RELATIVE CHRONOLOGY
Unfortunately, we do not know precisely when Hildebold's
church was started; therefore, it was to be expected
that Doppelfeld's view of its priority over the Church of
the Plan of St. Gall should be challenged. Adolph Schmidt
voiced the opinion that both buildings might have a
common root in a prototype plan developed during the
two reform synods of Aachen (816-817).[167]
Irmingard
Achter, Albert Verbeek, and Fried Mühlberg went so far
as to question the Carolingian origin of Cologne Cathedral
altogether and ascribed it to the time of Archbishop
Bruno (953-956).[168]
Doppelfeld never budged from his
original position[169]
and further excavations seemed to
confirm his view. In a careful and exhaustive re-analysis of
the entire archaeological and documentary evidence available,
Otto Weyres[170]
arrived at the conclusion that the
concept of the church, the foundations of which are
shown in figure 14, is essentially that of Archbishop
Hildebold—a concept created on its initiative under the
impact of the enhanced significance that the empire of the
Franks had acquired through the coronation of Charlemagne
at Rome in the year 800—and for that reason
probably put into effect in the years immediately following
this important event. Hildebold, who held the position of
arcicapellanus at the court of Charlemagne, had witnessed
with his own eyes the construction, step by step, of the
Palace Chapel, Aachen (ca. 790-800). His own cathedral at
Cologne with its thin walls, then already 300 years old,
had become outdated. Before the year 800 Hildebold had
already made an attempt to enlarge it westward with a
semicircular atrium (by more than 20 years older than the
semicircular atria of the Plan of St. Gall).[171]
After the
coronation of Charlemagne in Rome, Weyres argues,
Hildebold took the decisive step of tearing down the entire
ancient fabric of the Merovingian cathedral and of laying
the foundations for a new one (fig. 15): an aisled church
with apse and counter apse, a western transept, and an
extended eastern choir. The foundations of this building
(VIIa) are well attested, yet nothing is known about its
elevation. When Hildebold died in 819, the project was not
finished, but it must have been sufficiently advanced at
this time to be identified with him by later generations.
Certain conditions of the masonry and the soil suggest
that after Hildebold's death, construction was disrupted or
moved very slowly. There is good reason to believe that
the building was close to completion when Archbishop
Gunther was deposed in 864, since in the troubled six
years that followed not much could have been done.[172]
The
church was solemnly dedicated by Archbishop Willibert
on September 27, 870 in the presence of the archbishops
of Mainz, Trier, and Salzburg and all of the suffragans.[173]
The imprints of two piers on the foundation of the northern
row of arcades disclose that the nave walls of this building
(VIIb) were supported by piers, 5.67 m. long (15 Roman
feet), at a clear interstice of 4.17 m. (14 Roman feet). A
reconstruction of this church, as proposed by Weyres, is
shown in figures 15 and 16. There is no conclusive evidence
that the elevation of this church was identical with that
which Bishop Hildebold had in mind. The imprints of its
pillars were found on a level of the foundations that seemed
to lie above the fabric completed at the time of Bishop
Hildebold.
Weyres' conclusions about the date and building sequence
of Cologne Cathedral are persuasive and suggest
that if there were any conceptual links between the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall and the Carolingian cathedral of
Cologne, it was the latter that influenced the former, as
Doppelfeld had proposed in the first place, and not the
other way round.
