COLONIA, Archdiocese of. - The Archdiocese of Cologne, together with its suffragan sees of Limburg, Trier, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Münster, and Osnabrück, forms the ecclesiastical province of Cologne, also known as the Lower Rhine province. The archdiocese covers an area of 6,000 sq. km. and has a population of 4,000,000, of whom 2,500,000 are Catholics. Before 1939, it counted 1,484 churches with 697 parishes, served by 2,100 diocesan priests, 200 regulars, 269 seminarians, 50 male religious houses with 380 religious, and 506 female religious houses with 825 religious; it also had 292 hospitals and care homes with 29,505 patients. For the seminaries, there are two colleges in Bonn on the Rhine, namely the Albertinum and the Leoninum; the last two years of seminary formation are spent at the seminary in Bensberg near Cologne. Alongside the archbishop are two auxiliary bishops and the metropolitan chapter.
In the year 30 B.C., Cologne was one of the seats of the Germanic Ubii, and in A.D. 50 it became a Roman colony, which, by decree of Emperor Claudius and his wife Agrippina, was named Colonia Claudia Augusta Agrippinensis. Soon Cologne became the capital of a province and temporarily also an imperial residence.
The first historically attested bishop was Maternus, who was present in 313 at the Synod of Rome and in 314 at that of Arles. The presence of Christian communities can be demonstrated as early as the 2nd century. Around 400, Cologne was conquered by the Franks; in 511 by the Merovingians; and became part of Austrasia. In 925 it became definitively German.
Following the grant of the duchy to Bruno I (953–956), the temporal power of the archbishops of Cologne was established. From 1028 until the 16th century, they had the right to crown the sovereign, and from 1131 they became chancellors for Italy, and from the 13th century with electoral dignity. Around 1288, the city freed itself from the power of the archbishops, who thereafter had their seats in Bonn, Brühl, Godesberg, and Pappelsdorf.
During the Middle Ages, Cologne was one of the greatest and most respected cities for its artistic treasures, its learning (the University was founded in 1388), and also for its industry and economy (one of the most distinguished members of the Hanseatic League).
The attempts of Hermann von Wied (1515–1546) to make the region Protestant were unsuccessful. The apostasy of Archbishop Gebhard II Truchsess (1577–1583) provoked the so-called "Cologne War" (1583–1588). The defeat of the prince-elector saved Catholicism in northwestern Germany. After Ernest of Bavaria (1583–1612), various Bavarian princes obtained the archiepiscopal dignity. The last prince-elector, Maximilian Francis of Austria (1785–1801), fled in 1794 before the French into Westphalia. Between 1801 and 1803, the archdiocese was secularized and divided into the Archdiocese of Cologne on the East Rhine and the Diocese of Aix-la-Chapelle in the West Rhine. In 1821, following the bull *De salute animarum* of Pius VII, the old order was restored.
Archbishop Clemens August, Baron Droste zu Vischering, played a prominent role in the so-called "Cologne Troubles," i.e., the struggle of the Protestant Prussian state against the Catholic Church (dispute over mixed marriages). The conflict continued between Bismarck and Archbishop Paul Melchers (Kulturkampf, 1866–1885). In 1930, on the basis of the concordat with Prussia (13 August 1929), Pius XI restored the division between Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne with the bull *Pastoralis officii nostri*. Highly venerated in Cologne are St. Ursula and St. Gereon with his companions, martyrs of the Diocletian persecution.
Among the greatest archbishops is St. Bruno (925–965). Also from Cologne are St. Bruno the Great, founder of the Carthusians, and St. Albert the Great (1193–1280). St. Thomas Aquinas was his pupil in Cologne from 1248 to 1252. In the church of the Friars Minor in Cologne is the tomb of the *Doctor Subtilis*, Duns Scotus. In the same church is the tomb of Adolph Kolping (b. 8 December 1813 at Kerpen near Cologne, d. 4 December 1865 in the metropolis), founder of the journeymen’s association (*Gesellenverein*) and one of the most eminent popular educators.
Cologne is the seat of the provincial houses of the Jesuits of the Lower Rhine, the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, the Alexians or Cellite Brothers, the Augustinians, the Sisters of St. Vincent, the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration, the Carmelites, the Poor Clares, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and the Ursulines. The archdiocese counts 21 male Marian congregations and 34 female ones.
The University of Cologne was founded in 1388, following the model of Paris, and is the first German university founded by a city. The theological faculty included Dominicans, Franciscans, Hermits of St. Augustine, and Carmelites. Students who had left Heidelberg because of the plague and Paris because of the schism represented the first growth of the University. Northern European countries were more numerous than others both in professors and students. The most famous faculty was the theological one. The University flourished in the 16th century; in 1528 a decline began, which was halted by the Jesuits. The scholastic method of this University was always the "via antiqua," i.e., the scholastic realism taught by St. Thomas and St. Albert.
The various monasteries and congregations had founded seminaries attached to the theological faculty; in addition to these, there existed from 1610 to 1670 a Dutch seminary (Collegium Hollandicum). At the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, the University first sympathized with it, but soon took the side of the papacy and distinguished itself by ecclesiastical severity. It accepted theses derived solely from the *Summa Theologica* of St. Thomas. Indeed, as early as 1250, the University had condemned the doctrine of Luther.
After its dissolution ordered by the French in 1798, its restoration failed in 1818 due to the resistance of the Prussian government, which decided to found the University of Bonn on the Rhine. Only in 1919 was a new University with five faculties established.
Cologne is the seat of the "Caritasverband" of the archdiocese and of the central office for Catholic statistics in Germany. Besides two theological boarding houses, there are four classical secondary schools in Münstereifel, Neuss, Opladen, and Rheinbach. In 1922, the Albertus Magnus Institute for the study of his doctrine was erected in Cologne. The state higher school of music includes a section for Catholic church music. In Cologne is also an Institute for religious art, the archdiocesan library with 60,000 volumes, the historical archive of the city and archdiocese, and the Schnütgen Museum, which contains religious art from the entire Rhineland. Among the 33 scholarly unions of the city, the Catholic Görres Society (*Görresgesellschaft*), the Union of Catholic Academics (*Katholischer Akademikerverband*), and the Advisory Congregation (*Zentralbildungsausschuss*) for Catholic unions in Germany are prominent.
Already in the Roman period, COLOGNE possessed various churches, preserved until the war of 1939–45. The oldest church was the ancient cathedral in the centre of the city, where later the church of St Cecilia was erected. Soon churches were built over the tombs of martyrs: St Gereon to the north-west of the city, also called ad Sanctus Aureus; to the north of the city St Ursula, also called ad Sanctus Virginis. In the Merovingian period the church of St Clement was built, later St Cunibert, and on the Roman temple, St Mary in Campidoglio; near it were the churches of St Andrew and of the SS Apostles. St Bruno I founded the Benedictine abbey of St Pantaleon.
Of the Gothic churches the most illustrious is the Cathedral. Gothic too are the churches of the Friars Minor, the choir of St Ursula and St Andrew with the tomb of Albert the Great.
The Duomo is one of the greatest European cathedrals, a masterpiece of Gothic art. Its history stretches over centuries. After 300 years of work the construction was halted for three centuries. Only with the beginning of the Romantic period, in the early 19th century, did the desire arise to complete this national monument. In its construction the Duomo shows influences from north-western France, where similar examples had already been created. The basilica has five naves, interrupted by a three-aisled transept that completes the structure. In it the two principal seats were assigned to the pope and the emperor. The Duomo was the parish church for the high nobility of the archdiocese.
ARCHAEOLOGY. — COLOGNE has open-air Christian cemeteries with shrines dedicated to St Ursula, St Gereon and St Severin. The burial system used wooden coffins, stone sarcophagi or simple graves with stone slabs. At St Severin it has been established that the Christian cemetery was established above an earlier pagan one. At the same site Frankish graves were later superimposed. The Christian cemetery has yielded gold-glass vessels of the 4th century. A fine inscription of a Concordia from the end of the 4th century displays the monogram K with the two letters A and Q and two palm branches; another inscription in the city museum recalls a Romula societate martyribus (CIL, XIII, 8486). Even more important than those at COLOGNE are the discoveries of a Christian cemetery at Bonn, beneath the collegiate church already dedicated to St Martin but which also preserves the name of St Cassius, companion of Florentius, the two martyrs of Bonn. Another crypt was found beneath the Romanesque basilica belonging to an earlier sacred building. Beneath the floor of the crypt a large burial area was discovered with stone sarcophagi.
Very precious too is the glass cup (4th century) found at Münstersdorf with biblical scenes on a gold ground.
ART. — The greatest flourishing of the painting school of COLOGNE occurred between the late 14th and the mid-15th century. The works of the school display a traditionalist character, imbued with a gentle lyricism, sometimes cloying, verging on the graceful and the miniaturist.
The Cologne masters, almost all of foreign origin and mostly remaining anonymous, lived in the Schildergasse and belonged to one of the 22 Gaffeln, which regulated their production.
Among the most interesting painters of the school are to be recalled: Wilhelm von Herle, author of a Madonna with pea-flowers (Wallraf Museum), of a St Veronica (Munich Pinacoteca) and of an altarpiece for the Clarisses (1380) in which the Sienese influence is visible, arriving via Prague and Avignon: it is here for the first time that we find that type of fair-haired Virgin, with rounded forehead, downcast eyes and small mouth, which will recur in all the works of the Cologne masters. Stephen Lochner, originally from Meersburg on Lake Constance, moved to COLOGNE where he died in 1451. He can be considered the pre-eminent representative, the most significant of the school. The works that can be attributed to him with certainty are the Last Judgement, which is the oldest (Cologne Museum), the Madonna of the Rose Garden (Wallraf Museum) and the Madonna with the Violet (Archiepiscopal Museum), the Presentation in the Temple (Darmstadt Museum), which is the only dated work (1447, maturity of the artist), and thus the triptych of the Cathedral (c. 1440), a true masterpiece for its admirable balance, the vivid characterisation of the figures and the masterly technique and expressive force. After him, the Cologne masters (first half of the 15th century) were influenced by the Flemish artists of Bruges and Louvain, especially by Jan van Eyck and by Roger van der Weyden. Among them are remembered the so-called Meister des Marien-Lebens, author of seven panels of the life of Mary (Munich Pinacoteca) and of the Vision of St Bernard in which, through the influence of Thierry Bouts, a profound sentiment is expressed together with a graceful realism. A lesser painter is the Meister der Verherrlichung Maria with whom the school of COLOGNE moves ever further from mysticism. The Meister der Heiligen Sippe owes his name to a panel with that subject (Cologne Museum): his too is a St Sebastian rich in dramatic effect. The Meister von St Severin dominates the school at the end of the 15th century: in the Adoration of the Magi and in the Cycle of St Ursula he reacts against the cloying idealism of the earlier masters, exaggerating, without falling into the banal, the ugliness and vulgarity of the figures. With him the influence of Roger van der Weyden ceases and that of Quentin Metsys begins; he also merits recognition as the first portraitist of the school. The Meister des Bartholomäus-Salz-Taschen, if not in style, at the beginning of the 16th century and trained in the school of Martin Schongauer: his works (some altarpieces and a Deposition which is the masterpiece) redeem themselves from a certain knowing vulgarity through the magnificence of the vivid colours filtered through a shadowy ground.
In the 16th century, the Cologne masters were influenced by the masters of Antwerp, such as Scorel, Heems-Kerk and especially Joos van Cleve. The latter had great importance for Barthel Bruyn (b. at Wesel in 1493, of Dutch origin, d. 1557) who won considerable fame as a portraitist; his religious paintings are cold imitations of Italian Mannerists known through Jan van Scorel.
— See Plates CXXVII–XXVIII.