Naumburg Cathedral

Before you look up, listen. Inside this cathedral, footsteps on old stone carry a long way, and the sound seems to move slowly toward the far end of the nave. The air is cool, even on a warm day. The light comes in low and coloured through high windows, and it lands on sandstone that is warm and grey. Take a moment here. You are standing in one of the great workshops of medieval sculpture in Europe.

First, a quick note about place. Naumburg Cathedral does not stand in Weißenfels itself. It rises in the town of Naumburg, a short journey up the Saale valley from Weißenfels. Both towns sit in the same green, river-cut landscape of Saxony-Anhalt, in eastern Germany. This is wine country, too. The Saale and Unstrut rivers meet close by, and vineyards climb the slopes around them.

The cathedral is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Its story begins in the early eleventh century, when the seat of the local bishop moved here from the nearby town of Zeitz. A powerful noble family, the margraves of Meissen, supported the move and gave land for a new church. A margrave, in simple terms, was a lord who guarded a frontier region for the emperor. Their gift is the reason this building exists. And, as you will see, the cathedral never forgot them.

Look along the nave around you. Its heavy, rounded arches and thick walls are late Romanesque. Romanesque is the solid, round-arched style of building that came before the Gothic. This part of the church dates mainly from the early thirteenth century. Then the builders changed their ideas. At each end of the nave stands a choir, the area for the clergy, built in the newer Gothic style. Gothic means pointed arches, taller windows, and much more light.

That double plan is the first thing many visitors miss. Most cathedrals have one choir, at the east end. Naumburg has two, one at each end, facing each other down the length of the building. Four towers rise above the roof as well. So the cathedral is really a dialogue between two centuries and two styles. You can walk from one to the other in under a minute.

Now turn toward the west choir. Before you enter it, you pass through a stone screen. This is the rood screen, a wall that once separated the clergy from ordinary worshippers. Along its top runs a band of carved scenes from the last days of Christ. Look at the faces. Soldiers, servants and disciples argue, doubt and grieve. The figures look less like holy symbols and more like people you might meet in a market.

The doorway in the centre of the screen holds a surprise. Christ hangs on the cross right in the opening. Mary and Saint John stand on either side of the door, almost at your height. To enter the west choir, you must walk directly beneath the crucified figure, between his mother and his friend. It is a powerful idea. The sculpture is not placed above you on a distant wall. It shares the same floor as you.

We do not know the sculptor's name. Art historians call him simply the Naumburg Master, and he led a workshop in the mid-thirteenth century. His team also worked at other cathedrals in France and Germany before they came here. Whoever he was, he had a rare talent. He could carve a heavy cloak so that it seems to have real weight, and a face so that it seems to be thinking.

Inside the west choir, look up at the walls. Twelve life-size stone figures stand high on pillars around you. These are the founders, the noble men and women who gave land and money for the first church. Here is the second surprise. By the time the sculptor carved them, these people had been dead for about two hundred years. He never saw them. He created their personalities from his own imagination.

The most famous pair is Ekkehard and Uta. He stands stiff, with sword and shield. She lifts the collar of her cloak toward her cheek, as if against a cold draught, and looks out with a calm, distant face. Uta has become a symbol of the Middle Ages in Germany. People sometimes say she inspired the evil queen in an early Disney film, but that story is a popular tale, not a proven fact. Across the choir, find Reglindis. Unusually for medieval stone, she is smiling.

In 2018, the cathedral and the surrounding landscape were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. The founder figures and the west choir were central to that decision. The cathedral is not only a museum, though. It is still a working church. And it still adds new art. In a side chapel dedicated to Saint Elisabeth, look for windows by the Leipzig painter Neo Rauch, installed in the 2000s. Their deep reds glow against medieval stone.

Before you leave, walk down into the crypt beneath the east choir. It is lower, darker and quieter than the rest of the building. Short columns hold up the vaults, and the stone feels close and heavy. This is among the oldest parts of the church. Then, if the cloister is open, step outside into the cathedral garden. Medieval monks grew plants here, and today the garden is a calm place to rest your eyes after so much carving.

As you walk back out, glance once more toward the west choir. Remember that twelve strangers stand up there, watching the nave, carved by a man who never knew them. Outside, the towers rise over the red roofs of Naumburg, and the valley runs away toward Weißenfels and the Saale. Listen to your footsteps again on the stone floor. Hundreds of years of visitors have made the same sound, in this same cool air.