Castles and Cathedrals in Alsace by Nimrod Negev

The castles in this region are castles full of grandeur and mystery. Strong and hanging, like eagles' nests. Detached, strong, heavy and dark. The German influence is overwhelming. Castles that continued to function into the 14th – 12th centuries, in contrast to the light castles of France, from that period. Just take a look at the castles in the Loire Valley and castles in Normandy or the south. Castles with many windows, with magnificent gardens, with light architecture, with Italian Mediterranean influence and adjacent villages, when it relied on the services of its successor. While the old castles were completely abandoned.

Castles in Alsace Main Features

These castles had, first and foremost, a control mission. Control over routes, passages and open areas. To monitor traffic and collect taxes. The defense of the surrounding settlements was minimalist, if it existed at all. The form of fortifications of the European castles of the Middle Ages is the result of the Crusaders' encounter with the fortifications of the Land of Israel and the road to it. Until then, European castles were built of wood. The elements of the gate and the protection on it are a copy of what they encountered here with us.
With the arrival of heavy artillery, during the reign of Louis XIV, the concept of fortifications changed completely. Entire cities were fortified under the baton of the brilliant engineer Sebastian de Vauban, with the defense no longer being of paths or fields privately owned by a tax-robbing knight, but of France The whole. This is a structure of star fortifications, which surround the entire city, with the front of one wall covering the other and turning the approach to these fortifications into a death trap of crossfire. The fortifications were adapted for cannon fire: the angle of the front of the fortification walls, the enormous thickness of those earth-filled fortifications. Deep and wide ditches (which are actually what created the height of the flat walls), the city itself is sunk behind the walls. All of this created a topography that made it very difficult for cannons to approach and for the possibility of firing directly at the city and its fortifications.
A typical example of such a city is Neuf-Brisac, near the crossing over the Rhine. With the same genius, Vauban created the defense of Strasbourg, by flooding the areas in front of it, which I have already mentioned. In the previous article about the waterwaysHis fortification system functioned wonderfully until the eighteenth century, when modern cannons arrived!

Another function of these castles, as well as many of the fortified monasteries and cathedrals, was to show and convey the message: “I rule here. My culture and religion rule here.” The Abbey of Saint-Odile is a classic example of this phenomenon, perched high on the first ridge of the Vosges mountains and visible from all sides and into the distance. The wars of the Catholics and Protestants were bloody, almost like the wars that this region suffered between Germany and France. The exchange of hands between these two, over control of territory and religion, took their toll and left their scars and marks on the territory and culture.

Cathedrals in Alsace

The combination of space and culture is expressed in its construction, especially in the construction of these symbols of power - castles and cathedrals. A cathedral is a central church for a community that serves as the seat of a bishop (hegemon). A great deal of attention is paid to its construction and decoration. Cathedrals usually seem to be a weakness for the city, both due to their impressive size and their location. The very rich external sculpture, many theological messages. The murals and stained glass windows tell stories from the Bible and the New Testament. It should be remembered that in those days the vast majority of the population could not read or write. These paintings illustrated religious stories for them as a kind of "comics" (perhaps this is where the art of comics came from, which is very developed in the West - comics that tell historical stories, or stories about foreign and distant cultures such as "Tintin" and "Asterix" and many others, which unfortunately do not exist in Israel).
The size and visual power of the houses of worship, and above all the cathedral, have several functions - to show from afar who rules here, how strong and rich the community is, but also to remind people how small they are.

Styles of Christian houses of worship

I will not go into all the subtleties here, in the different styles and in the many details, because this is not a lesson in church architecture. But I will address some very central things, which in my opinion are essential to pay attention to. From the 10th to the 12th century, the houses of prayer were built in the Romanesque style – as a kind of basilica with more space for worshippers – longer and with a space intersecting the main longitudinal space. In a heavy construction style, as a cumbersome imitation of Roman construction, which was forgotten in the darkness of the Middle Ages. As a kind of herald of the beginning of the awakening, from the darkness of the Middle Ages. The interior spaces were dark, the central hall was narrow and the walls of these buildings were very thick due to limitations in construction technology and the perception of the church as a fortress of the settlement – ​​blind walls (at least on the first floor) bearing – in contrast to the Roman original which was carried by arches on columns. The arches of Romanesque churches were simple “barrel arches” and the apse was heavy, circular and protruding towards the outside of the building. The exterior walls were decorated with few, if any, sculptures.
The Gothic style is the result of the new construction technology of the 15th-12th centuries. Pointed arches, a much lighter structure than its predecessor, thanks to the external supporting arches (floating arches) and the supporting columns, which are located outside the building. The interior spaces are vast and bright. The non-bearing walls allowed for very large window openings (playing with the light penetrating through the stained glass windows). The external walls and especially the facade are loaded and overflowing with sculptural elements, some of which cannot be shown by a person at all. Anyone who wants to learn more about Gothic architecture is welcome to enterLink this.

The Renaissance churches of the 16th and 15th centuries had simpler and cleaner forms. Much lower than the Gothic ones, much less ornamental and, in their proportions, returned the person to the center. The structure was harmonious between its parts and the environment in which it was erected. The artists and architects have names! The most well-known and prominent of them are Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

The nuns' orders

Both of these styles originated in French architecture (despite their names, which are borrowed from other interests). The monastic system is the system in which Christian believers became members of a monastic organization, a monastery and a monastic community, living with common ties, according to a uniform law in a common community instead of being a collection of solitary monks. This system was founded by the monk Saint Benedict in the 6th century AD. The Benedictine monasteries spread throughout Europe. Many other orders followed them. In preparation for the Crusades and in the context of our region, military “knight-monk” orders were also established, including the Order of the Knights of Solomon’s Temple (the Templars) and the Hospitallers. Important centers of study and research functioned in many monasteries.

A little about the author

Nimrod Negev (his original name is Norbert Felstein) was born in Paris. He grew up there, did his military service here… At the beginning of his career he worked in civil engineering, later he studied geography (later he taught the subject in high school and colleges). He also studied archaeology and worked in the field for about 15 years, 13 of them as a district archaeologist. To see more pictures from this post, you are invited to enter the following link.