Liebfrauenkirche (Bremen)

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Liebfrauenkirche from the west: facade between the towers redesigned at the end of the 19th century, as well as the lower area of ​​the right side front
Liebfrauenkirche and town hall

The Church of Our Lady is located northwest of the market square in Bremen on the square of Our Lady Churchyard . After the cathedral, it is the oldest church in the city and was the first parish church outside the cathedral district , and thus also the council church. It has been a listed building since 1973 .

history

1876, no gable, no rosette, no portal between the towers

In the founding document of the Stephanikirche from 1139, today's Liebfrauenkirche is mentioned as the “Market Church of St. Veit”. In a papal letter from 1220 it is then called "Sancta Maria Bremensis". As elsewhere, Holy Mary was referred to as "Our Lady". Accordingly, today's evangelical congregation of the church calls itself the congregation of Our Dear Women . The place around the building is officially called Our Dear Women Cemetery and, colloquially, the Liebfrauenkirchhof .

First churches in Bremen

From 805, Willerich , the second bishop of Bremen, not only had the Bremen Episcopal Church, which was destroyed in the Saxon Wars , rebuilt, but also - in wood - two other churches. One was St. Wilhadi , the burial chapel for his predecessor. The other is not described in more detail, but is mostly equated with the later St. Vitus Church.

Hall church and basilica

A new wooden building for this oldest parish church in Bremen was built in 1020 by Archbishop Unwan .

Around 1100 a tower was built in front of the nave, today's south tower. It is the oldest surviving part of the church. For the equipment of a wooden church with a stone tower there was the Verden Cathedral at that time as a parallel case. There is no archaeological or written evidence of a stone nave of St. Veit at that time.

In the first half of the 12th century, a Karner chapel with a leg cellar was built on the north side of the church . However, the cellar with its groin vaults may originally have belonged to a private house and only later was used for sacred purposes.

Around 1160 the church was extended to a three-aisled basilica with three apses . Remains of the sandstone arches, to which the secondary apses connected, have been preserved in the eastern end of the aisles. And today's north wall contains sandstone masonry and outward arched portals of those of the basilica.

The rededication of the patronage to the Mother of God Maria ( Our Dear Women ) can only be proven in 1220, but is said to have already been carried out before.

Division of the parish

At the admonition of Pope Gregory IX. the meanwhile strongly grown Liebfrauenparrei was divided, between Sögestraße and Brill the parish of Sankt Ansgarii was created , upstream on the Weser the Martinikirchspiel . Since the parish was founded on Stephaniberg in 1139 , there have been four parish churches in Bremen's old town since then. In addition, the Wilhadi Chapel was later temporarily used as a parish church for the lay residents of the cathedral district .

Hall church

Middle and eastern row of yokes of the 4-column hall and some choir

At about the same time as the vaulting of the Bremen Cathedral, which began around 1224, the Church of Our Lady was then rebuilt in the early Gothic style into today's hall church. In connection with this, a second west tower was erected on the north corner of the building, higher and with a slightly larger cross-section than the Romanesque one. Although the vaulted yoke built between the two towers stands exactly in front of the central nave of the church hall, the (north) west facade is asymmetrical.
The ground floor of the north tower still has Romanesque form. The ground floor room of the north tower formed the archives of the Bremen Council , the Tresekammer, at the latest by the 14th century (but probably earlier) . The bar could only be entered from inside the church. The vaults and windows of this room still have Romanesque arches.

Extensions

Around 1300 a fourth nave was added on the south side, which made the position of the towers even more asymmetrical. Probably at the same time the north windows of the ship were enlarged and equipped with fine high Gothic tracery. In the 14th century the choir was extended from one to three bays.

Since the Reformation

In 1582, the pastor of the Liebfrauengemeinde, in agreement with Mayor Daniel von Büren the Elder, had J. and councilors remove and destroy the altars, crucifixes, sculptures and other images from the nave.

In 1625 the previous ossuary of the Liebfrauenkirchhof was demolished. The bones kept there were brought to the leg cellar under the north aisle.

From 1857 to 1860 the southern ship was divided. The lower area is now used for community rooms, while the daylight continues to penetrate into the worship hall through unglazed tracery windows .

In the further course of the century, houses built on both sides of the south pot were removed, then the community school built in front of the north tower and extending to the middle section of the west facade. From 1893 to 1896, the cathedral master builder Ernst Ehrhardt redesigned the rather simple middle section into a magnificent facade in the Romanesque-Gothic transition style.

In 1944 the north tower burned out as a result of an air raid. There was devastation in the nave, but no major damage.

Former outbuildings

  • Reduced old west entrance and former pastor's house

  • Neo-Romanesque main entrance

The Liebfrauenkeller was located in the northwest corner of the church and was used for gastronomic purposes from 1948 to 2002 (ice cream parlor, Schnuchel confectionery , Liebfrauenkeller restaurant , New Yorker disco ).

The Liebfrauenschule in the parish of the Liebfrauenkirche, which was located in the second aisle and in extensions in front of the west side, took over the city in 1901, gave it up and tore down the school buildings.

The Liebfrauen-Gaststätte or the Liebfrauen-Restaurant was located from 1871 to 1891 on the northwest corner of the Liebfrauenkirchhof . When the 18th century Bickhaus was demolished, the restaurant moved to Sögestraße / corner Queerenstraße before it was bombed in 1944.

Current condition

Key data

Ground plan in 1900

The Liebfrauenkirche has two towers.
The north tower is 84.2 meters high with the approximately 6 meter high weather vane, making it the third largest church tower in the city after the two towers of the cathedral . Its width is 9.4 m. The tower clock is at a height of 37.4 meters.
The smaller south tower has a height of around 30.5 meters and a width of 8.3 meters.

The roof height of the nave is 22.9 meters.

The total length of the church building is about 59 m and the total width about 34 meters.

Outer walls

Southwest side with decorative brick gables; small neo-Gothic window on the ground floor
North-east side with Romanesque arches on the ground floor, Gothic nave windows and simple brick gables

The core masonry of the south tower consists largely of granite boulders and is only superficially faced with porta sandstone .

The outer walls of the nave are made of brick, apart from the remains of the basilica masonry, but are covered with sandstone up to the eaves level . Only the gable triangles of the transverse roofs face brick. On the south side they are elaborately designed, with a relief of pilaster strips and blind arcades and, in some cases, bricks glazed in different tones. The gable triangles on the north side, on the other hand, have no decorative elements. The roof edges on the western and central north gables are made of sandstone, on the eastern side they are made of brick. On careful inspection, a thin leveling layer of brick can be seen under the ledge that borders the gable triangles below. Under the slightly higher central ledge of the north tower, there is a similar leveling layer of bluish brick in the north and west walls. This makes it clear that the large areas of bluish brick in the north and east walls of this tower are not a result of repairs, but rather a result of the construction period. Just as many other early Gothic buildings have little or no external buttresses (for example the Hochhor of Magdeburg Cathedral ), the Church of Our Lady did not have buttresses during the early Gothic renovation. Only the additions to the south aisle and the long choir were built with them.

inner space

Walls

Inside the hall church has three by three bays and thus forms a Westphalian square . Four of the nine vaults are eight-part domical vaults with a ring rib and a cone-shaped keystone. The other five bays have cross vaults with round bar ribs, which are supported on cross-shaped pillars with corner services for the ribs and bulging half-column templates. The church was vaulted by the same builders who created the vaults in Bremen Cathedral at the time of Archbishop Gerhard II. The chalice block capitals with stylized foliage have their origins in a Westphalian stonecutter and spread to the north.

  • West row of yokes, north window darkened due to facade work

  • Choir and pulpit, seen from the left aisle

  • Inner right aisle: neo-Gothic tracery windows to the outer aisle;
    in the front wall remains of a Romanesque apse arch

Wall design

From 1958 to 1965 the interior was redesigned according to plans by the architect Dieter Oesterlen . The most important change for the spatial impression was the removal of the plaster, so that the church interior is now stone-visible. Under the white paint at the time, there were still remains of medieval wall paintings that were removed with the plaster. A few remains of frescoes in the vaults of the north aisle still bear witness to the original colored design.

Furnishing
Choir, altar and pulpit, seen from the inner right aisle

The cross on the altar is said to have been only a temporary measure at first. However, it comes close to the principles of reformed church design, which only provide a simple table instead of an altar, since the center of the service should not be a material object, but God's word.

The pulpit from 1709 was created by Gerd Rode and is supposed to be a foundation of the merchant Siemon Post (father of the state archivist Hermann Post ), who was the builder of the Liebfrauenkirche. The four evangelists are depicted on the pulpit .

On the west wall of the north aisle hangs an epitaph for Dietrich von Büren († 1686) by the hand of the Copenhagen sculptor David Etener. Several old grave slabs are embedded in the floor.

light
"Pentecost Window" by Alfred Manessier in the choir

The windows destroyed in the Second World War were replaced from 1966 to 1973 by brightly colored stained glass windows by the French artist Alfred Manessier (1911–1993). The eastern window and the western round window deal with different aspects of the proclamation of the word of God. The other windows are subordinate to these four main windows as colored light curtains.

The Flemish candlesticks date from the middle of the 17th century. Today, however, the interior is more strongly characterized by a large number of modern lights with spherical black housings, which give the lower three to four meters of the otherwise dark room due to the exposed masonry the brightness required for a church service.

Leg cellar

The leg cellar under the north aisle has served as a coal and heating cellar since 1890. It has been set up as a prayer room for St. Vitus' Chapel since 1992 and has direct access from the church.

organ

Inner south aisle with organ

Since the 16th century, there has been more documented mention of the organs in the church. The organ was built in 1953 by Paul Ott (Göttingen). Until the tower yoke was restored, the instrument stood on the west wall of the (bricked up) tower yoke and was placed in a new case in 1964 on the west wall of the south aisle . The instrument was last overhauled in 1984 by the organ building company Karl Schuke (Berlin), whereby the disposition was also changed slightly.

I Rückpositiv C – f 3
1. Wooden pipe 8th'
2. Quintadena 8th'
3. Principal 4 ′
4th Reed flute 4 ′
5. Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
6th Forest flute 2 ′
7th Octave 1'
8th. Scharff IV-V
9. Dulcian 8th'
Tremulant
Cymbelstern
II Hauptwerk C – f 3
10. Quintadena 16 ′
11. Principal 8th'
12. Hollow flute 8th'
13. Octave 4 ′
14th Pointed flute 4 ′
15th Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
16. Octave 2 ′
17th Mixture VI-VIII
18th Trumpet 16 ′
19th Chip. Trumpet 8th'
20th Trumpet 4 ′
III Breastwork C – f 3
21st Dumped 8th'
22nd Principal 4 ′
23. recorder 4 ′
24. Gemshorn 2 ′
25th third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
26th Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
27. Cymbel III-IV
28. Vox humana 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
29 Principal 16 ′
30th Sub-bass 16 ′
31. Octave 8th'
32. Gedacktpommer 8th'
33. Octave 4 ′
34. Wooden flute 4 ′
35. Night horn 2 ′
36. Rauschpfeife II
37. Mixture X
38. trombone 16 ′
39. Trumpet 8th'
40. Schallmey 4 ′
  • Coupling : I / II, III / II, I / P, II / P

Peal

The ringing consists of a bell. Next to that there is only the clock bell. The ringing bell has the strike tone c sharp '+ 3 (it hangs in the right tower), the clock bell has the tone g sharp' (it hangs in the left tower). The bell was cast in 1727 after the old one broke the same year.

Monuments

Moltke equestrian statue
on the north tower
Memory and prayer room for those killed in all wars

Two monuments indicate that the Liebfrauenkirche was also the church for the Bremen garrison from 1867 to 1919.

  • On the western wall of the north tower there has been an equestrian statue of the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke since 1909 .
  • After the First World War, the bar on the ground floor of the tower was designed as a memorial chapel for the soldiers who fell from the Bremen garrison, with a monument in the form of a sarcophagus with the reclining figure of a dying soldier created by the Munich sculptor Friedrich Lommel . In 2011 the place of national hero worship became a memorial and prayer room for those killed in all wars. Frosted glass plates on the walls show corresponding Bible verses, and frosted glass plates with the names of the fallen surround the sculpture. So it no longer dominates the room without having to remove it.

The parish

The community of Our Dear Women has its community center at H.-H.-Meier-Allee 40a. In 2017 the community center Our Dear Women with the community center with a cubic hall and the two-storey day care center was inaugurated.

The community maintains the regionally important boys' choir Unser Lieben Frauen Bremen , which was founded in 1945 by Cantor Harald Wolff.

Personalities

Fresco from the 15th century in the St. Vitus chapel, which was probably built as a leg cellar in the 12th century

literature

Two sides of the north tower, which is otherwise faced with sandstone, are made of blue-gray brick at the height of the transverse roof gables.
  • Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments - Bremen Lower Saxony. Munich 1992, ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , pp. 18-21.

See also

Web links

Commons : Our Dear Women Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ All heights of the Liebfrauenkirche determined by indirect height measurements on July 13, 2009 by J. Möhring. Older height information for the north tower: 86 m (no information whether with or without a weather vane).
  2. ↑ Determination of the total length and width via satellite image (July 2009).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  2. ↑ Bremisches Urkundenbuch I. No. 89 (p. 38): ... ecclesiam sancti Viti, que est forensis ...
  3. ↑ Bremisches Urkundenbuch I. No. 120 (p. 143), Pope Honorius' arbitration order from September 9, 1220: "... sanctae Mariae Bremensis ..."
  4. ^ Wilhelm von Bippen (among others): History of the City of Bremen (Müller, 1892–1904) ›Volume 1› First book. Bremen in the Middle Ages ›First chapter. Bremen under the bishops. P. 13.
  5. ↑ Manfred Rech (ed.): Found Past - Archeology of the Middle Ages in Bremen. , (= Bremer Archäologische Blätter. Supplement 3). 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3233-6 .
  6. ↑ Uwe Bölts, The building history of the Liebfrauenkirche (Master's thesis), pp. 185–259 in: Dietmar von Reeken (ed.), Unser Lieben Frauen - The history of the oldest church community in Bremen… , Edition Temmen, 2002, ISBN 978-3-86108 -677-2 (antiquarian or State Archive Bremen : Ag-266, in the magazine)
  7. ↑ Bremen document book. Volume 1 [1863], delivery 2-3: documents up to 1300. pp. 171ff., Document no. 150 from 1229.
  8. ↑ Bremen document book August 27, 1139 : Archbishop Adalbero (II.) Relocates the Wilhadikapitel to the Stephaniberg and grants the church, which the citizens of Bremen have promised to build there, the parish right within the city for all citizens who live from the Elverici house to Stephaniberg, as well as for the villages of Utbremen and Walle.
  9. ↑ Othmar Hinz (Ed.): Light that sings. Alfred Manessier's window factory in Bremen. Bremen 2012.
  10. ↑ Photographs of the windows on the parish side
  11. ↑ Gottfried Sprondel (former pastor of ULF): Alfred Manessier's church window work in Liebfrauen. (PDF)
  12. ^ Frank Laukötter: The Bremen Pentecost Window by Alfred Manessier as a sign of German-French friendship . In: Art and Politics, 15.2013, pp. 135–141.
  13. ^ Fritz Piersig: The organs of the Bremen city churches in the 17th and 18th centuries. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch 35, 1935, pp. 380 ff. And 400–413.
  14. ↑ More information on the history of the organs of the Liebfrauenkirche

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 35 ″  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 27 ″  E