Talk:Cologne Cathedral

Superlative statement in the lead is unsourced

The superlative statement "The choir has the largest height-to-width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church." in the lead is unsourced. The ratio had been originally stated as 5:1 with Wim Swann: The Gothic Cathedral being given as the source by Amandajm (talk · contribs). The only section of this work discussing the choir dimensions is on page 226, stating Cologne's to have the tallest choir keystone after Beauvais Cathedral. The comments in the work could be misread as stating Beauvais' choir to no longer be standing ("ill-fated"). This source gave the height to height to width dimensions of 50 feet to 150 feet (3:1 ratio). The statement was later amended during the same cluster of edits in 2007 by the same user, to give the currently cited A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method by Banister Fletcher as a source and the ratio adjusted to the current 3.6:1. The relevant pages for the ratio given in the article come from pg. 394 and 395 stating the width of the nave (identical in width to the choir) to be 41.5 feet (41 feet and 6 inches), that number divided by the choir height given in the diagram on 395 of 150 feet produces the 3.614457831313... given rounded to the first decimal point in the article. Neither of the two sources gives the superlative statement and the first rather tremendous ratio given of 5:1 seems to have been a math error which might have been the origin of the superlative statement. I would remove it, but I lack expertise in this field and fear it might be correct. Pari Sarcinator (talk) 16:51, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

A problem that occurs regularly is that figures that startout in metres are translated onto feet, and hen roughly back into metres, so that the original measurement is lost somewhere along the way.

I dont know where the 5:1 ration came from.... and I am taking a long Sabbatical from Wikipedia. I previously wrote a number of the major articles on architecture. They date from a time when the system of referencing was much less tight than it is now. These older articles should be covered by a grandfather clause to prevent deletion simply onthe grounds that the current standard of referencing is not met.

When the article Gothic architecture was effectively ruined... I tried to retrieve it but met with an incredible amount of opposition from two editors, neither of whom knrw the subject, but both of whom could find, copy and paste, sections from books.

The article on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling was similarly affected by the pasting of spurious information not linked in meaning. English Gothic architecture was treated witha similar lack of understanding.

Part of the idiocy was the statement from these editors that the Gothic architecture article focused too much on cathedral (and abbey) architecture. So they attempted to carve off a new article on Gothic cathedrals. The reason why this is stupidity is that the Gothic style developed exclusively in cathedral and abbey churches, and was not applied to secular buildings for many years. When it appeared, it did so as ornament, the vaulting of larger chambers, and the great Town Hall towers of the Lowlands. In other words, the precedent set by the two major articles on Romanesque architecture needed to be followed- Romanesque architecture and Romanesque secular and domestic architecture

So I reached a point where I became so fed up, that i went on extended leave, and only drop by occassionally.

Amandajm (talk) 01:11, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Does the section above called "Height to width ratio 5:1." help? Johnbod (talk) 13:55, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Not really. As explained I traced the ratio statement and its sources, the 3.61 ratio certainly isn't unsourced, what is unsourced and much more problematic is the superlative claim about the "largest" ratio. I cannot find any sources substantiating this claim. But I'm not too familiar with the subject, thus I am hesitant to remove it outright. ~~~~ Pari Sarcinator (talk) 10:46, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The possible contenders here are Beauvais Cathedral. Amiens Cathedral and Cologne Cathedral. If you check the measurements and do the maths, then you will know. Amandajm (talk) 15:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Images in "Medieval beginning"

There appear to be far too many images disrupting the text. Could these be thinned out and/or moved to a gallery? Thanks Martinevans123 (talk) 13:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Is a dimension missing?

The table of dimensions is very well done in my opinion. But is there a good reason that there are no numbers for internal length? (Internal width is already given.) TooManyFingers (talk) 21:30, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

What happened to the Notes section?

In the infobox, there is a sentence that mentions "Tallest in the world from 1880 to 1884/1890" with a dead link to a nonexistent Notes section. Dirtdizzy247 (talk) 05:22, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus

I contacted the Dom and asked for its official name. Answer: "Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus"

The mail I got is from a nice person from the Metropolitankapitel (the organisation "owning" the cathedral), that seems to be a much better source than the imprint of a website.

"Dudes, I has mail" is probably not the best RS possible, how can I wikify this source? ~2026-37064-08 (talk) 13:58, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Copying from my help page post for the benefit of readers of this article:

Unless otherwise specified, emails from individuals are are assumed to have no intermediaries between the sender and the receiver; that is, the sender usually doesn't pass it to a second party to be fact-checked and so forth before sending it. (There may be after-the-fact oversight, as in "You wrote what? You're fired", and that actually does have value, but now we're getting down into the weeds.)

However, just like a blog post, an email could be considered reliable if the writer is so expert and so trustworthy that we may be entirely confident of her statement. But unlike a blog post, there's no way that we can prove that the sender is who she says she is to the reader. A reader has to be able to access the source, be it a book, website, video, or whatever, without egregiously unreasonable effort. That's not possible with an unpublished source.

But let me congratulate you on your intrepid energy here. You are doing exactly the right thing, and I've done it myself: step one is to determine if a datum is actually true, and if it is, then cast about for for supporting sources that we can use in the article.

So, a quick google on "Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus"... Right off I get this (reliable? I don't know) with "Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom, officially Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus) is..." But then I do note that on the German wikipedia "Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus" is a redirect to the article Kölner Dom which has "Der Kölner Dom (offiziell Hohe Domkirche zu Köln[1]) ist...". So on the merits, I guess more work might need to be done, possibly ending up with "some sources say this, some sources say that...." (After all, the Dom may be just be repeating what he's always assumed; few single sources are always 100% slam dunk, when there are other possibilities.) But here's where I get off. Herostratus (talk) 19:38, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

"Hohe Domkirche zu Köln" (ie. what's currently listed as official name) is the name of the building's owner, a Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts. This would be exactly what you would expect from its website imprint. I'm gonna be bold.... --~2026-37064-08 (talk) 03:49, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

The diocese apparently wants to mock Wikipedia, that's why they list four potential "official names" on their website. --~2026-37064-08 (talk) 04:02, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

For shits and giggles, list of potential "official names", with source:

1. Hohe Domkirche St. Petrus Köln (diocese)
2. Hohe Domkirche St. Petrus (diocese)
3. Hohe Domkirche (diocese)
4. Kathedral- und Kapitelskirche St. Petrus (diocese)
5. Hohe Domkirche Sankt Peter und Santa Maria (Brockhaus Digital)
6. Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria (Richard Gassen: Mittelalterliche Kirchen in Köln)

Yeah. --~2026-37064-08 (talk) 17:15, 17 July 2026 (UTC)