the
suggestiveness of the pyramidal form, and refined the language of
its sentiment into some very beautiful expressions. Yet between the
mausoleums of Gizeh and the hieroglyphic shafts of Luxor and Karnac
there existed a modification, the intensity of whose meaning they
were not prepared to understand. Neither their civilization nor their
religion required such an exponent; so they exhausted themselves with
their mountainous bulks of stone and their pictured monoliths.

We know not how the first view of a Christian spire would affect the
mind of an alien; but so far as our own experiences are concerned,
though perhaps familiar only with the lowliest and most unpretending of
its kind, we are conscious that it deeply impressed even the "unsunned
temper" of our childhood. The wisest among us may not be able to define
precisely these impressions, or trace to their source the admiration
and satisfaction it occasions, yet all are ready to acknowledge its
beautiful fitness to adorn and glorify the Christian temple. But to the
thoughtful mind how suggestive it is of pleasant imagery! It is "the
silent finger" that points to heaven; it is an upward aspiration of the
soul; a prayer from the depths of a troubled heart; a _suspirium de
profundis;_ a hymn of thanksgiving; a pure life, throwing of the worldly
and approaching the ethereal; a finite mind searching, till lost in the
vastness of the unknown and unapproachable; a beautiful attempt; a
voice of praise sent up from the earth, till, like the soaring lark, it
"becomes a sightless song." Indeed, our unbidden thoughts, that wild-ivy
of the mind, are trained upward by the spire, till it is hung round with
the tenderest associations and recollections of all that is sweet and
softening in our natures. Thus, when the painter has represented on his
canvas some wild phase of scenery, where the gadding vine, the tangled
underwood, the troubled brook, the black, frowning rock, the untamed
savage growth of the forest,

"Old plash of rains and refuse patched with moss,"

impress us with awe, and a sad, homeless feeling, as if we were lost
children, how eloquent is that last touch of his pencil that shows us
a simple spire peeping over the tree-tops! How it comforts us! How it
brings us home again, and bestows an air

"Of sweet civility on rustic wilds"!

But even if we were not inclined to be sentimental on the subject, even
if base utilities had crowded out from our hearts the blessed capacity
of shedding rosy light on things about us, the coldest esteem could not
but ripen into affection, when we reflected that the spire never adorned
the shrine of a pagan god, never glorified the mosque of a false
prophet, never, in purity, arose from any unconsecrated ground; but
when, at last, the Church of Christ felt the "beauty of holiness," then
it developed out of that beauty and pointed the way to God. It exhaled
from the growing perfection of the Church, as fragrance from an opening
flower. It is, therefore, peculiarly holy. It is a monitor of especial
grace. "It marshals us the way that we are going," like the visionary
dagger of Macbeth; but the knell that sounds beneath it summons only to
heaven.

Practically, it is utterly useless; and this is its honor and its
unspeakable dignity. We cannot even climb it, as we could a tower;
for it is nearly as unapproachable as the Oracle of God, save to the
innocent birds, who love to flock and wheel about it in the sunshine,
and build their nests in its "coignes of vantage," or, in the
night-time, to the troops of stars which touch it in their journey
through the skies. It is as beautifully idle as the lilies of the field;
and yet its expressiveness touches us so nearly, the propriety of its
sentiment is so striking, that, when the great test question of this
living age is applied to it, and we are asked, What is its use? what is
it good for? the heart is shocked at the impiety of the question, and
the feelings revolt, as against an insult. Upon the arches of Canterbury
Minster is carved,

NON * NOBIS * DOMINE * NON * NOBIS *
SED * NOMINI * TVO * DA * GLORIAM *

Nothing can be simpler than the composition of the pure spire. The
aesthetics of its development and growth are characteristically natural
and apparent. They are like the history of a flower from bud to bloom
under a warm sun. Let us become botanists of Art for a while, and
analyze those flowers of worship, as they opened "in that first garden
of their simpleness."

Considering the growth of the spire from the tower-roof, it might
naturally be supposed that the earliest forms would be square or round,
in plan. But no sooner had the roof passed into this new sphere of
existence, than the fine intelligence of the builders perceived that it
needed refinement. They saw that in a square spire there was so coarse a
distinction between the tapering mass of light and the tapering mass
of shadow, that the delicacy and lightness necessary to express the
sentiment they desired to convey did not exist in the new feature;--in
a round spire, on the other hand, they found that this distinction of
light and shade was too little marked; it was vapid and effeminate, and
quite without that delicious crispiness of effect which they at once
obtained by cutting off the corners of the square spire, and reducing it
to an octagon. With very rare exceptions, as in the southwest spire of
Chartres Cathedral, this form was always used. Now it will be seen that
a difficulty arises in the beginning, how to unite the octagon of the
spire with the square of the tower. There are four triangular spaces at
the summit of the tower left uncovered by the superstructure; and how
best to treat these, simple as the task may seem, constitutes what may
be called the touchstone of architectural genius in spire-building.
There are several general ways of effecting this, each of them subject
to such modifications, in individual instances, as to give them an
ever-varying character.

Perhaps the earliest method was simply to occupy those triangular spaces
with pyramidal masses of masonry, sloping back against the adjacent
faces of the tower,--an expedient which Nature herself might have
suggested in the first snow-storm. Then they boldly cut the Gordian knot
by shaving off the corners of the tower at the top, thus creating there
an octagonal platform, to which the spire would exactly correspond.
Still oftener they chamfered the spire upwards from the corners of the
tower: in other words, they placed, as it were, a square spire on
their tower, occupying the whole of its summit, and then obtained the
necessary octangularity by shaving off the angles of the spire from the
apex to a certain point near the base, where the cutting was continued
obliquely to the corners of the tower. The latest method was to build
pinnacles on the triangular territory. In such cases the spire usually
stood wholly within the outer boundaries, and parapets assisted to
conceal the first springing of the spire.

The first of these methods is usually considered the most perfect and
beautiful, on account of its simplicity and candor. This is called the
broach; and it is the only form thus far spoken of wherein the tapering
surfaces rise directly from the tower-cornice, without mutilating the
tower or violating the pure outlines of the spire. The heavenward
aspiration, as it were, ascends without effort from the solidity of the
tower. It seems to typify a certain fitness and adaptability to heavenly
things even in the gross and earthly nature of man. One cannot fail to
admire its unaffected dignity, its harmonious balance, its graceful
proportions.

It would be impossible within the limits of this article to give any
idea of the wonderful diversity of treatment these simple generic forms
received at the hands of the early builders. The changes of combination,
proportion, and ornamentation were endless. For the mediaeval spirit was
eminently earnest in its labor, and would not be content with copying an
old shape merely because it was a good shape. It would not be satisfied
with the cold repetition of a written litany of architectural forms; but
its ardent piety, its thoughtful zeal, the _life_ of its love, demanded
an ever-varying expression in these visible prayers. Emerson himself
might find nought to censure there, in the way of undue conformities and
consistencies. Its language was written with the infinite alphabet of
Nature.

We are speaking now especially of England; and we, her children, may
well be proud that these divine enthusiasms of antiquity, which we
thought so quaint, so rare, so far away from us, nowhere else found
fairer demonstrations. The English spires bear especial witness to the
zeal and aspiration of their builders. They belted them with bands of
ornament, cut at first in imitation of tiles, and afterwards beautifully
panelled with foliations. Moulded ribs began to run up the angles of
the spires, and, when they met at the summit, would exultingly curl
themselves together in the most precious cruciforms. Quaint spire-lights
began to appear. Sometimes curious dormers would project from alternate
sides; and the very ribs, as if, in this spring-time of Art, they felt,
quickening along their lengths, the mysterious movements of a new life,
sprouted out here and there with knots of leafage, timidly at first, and
then with all the wealth and profusion of the harvest. The same impulse
wreathed the crowning cross with a thousand midsummer fancies, till the
circle of Eternity, or the triangle of Trinity, which often mingled
with its arms, scarcely knew itself. The pinnacles, too, blossomed into
crockets and bud-like finials, and began to gather more thickly about
the roots of the spire, and from them often leaped flying-buttresses
against it. During this time the spire itself was growing more and more
acute, its lines becoming more and more eloquent. After the fourteenth
century, the tower began to be crowned with intricate panelled tracery
of parapets and battlements, from behind which the spire, an entirely
separate structure, shot up into the sky. In this, the period of the
perpendicular style, pinnacles, purfled to the last degree, crowded
about the base of the spire, reminding one of the admiring throng
gathered about the base of some old picture of the Ascension. But there
is another English form which perhaps conveys this sentiment even more
impressively: We refer to that whose prototype exists in the steeple of
the Church of St. Nicholas at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This, however, has
four turrets, one on each angle, from which, with great lightness, leap
towards each other four grand flying-buttresses, which join hands over
an empty void and hold in the air a lantern and spirolet of great
elegance. This is a very bold piece of construction. It has been
imitated at St. Giles's, Edinburgh, at Linlithgow, in the college
tower of Aberdeen, and it is especially made known to the world by
Sir Christopher Wren's famous use of it in the steeple of St.
Dunstan's-in-the-East, London.

The most famous spires of England and Normandy are St. Peter's at Caen,
a very early specimen, St. Michael's at Coventry, Louth, that of
the parochial church of Boston in Lincolnshire, that of Chichester
Cathedral, the three that rise from the famous Lichfield Cathedral,
and finally and especially the magnificent spire over the cross of
Salisbury. In the judgment of most English connoisseurs, this is the
finest in the world. It was probably erected during the reign of Edward
III., a very florid period for architecture. It is the highest in
England, its summit rising four hundred and four feet from the pavement
of the church beneath. It is one of the earliest erected in stone, and
is remarkable for skilful construction, the masonry in no part being
more than seven inches thick. This spire is belted with three broad
bands of panelled tracery, and there are eight pinnacles at its base,
two on each corner of the tower. The ribs are fretted throughout the
whole height with elegant crockets, thus imparting to the sky-line an
appearance similar to the gusty spray on the borders of a rain-cloud. An
admirer has said of it, "It seems as though it had drawn down the very
angels to work over its grand and feeling simplicity the gems and
embroidery of Paradise itself!" England once boasted the loftiest spire
in the world, that of old St. Paul's, London, whose summit, five hundred
and twenty feet from the ground, seemed to sail among the highest
clouds; but the great fire of 1666 destroyed it, and Sir Christopher's
stately metropolitan dome now rises in its place.

One could believe in the "merrie" days of Old England, were her abundant
spires their only evidence. The ardent zeal that kindled so many
thousand answering beacons throughout the length and breadth of the land
is the best proof of that concord of souls which is true happiness. We
know that the decision of the Council of Clermont about the Crusades was
believed to have been instantly known through Christendom, and that the
great cry, _God willeth it!_ which shook the council-roof, was echoed
from hill to hill, and at once struck awe and astonishment to the hearts
of remotest lands. So in the birthplaces of our Pilgrim fathers, over
these cherished spots,

"Where the kneeling hamlets drained
The chalice of the grapes of God,"

arose the "star y-pointing" spire, like a voice of adoration; and then
another would be raised in unison in some neighboring village, where
they could see and communicate with each other in their silent language;
and yet another close by among the hills; and presently, in full view
from its summit, twenty more, perhaps,--till the good tidings were known
through the whole country, and from hamlet to hamlet, over the streams
and tree-tops, was thus echoed the great _Te Deum_ of the land. For it
was said among the people, in that antique spirit of worship, as Milton
exhorted the birds in his Hymn of Thanksgiving,--

"Join voices, all ye living souls! ye _spires_,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise!"

It is a beautiful proof of the spirit of sacrifice which actuated the
Masonic builder of the Middle Ages, that his fairest and most precious
works were not confined to the great metropolitan churches and
cathedrals, where they could be seen of men, but were frequently found
in quiet and secluded villages, nestled among pastoral solitudes, far
away from the gaze and admiration of the world. Though the spire of
Salisbury was, perhaps, an epic in Masonic poetry, yet in humble hamlets
of England, beyond her most distant hills, and amid many an unnamed
"sunny spot of greenery," were idyls sung no less exquisite than this.
Many a village-spire, of conception no less beautiful, arose above the
tree-tops among the most untrodden ways. All day long its shadow lingers
in the quiet churchyard, and points among the humble graves, as if, over
this dial of human life, it loved to preach silent homilies on "the
passing away," even to the simplest poor. It must be inexpressibly
touching to meet with these beautiful forms in the lonely wilderness,
where the ivy alone, as it throws its loving arms around them, appears
to recognize their grace and all their tender significance. It is like
the chance discovery of a good deed done in the darkness, or like a
pure life spent in the sweet and serious retirement of a little hamlet,
pointing the way to heaven for its scanty flock of cottagers.

It was the custom in those days, during the celebration of Mass, at the
moment when the Host was raised, to ring a peculiar bell in the tower,
in order that those not gathered beneath the consecrated roof might be
made aware far and wide of the awful ceremony, and be reminded to offer
up their devotion in unison. And we remember what Izaak Walton said of
quaint George Herbert,--how "some of the meaner sort of his parish did
so love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough rest
when his saints'-bell rung to prayer, that they might also offer their
devotion to God with him, and would then return back contented to their
plough." Now it seems to us that the spire is a perpetual elevation
of the Host, a never-ending lifting-up of the Symbol of Redemption, a
consecrating presence to field and cottage, hillside and highway, ever
ready to bless the accidental glance of wayfarer or laborer, and to make
in the desert of his daily life a momentary oasis of sweet and hallowed
thought. Its peaceful influence extends over the whole landscape and
pierces to its remotest corners.

"A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires,
And aery harvests crown the fertile lea."

It may be thought that St. Peter's cock, which so often answers the
sunbeams from the spindly spire, and kindles and glitters there like a
star, is rather empty of emblematic significance and soul-language. But
what saith old Bishop Durandus?--"The cock at the summit of the church
is a type of the preacher. For the cock, ever watchful, even in the
depth of night, giveth notice how the hours pass, waketh the sleepers,
predicteth the approach of day,--but first exciteth himself to crow by
striking his sides with his wings. There is a mystery conveyed in each
of these particulars: the night is the world; the sleepers are the
children of this world, who are asleep in their sins; the cock is the
preacher who preacheth boldly, and exciteth the sleepers to cast away
the works of darkness, exclaiming, Woe to them that sleep! Awake, thou
that sleepest! and then foretell the approach of day, when they speak
of the Day of Judgment and the glory that shall be revealed, and, like
prudent messengers, before they teach others, arouse themselves from the
sleep of sin by mortifying their bodies; and as the weather-cock faces
the wind, they turn themselves boldly to meet the rebellious by threats
and arguments."

But it was on the Continent, especially in France, the Low Countries,
and Germany, that the Gothic flower opened in fullest perfection; and it
is here that we find the loftiest and most luxurious spire-forms. They
were always the last part of the church completed, the finishing-touch,
the last that was needed to perfection. The progress of the building
of a cathedral thus embodied a beautiful symbolism. In most cases,
the choir, or east end, the holiest part of the church, was the first
erected, in order to sanctify and protect the high altar; and then, as
the treasures of the church flowed in, after the expiration of years or
centuries, the builders, tutored by a legendary science, and harmonized
by a wonderful feeling of brotherhood, in the same spirit, perfected the
designs of their predecessors, by leading out westward the long naves
and attendant aisles, completing northward and southward the transepts,
adding a chapel here and a porch there, glorifying the western front
with the touches of divine genius; and when at last every niche was
occupied with its statue of angel, saint, or pious benefactor, and the
holy choir, with its apsis, had been re-adorned with the accumulated art
of centuries, and glowed with the iris-light from painted windows,--when
the mural monuments of bishops, warriors, and kings had thickened
beneath the consecrated roof, and the whole structure had been hallowed
by the prayers and chantings of generations,--then, at last, over the
ancient tower arose the lofty spire; as if an angelic messenger had
spread his wings at its base and mounted upward to heaven, shouting
out the glad tidings of the completion of the House of God, and, as he
arose, the voice grew fainter and fainter, till at length it melted into
the sky!

The finest spires of Europe were erected as late as the fourteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, upon towers prepared for their
reception, usually, in much earlier times. This confidence of the old
builders in the final completion of their structures is remarkable. They
drew without stint on the piety of after ages,--a resource which has not
unfrequently proved too feeble to realize their generous expectations.
There are few cities in Europe which do not bear sad marks of this
misplaced confidence. This is especially witnessed in the unfinished
steeples. And, indeed, when we find that not only one, but two, three,
four, or even five spires were sometimes required to flame upward from
the same building, as in Caen Cathedral, we do not wonder that the
kindling spark is often wanting. It would seem as if another fire must
come down from heaven, as of old it did upon the first offering of Moses
and Aaron, to inflame these censers, rich in frankincense and naphtha.

Now let us see what were the distinguishing attributes of the
Continental spires. We know not why it was, but in the gray old towns
of Belgium and the Low Countries there existed such exuberance of
imagination, such an unbounded luxuriousness of conception, as created
more images of Gothic quaintness and intricacy than elsewhere can be
seen. If any architecture ever expressed the average of human thought,
that of these towns is especially eloquent in its indications that their
inhabitants were very happy and contented. Look at a print of any old
Belgian town or street, and you will at once see our meaning. What a
joyous upspringing of pinnacles and pointed roofs and spires! of no more
earthly use, indeed, than so much pleasant laughter. There is no tower
without its spire, no turret or gable without its pinnacle, no oriel
without its pointed roof, no dormer without some such playful leaping
up into the air. Every salient point attacks the sky with its long iron
spindle, wrought with strange device and bearing a hospitable cup where
the bird makes his nest; and every spindle sings and shrieks with a
shifting vane,--so that the wind never sweeps idly over a Belgian town.
This innocent and happy people did not frown through the ages from grim
battlements, and awe posterity with stern and massive walls. But they
loved old childlike associations and fireside tales. They loved to build
curious fountains in commemoration of pleasant legends. They loved, too,
the huge, delicious-toned bells of their minster-towers, and the sweet
changes of melodious, never-ceasing chimes. They carved their Lares
and Penates on their house-fronts very curiously, with sun-dials and
hatchments, sacred texts and legends of hospitality. The narrow streets
of Ghent, Louvain, Liege, Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres, Bruges are thus full
of household memories and saintly traditions. So it is not strange that
a people whose daily hours were counted out with the music of belfries
were fond of fretting their towers with workmanship so precious and
delicate that it has been called "the petrifaction of music."

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