Ottmarsheim Abbey Church
The Ottmarsheim Abbey Church is a church building in the small Alsatian town of Ottmarsheim . The former monastery church of the Ottmarsheim monastery ( Benedictine nuns ), which mostly dates from the first half of the 11th century, is one of the most important Romanesque monuments . Your central building in the form of an octagon is modeled on the Carolingian Palatinate Chapel in Aachen . The patronage of the Church is Peter and Paul ( June 29 ).
The building is being marketed for tourism as part of Romanische Straße .
prehistory
Ottmarsheim is located on the old trunk road ( Italy -) Basel - Strasbourg - Mainz (- Netherlands ) and was settled before the Romans . The name comes from St. Otmar , who was abbot of the St. Gallen monastery in the 8th century , to which parts of the area belonged at that time.
In 1030 Rudolf von Altenburg , a son of Lanzelin , founded the Benedictine convent in Ottmarsheim, which was to become his burial place . Pope Leo IX (from Eguisheim ) consecrated the new church in 1049. The Neuchâtel ransacked the monastery in 1273, the Baslers in 1445 and 1446 , and the Bernese in 1468 . Because of this and because of the obligation to accommodate royal travelers on Heerstraße, the monastery became impoverished. The church and especially the monastery buildings were rebuilt again and again. In 1790 the monastery was secularized and demolished. The church was bought by the community and is still in their possession today.
Building history of the church
The church was built in 1020–30 based on the model of the Aachen Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne (today part of Aachen Cathedral ) and, like this, was consecrated to the Virgin Mary . At the beginning of the 13th century, the western porch to the tower was raised and parts of the outer walls restored. The church was in 14/15. Century completely furnished with frescoes and was now under the patronage of St. Peter . In 1445 almost all the frescoes were lost in the fire, restorations remained fragmentary. Around 1495, the Holy Cross Chapel was added to the southeast, and in 1582 the Choir of Our Lady in the northeast as a canonical church, while the gallery in the central area was reserved for the Benedictine nuns .
In 1695 the dome was rebuilt, which was probably damaged in the Thirty Years' War. The choir stalls from 1780 are now in Bantzenheim . Restoration work followed in 1833–1837 and 1850. The windows of the octagon and the cornice date from this time, in 1875 the remains of the frescoes were exposed, in 1903 the plaster was removed. A devastating fire in 1991 destroyed the roof stalls and the organ from the 18th century. In the following years from 1992 to 1998 the church was renovated and in 1999 a new organ was fitted.
Church graves
After parts of the floor had sunk in the spring of 1981, emergency excavations were then carried out in the central aisle of the octagon. They promoted u. a. ten graves to the day. Four of the graves probably date from the time the church was built or from the time before the current church was built. These older graves therefore probably come from a previous building of the existing church. One grave was also noticeable because it was exactly in the middle of the octagon and consisted of a brick sarcophagus . This contained only skull parts and remains of clothing, but its location in the octagon and the type of grave in the form of a stone sarcophagus made it clear that the grave of the monastery founder Rudolf von Altenburg can be seen here.
architecture
Building structure
Behind the tower with a gable roof , the tent roof of the drum rises above the monopitch roofs of the octagonal substructure, which has a ring-shaped gallery and above it the gallery . As a counterpart to the tower, a rectangular choir rises in the east with attached chapels, of which the northern, from the Renaissance period in late Gothic forms, is the more spacious.
Significant parts of the core structure are not the original structure, the octagonal drum is essentially Romanesque, but windows and cornices are neo-Romanesque ingredients. The oldest masonry from the 11th century shows small, well-hewn quarry stones with regular scaffolding holes. Other types of masonry indicate that it is a matter of restorations, not conversions. Only half of the walls are Romanesque. However, the Gothic additions made the building statically secure. Remains of an arcade structure of the bell storeys are visible on the tower.
inner space
After the dark vestibule under the tower there is the domed octagon . The room is characterized by the simplicity of the decorative elements, the interesting lighting and the balance of the masses. Two-storey passageways open to the center of the room, below through low arcades, above through high arched openings with a double arrangement of columns. The light falls through the galleries, and the room expands as a result. The windows under the dome only illuminate the upper part of the room.
To the east, the outer octagon is expanded into a rectangular chancel. The thick walls of the ground floor appear as a base due to their mass. The upper floor appears more transparent thanks to the much larger openings adorned with barred arcades. The capitals and bases of the columns are the only decorative elements in the room; their simplicity comes from the Romanesque . The side aisles are covered with vaults (cross ridge / triangular). The choir has a groin vault .
The access to the gallery is via narrow stairs in the tower. For structural reasons, too, there are barrel vaults here , which initiate the dome thrust into the outer walls, except in the tower and choir chapel area.
The extensions come from later times, the small chapel in the SE from the 2nd half of the 15th century. The large chapel in the northeast was built in 1582. It has rib vaults with keystones, one of which has the monastery coat of arms. A staircase in front of the 3/8 choir gave the canons direct access to the gallery.
Connection to the Aachen Palatine Chapel
The Ottmarsheim Octagon is a repetition of the octagon of the Aachen Palatine Chapel , built under Charlemagne in the 9th century. The core corresponds more to the model than the handling, which has 16 corners in Aachen. The pillars of the gallery are so distinctive that other models are ruled out. However, not only is the floor plan shown in a simplified manner. The vaults are also simpler in Ottmarsheim, the architectural decoration is particularly simple and no longer antiquing (in Aachen, capitals and columns from Italy were reused). The church in Ottmarsheim is also considerably smaller.
The recourse refers to the widespread worship of Charles in the 11th century. The octagon also refers to its importance as a church of the grave for the monastery founder, whose grave lies in the middle of the building.
organ
The organ was built between 1999 and 2000 by the organ builder Richard Dott. In 1991 the previous instrument, which had been built by the organ builders Joseph Waltrin and Johann Georg Rohrer between 1726 and 1728, was completely destroyed in a fire. The new instrument has 27 registers on two manuals and a pedal.
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- Coupling: II / I, I / P, II / P
literature
- Hans Jakob Wörner / Judith Ottilie Wörner-Hasler: Ottmarsheim Abbey Church. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2002.
Web links
- Ottmarsheim Abbey Church. In: arch INFORM .
- Architecture and description of the Abbey Church of St. Peter and Paul in Ottmarsheim with some pictures
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Jakob Wörner / Judith Ottilie Wörner-Hasler: Abbey Church Ottmarsheim. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2002. pp. 29–30.
- ↑ More information on the history and description of the organ
Coordinates: 47 ° 47 ′ 14.4 " N , 7 ° 30 ′ 27.3" E