Page:Notes ecclesiological and picturesque.djvu/20

Rh —at least not described in print,—by my fellow students.

The Valley of the Danube, then, from Donauwerth to Passau, abounds in churches, for the most part, framed in the same mould. Generally speaking, small, they have chancel or nave with north or south aisle ; tower, anywhere rather than at the west end ; tallish, the square surmounted by, not bevelled into, an octagon : and that finished by a (later) bulb and spirelet. The square, preponderates over the apsidal, east end ; and the further we advance east, the more completely is this the case. Who will solve for us this great problem ?—Why is England the mother country of the one, France of the other, school ? and why do stone vaultings and gabled towers belong to the latter, wooden roofs and square towers, or spires, to the former ? This, I take it, is one of the deepest questions in ecclesiology.

As might be expected in a land so often ravaged by war, there is comparatively—to all appearance—little of ancient work. The peculiar taste of the Jesuits, too, once so powerful in Bavaria, shows itself in the heavy gilding, stuccoed domes, and painted vaultings,—(frequently representing the history of the Patron Saint)—everywhere to be seen. The larger churches seem to have had a series of narrow chapels, with elaborate vaulting, external to the nave aisles : this is to be seen, for example, in the parish church of Wilshofen, our first day's journey from Katisbon. The road from this place to Passau runs close to the Danube all the way, and is seldom far from the railway. I