DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0274
254
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
Paet II.
a side entrance was preferable to one opposite the principal point of
interest. The details of this chapel are remarkably elegant, and its
external form is a very favourable specimen of the German style just
before it was superseded in the beginning of the 13th century by the
French pointed style.
There is, besides these, a circular chapel of uncertain date at
Altenfurt near Nuremberg, and there are many others at Prague and
in various parts of Germany, but none remarkable either for their
historical or for their artistic importance. This form went out of use
before the style we are describing reached its acmé ; and it had not
therefore a fair chance of receiving that elaboration which was necessary
for the development of its capabilities.
A little farther on we shall have occasion again to take up the
subject of circular churches when speaking of those of Scandinavia,
where the circular form prevailed to a great extent in the early ages
of Christianity in that country ; never, however, as a baptistery or
a tomb-house, but always as a kirk. It was afterwards introduced
by the Danes into Norfolk and Suffolk, but there still farther
modified, becoming only a western round tower, instead of a circular
nave.
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
Paet II.
a side entrance was preferable to one opposite the principal point of
interest. The details of this chapel are remarkably elegant, and its
external form is a very favourable specimen of the German style just
before it was superseded in the beginning of the 13th century by the
French pointed style.
There is, besides these, a circular chapel of uncertain date at
Altenfurt near Nuremberg, and there are many others at Prague and
in various parts of Germany, but none remarkable either for their
historical or for their artistic importance. This form went out of use
before the style we are describing reached its acmé ; and it had not
therefore a fair chance of receiving that elaboration which was necessary
for the development of its capabilities.
A little farther on we shall have occasion again to take up the
subject of circular churches when speaking of those of Scandinavia,
where the circular form prevailed to a great extent in the early ages
of Christianity in that country ; never, however, as a baptistery or
a tomb-house, but always as a kirk. It was afterwards introduced
by the Danes into Norfolk and Suffolk, but there still farther
modified, becoming only a western round tower, instead of a circular
nave.