Bamberg cathedral, founded in 1004, and the original building completed in 1012, may be considered as a more doubtful case. The style of that obscure period is not easily ascertained: it is possible that the same style continued in use for two centuries from this period to the end of the twelfth, but it seems hardly probable that ornaments so nearly identical as those at Bamberg and others, here engraved side by side with them, acknowledged to belong to the latter period, can be the work of the same age. The trefoil arch (I. 4) is found abundantly in the churches on the Rhine, in the rich Romanesque or Byzantinesque, which M. de Lassaulx has convincingly shewn to belong to the very end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century; and all the ornaments here engraved from Bamberg appear to be of later character than those found in the interesting church of Schwartz-Rheindorf, opposite Bonn, which is recorded in a cotemporary inscription behind the Altar to have been commenced in 1148 and consecrated in 1151.
In England it is pretty clear, from a variety of evidence, that the masonry of the early part of the eleventh century was so bad that such buildings as were erected of stone at that period would scarcely stand above sixty years; and the more usual material for buildings of all kinds was wood: even quite at the end of that century the works of Lanfranc at Canterbury, of Remigius at Lincoln, and of Gundulph in the white tower, London, are still extremely rude, and the joints of the masonry wide enough to admit two fingers, while the principal part of the ornament is cut with the hatchet. Some parts, such as the capitals at Canterbury, cut with the chisel, have evidently been worked at a subsequent period, some of the caps being still left half finished, and others not even commenced, but left ready for carving. In Germany the state of the arts, both of masonry and sculpture in stone, may have been much more advanced, but no satisfactory evidence of this has yet been produced.
St. Sebald's, at Nuremberg, is assumed to be of the eleventh century, from its resemblance to Bamberg, having no records of its own: it bears an equally close resemblance to the other examples before mentioned as undoubtedly of the twelfth century, and this date would appear far more probable.
Subsequently to this period the dates appear to be all well authenticated, and the style to agree with what might be expected at those dates.
Of the thirteenth century we have a capital from Denkendorf, still Byzantine, (II. 2); two curious capitals from Lilienfeld, in Lower Austria, (IV. 1); a very beautiful piece of sculpture in relief of a knight and his betrothed, from the head of a doorway at Rotweil, in the Black Forest, (VI. 5); and a richly carved wooden chair, or throne, with the arms of king William of Holland, crowned in 1247, probably in this very chair; the ornament agrees with that period, and it is a highly interesting specimen of early oak carving.
Of the fourteenth century, M. Heideloff gives no specimens, unless perhaps some of the beautiful ironwork (II. 3, and III. 5) or the wooden panels (V. 8, and VI. 8) may be of that period.
