Our Lady with the Arrows
Our Lady with the Arrows , Arrows Madonna for short , is the name of an approximately 80 cm high Pietà (Vesper picture) carved from oak from the 14th century, which was originally venerated in the Gräfinthal Monastery and today in the Holy Cross Chapel in Blieskastel is kept.
description
The sculpture - a crowned Mary made of oak, 80 cm high and about 40 cm wide, who holds the body of Jesus on her lap - is colored ; the crown is made of gold-plated silver. There are five iron, medieval arrowheads in the sculpture; the broken shaft is still clearly visible on one of these arrowheads.
The miracle of Brudermannsfeld
According to a legend , the miracle of Brudermannsfeld , Our Lady with the Arrows was created by a knight who became a hermit and carved the image in his hermitage near today's Blieshaben-Bolchen with great skill and set it up for devotion in a tree niche. A band of robbers is said to attack the hermit and, out of anger that they could not find anything in him, put the crossbow on the Mother of God. Where an arrow struck the heart of Jesus, blood had gushed out; then the robbers fled. It is also said that a blind man who learned of this event allowed himself to be led to the figure, grasped the bleeding area and was able to see again.
The young Countess Elisabeth von Blieskastel († 1273) is said to have heard of the miraculous portrait and visited it; in the process she was freed from her painful eye disease. Legend puts the founding of the Gräfinthal monastery in connection with this event.
history
In 1671 a Graefinthaler Miracle Book appeared in print, which today only exists in a single damaged copy, reports numerous miracles when the Mother of God was invoked and contributed to the popularity of the pilgrimage site.
The Reformation and Enlightenment , in particular the Catholic Enlightenment and the associated turning away from material external manifestations of faith, led to a restricted ban on pilgrimages by the Bishop of Trier, Clemens Wenzeslaus of Saxony . A year later, the Graefinthal monastery belonging to the Metz diocese was dissolved. In 1786, the Graefinthaler Wilhelmiten moved to the town of Blieskastel as regulated canons and brought the picture with them to the Sebastianskirche. Countess Marianne von der Leyen , who lives in Blieskastel, donated the crown and the pine backboard to Our Lady with the arrows . The crown bears the following inscription in French : “Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by the Countess von der Leyen and Hohengeroldseck, née Freiin von Dalberg, in 1787” ( French : “Offert à la Ste. Vierge par la Cte de Leyen et de Hohengeroldseck, nee Baronesse de Dalberg, l´année 1787 “). The miraculous image should have found its place in the new collegiate church, the construction of which began in 1788.
The French Revolution thwarted this. The evacuation commission of the French Republic had the miraculous image called up for auction in 1794 instead. The Blieskastel maids were awarded the contract. After the Sebastianskirche was closed in 1809, the miraculous image was transferred to the new parish church of Blieskastel - the castle church - and placed on the left side altar for veneration. In 1829 the miraculous image found a new home in the Holy Cross Chapel. Here it stood quite high on a console on the left side wall, wrapped in clothes, and was finally forgotten. After its rediscovery, it was subjected to a restoration in Munich in 1911, during which mainly the patina was removed. After the work was completed in 1913, a strong pilgrimage began again, and Blieskastel developed into a place of pilgrimage.
While in 1962 the Pietà was dated by the then head of monument protection, Martin Klewitz , to "the late 14th century" or "around 1400", Heinrich Klein estimated in an article about the Gräfinthal monastery in the Blieshaben-Bolchen homeland book in 1980 that Lady with the arrows must have been from the beginning of the 14th century. The art historian Josef Adolf Schmoll called Eisenwerth dated the creation of the sculpture in 1994 to the middle of the 14th century, more precisely to the years between 1340 and 1360.
In 1925 the Saar area and in 1949 the Saarland issued stamps with the motif Our Lady with the Arrows .
Today, Brudermannsfeld is on the southern route of the Jakobsweg , which leads from Hornbach (Palatinate) through the municipality of Mandelbachtal in Bliesgau via Sarreguemines to the intermediate destination of Metz . The place is designed like a grotto. A picture of the Madonna and an explanatory panel from the Mandelbachtal tourist office refer to the miracle event. On Brudermannsfeld there is a single monument from the 17th and 18th centuries. Century.
rating
The artistic expression of this Vesper picture is highly valued. The relatively large hands and feet emphasize the stigmata , the wound in the side faces the viewer. This clearly highlights the subject of prayer. The physically small figure of Christ in relation to Maria shows analogies to the mystical writings of Bernardine of Siena , who wrote that Maria dreamed back her dead son as a child. The incarnation and suffering of Christ as facts of redemption merge here. Bernardine of Siena was mainly active at the beginning of the 15th century, while the Arrows Madonna was created in the 14th century. Therefore, the relatively small figure of Christ could also be an indication that the image of Mary could have been a model for the Vespers images . In 2002, Thomas Meyer demonstrated in his study of the Graefinthaler Miracle Book of 1671 that the individual elements of the legend (forest brother, Madonna, robber, blood miracle, healing, the counts of Blieskastel) stand side by side and are based on widespread religious-historical motifs, so that a a concrete historical connection between the individual elements and with the present Madonna figure does not necessarily have to be given.
literature
- Adam Langhauser: The Arrows Madonna in the Holy Cross Chapel in Blieskastel (Palatinate). West Palatinate Publishing House, St. Ingbert 1914.
- Nikolaus Lauer , Clemens Jöckle : Pilgrimage to Our Lady with the Arrows, Blieskastel. Pilgrimage Blieskastel (= Small Art Guide. Vol. 816, ZDB -ID 51387-8 ). 6th, revised edition. Schnell & Steiner, Munich a. a. 1991.
- Josef Adolf Schmoll called Eisenwerth : The Pietà from the Gräfinthal Monastery in the Kreuzkapelle on the Klosterberg near Blieskastel / Saarland. To date the wooden Vesper image to the 14th century. In: Saarpfalz. Special issue 1994, ISSN 0930-1011 , pp. 50-64.
- Thomas Meyer: The so-called "Gräfinthaler Mirakelbuch". Testimony to baroque religiosity and the subject of a digital edition. In: Saarpfalz. 21 vol., No. 2, 2003, pp. 38-63.
- Thomas Strauch: The myth about the Vesper picture by Blieskastel . In: Bergmannskalender. 2008, ZDB -ID 1460592-2 , pp. 177-182.
- Tourist office Mandelbachtal e. V. (Ed.): Mandelbachtaler Legenden 1 - The miracle of Brudermannsfeld , Mandelbachtal 2010.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Collectors' Guild St. Gabriel ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c Thomas Meyer: The so-called ›Gräfinthaler Mirakelbuch‹. Evidence of baroque religiosity and the subject of digital edition 2002
- ↑ a b Joseph (!) Adolf Schmoll, called Eisenwerth: The Pietà from the Gräfinthal monastery in the Kreuzkapelle on the monastery mountain near Blieskastel / Saarland. To date the wooden Vesper picture to the 14th century ; in: Saarpfalz. Sheets for history and folklore; Special issue 1994; ISSN 0930-1011 , page 51 on the preliminary work, page 61 on Schmoll (called Eisenwerths) own dating
- ↑ Thomas Meyer: The so-called ›Gräfinthaler Mirakelbuch‹ , chap. 4.3.3.
