Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/102

 72 Romanesque Architecture. earlier period, with flat ceilings, such as the Schlosskirche (Church of the Castle) at Quedlinburg. But we meet with them also in other provinces of Germany ; such was the convent church at Paulinzelle, now a fine ruin in the Thuringian forest. The cathedral of Hildesheim, built at the beginning of the eleventh century, is of a later date, when the style was more fully developed. It has bronze gates, 1 6 ft. high, adorned with very fine bas-reliefs. The convent church at Limburg on the Haardt (1035) is one of the largest of the German basilicas. It is now in ruins, but it is easy to see what it was before its decay. It has a square choir instead of the usual semicircular apse. The cathedral of Treves (Trier) may be considered a typical mediaeval church. The original building was erected by the empress Helena, and consisted of a circular baptistery and a rec- tangular basilica, but the former was taken down in the thirteenth century to make way for the present church of St. Mary. The basilica was strengthened and completed as a place of Christian worship by Archbishop Poppo in the beginning of the eleventh century. He converted the original Roman columns into piers,* by casing them in masonry, covered in the atrium, and added an apse at the western entrance. In the twelfth century Bishop Hillin took up Archbishop Poppo' s unfinished task, and commenced rebuilding the choir, or eastern apse, which was completed by Bishop John at the beginning of the thirteenth century. These two apses — one built when the Romanesque style was in its infancy, the other when is always round, and the latter may be of almost any shape.
 * The difference between a column and a pier is that the former