Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg | Page 2

where the Cathedral now stands. The architecture of that church was as coarse and barbarous as the spirit of those times; it was built of wood and supported by earthen walls, extending from East to West; on this latter end was the front-gate and before it a portico; besides the principal nave it had two aisles; the western side opening into a yard that served as a passage to the priest's house.
In proportion as the town, the name of which was by the Franks changed into Strasburg, increased in importance and population, the Merovegian kings granted greater favours to the church founded by one of their predecessors. The valuable donations they bestowed on the bishopric of Strasburg, enabled the inhabitants to embellish and enlarge the Cathedral. In 675 Dagobert II granted to bishop Arbogast the town of Ruffach with the castle of Isenburg and a vaste domain that he freed from tax and royal jurisdiction and which on that account was called superior Mundat. A no less important gift was that from Count Rudhart, who made over to the church of Strasburg, in 748, Ettenheim with several neighbouring villages on the right bank of the Rhine. Many other eminent personages of this country increased successively by their liberality the wealth of the episcopal see. A great advantage was granted by Charlemain in 775, which was to exempt the subjects of the bishopric from all tolls and taxes imposed upon the traders travelling through the empire. At that time considerable sums had already been employed to adorn the interior of the Cathedral. In the year 826, the abbot Ermold the Black, living in exile at Strasburg, speaks with enthusiasm of the beautiful temple of the Virgin and of the other altars that decorate it. This ecclesiastic, with great ardour changed the metal of the antique statues he could yet find into sacred vases; a bronze Hercules, two cubits high, alone escaped the pursuit of his pious zeal; after preserving it several centuries in the Cathedral, it was at last sold, and is now at Issy near Paris.
A fire, which in 873 destroyed a portion of the church and all its archives, occasioned, no doubt, important repairs, and this event was the cause of a new royal confirmation of all the possessions of the church. In 1002 it was plundered, profaned and set on fire by the soldiers of Hermann, duke of Suabia and Alsacia, who was then contending with Henry of Bavaria for the imperial crown, Strasburg and its bishop Wernher having declared for the latter. Subdued by Henry II, Hermann was compelled to repair the damage caused to the church by placing at bishop Wernher's disposal the income of the abbey of Saint-Stephen of which he was the patron. With these funds, which the bishop increased by means of a new levy of taxes and by indulgences, he was preparing to restore his Cathedral, when in 1007 a thunderbolt achieved its destruction.
He then formed the project of rebuilding the church on a plan of much larger dimensions and after the style of architecture that was then making its first appearance. The revenues of the bishopric, contributions furnished by the clergy of Alsacia and large sums of money granted by the head of the empire, afforded Wernher the necessary resources for the execution of his plan. This was examined and discussed in the presence of several master-architects whom he had sent for. The plan once fixed upon, stones were brought from the fine quarries of free-stone in the Kronthal. The peasants and bondsmen of the country brought them to the town where they were cut in the square then called Frohnhof, between the Cathedral and the present palace. It was during these labours that in 1042 the emperor Henry II came to Strasburg; the dignified and austere deportment of the clergy of the high chapter, the tranquillity prevailing under the roof of the episcopal church, made such an impression on this prince, that he for a moment resolved to resign the crown and solicit his admittance among the canons of the Cathedral. The bishop appeared at first to accede to this wish; but it was only to prescribe to Henry, henceforth his subordinate, to resume the imperial authority which Providence had bestowed on him; the emperor acquiesced and perpetuated the remembrance of his pious wish by the foundation of a royal prebend.
When, in 1015, a sufficient quantity of materials was collected, they set to work by digging the ground. At the depth of more than five fathoms they drove down stakes, filled the space between them with clay mixed with lime, fragments of bricks and coal; and on this solid base were laid the foundation stones.
Tradition gives an account of a hundred and even two hundred thousand men being employed in