Alexander Church (Wildeshausen)
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The St. Alexander Church is a late Romanesque church building in Wildeshausen . It is considered to be the oldest sacred building and the only surviving Romanesque basilica in the Oldenburger Land .
history
As early as 851, Waltbert - a grandson of the Saxon Duke Wittekind - had transferred the relics of the martyr Alexander from Rome to Wildeshausen. A collegiate church was built there in his honor , possibly initially made of wood.
Basilica since the 13th century
At the beginning of the 13th century there was a stone church building, of which the Romanesque lower part of the western building is still preserved. Its two western towers collapsed shortly after each other in 1219 and 1224, as indirectly passed down through a chronicle written in the 17th century.
Obviously, the nave was also seriously damaged, because in 1224 work began on building a new church. This also begun Romanesque basilica of brick with the plan of a Latin cross was completed around the 1270th In their bound system , the side aisles each have six bays up to the crossing , the central nave three. While on the sides of the main nave the arcades to the side aisles, the friezes above and the older windows have round arches, the girdle arches of the central nave are ogive and its vaults are ogival ribbed vaults of the Gothic type.
The decision to put only one tower on the lower west building instead of restoring the two-tower facade was made in the 14th century. The tower is made of brick, but the corners of the wall are emphasized by large sandstone blocks. The lower brick floors are decorated with blind arcades made of Gothic pointed arches. On the west side there is also a (probably later added) late Gothic keel arch made of fine stone carving . The two upper tower storeys, framed partly in Gothic pointed arches, partly also in round arches, surprisingly have biforias Romanesque design as windows.
At the end of the 15th century, the church received a new choir with pointed arched domical vaults , and several of the old narrow Romanesque windows in the side aisles were replaced by larger Gothic ones.
In the 17th century a renovation took place according to the taste of the time. These structural changes were reversed during a major renovation between 1907 and 1910, which was carried out under the direction of the architect and Oldenburg construction officer Adolf Rauchheld . The choir was painted in Art Nouveau style . The altar, pulpit and windows were also rebuilt in strict Art Nouveau forms, whereby care was taken to ensure that they harmonized well with the late Romanesque building. During the Second World War, the tower caught fire in 1945 due to artillery fire, which destroyed the top of the tower. It was rebuilt in 1948 in the shape of 1224.
A renovation begun in 1951 was completed in 1970. With her, the large Gothic cross returned to its original place under the crossing arch . Another altar and another matching new pulpit were installed underneath. In 1953 some frescoes were uncovered, the oldest of which - in the sacristy - date from the 13th century. The Art Nouveau painting was whitewashed with white paint.
In the years 2000 to 2004 the church was completely restored and the Art Nouveau paintings from 1910 were exposed and restored.
Remter
A remter is attached to the south transept of the church , which extends north-south. This dining and dormitory of the Canons of Alexandri Monastery is almost entirely made of field stone. Erected between 900 and 1000, it is one of the oldest inhabited buildings in Germany.
Building description
The church has the plan of a Latin cross, with a three-aisled nave and a narrow transept that is not very wide on the sides.
The nave is bordered to the west by a west building . It is the oldest part of the building and protrudes on both sides over the aisles. It still comes from the previous building and supported the two towers that collapsed in 1219 and 1224. While the rest of the church from brick is built, consists of the west building of granite quadern, hewn from boulders . The main entrance in the middle has the garb of sandstone , the innermost sheet is a trefoil arch . The portal does not have a tympanum .
The church tower stands in the middle of the west building, has wall corners made of stone blocks and is divided into four floors by cornices . The two lower ones are adorned with gothic ogival arcades , the two upper ones, framed in blind arcades Romanesque shape to the front, but Gothic shape to the sides, Romanesque shaped bezels as windows. A late Gothic sandstone keel arch is inserted in the second of the four floors of the west wall of the tower . The tower has a transversely rectangular floor plan. Its height of 55 m is unusual for the Oldenburger Land and demonstrates that St. Alexander was built as the northernmost nationally important church in Westphalia .
The nave has ogival arch, the arches are widely pulled down, so that vaulted and side walls to the fighter almost equal to the amount to each other. This construction directs the thrust of the central nave vault into the ceilings of the side aisles and made flying buttresses superfluous, which were quite common when today's basilica was built. The transition from the wall services to the bulging ribs of the simple vault is only interrupted by relatively narrow capitals and bulging rings that appear delicate in overall proportions . The influence of the Osnabrück Cathedral on the former monastery becomes clear in these stylistic features .
The not quite square crossing is three steps higher than the nave. In addition to the diagonal main ribs, the vault has orthogonal crown ribs. At the top of the dome, all the crossing ribs meet in a ring. Capitals and pillar bases are richer than in the nave.
The choir is raised again by a few steps compared to the crossing. Its vault is dome-like and three hundred years younger than that of the nave. The vault ribs end in a figuratively decorated keystone . A tripartite division of the east wall can be seen on an engraving by Matthäus Merian . This fact and the subdivision of the side walls of the choir suggest that it was originally divided by niches.
Furnishing
Choir and crossing
The church is equipped with a Gothic crucifix made of oak, which was created around 1300 and was originally colored. His arms end in quatrefoils , in which the symbols of the four evangelists , human, lion, bull and eagle are represented. The cross hung in the south transept for a long time .
One of the builders probably immortalized himself as a self-portrait around 1250 in a crouching support figure that supports a console stone with bent arms.
Two dainty sacrament niches on the north side of the choir date from before the Reformation, one from the first half of the 14th and one from the end of the 15th century. The filigree Levite chair on the south side of the choir and the little Madonna on the north-western pillar of the crossing also date from the late 15th century . The simple stone baptismal font also dates from that time; however, in 1947 a copper bowl for the baptismal water was fitted into it.
On the north side under the crossing arch is the Art Nouveau pulpit, made by the Bremen artist Georg Karl Rohde , who also designed the windows. The Art Nouveau altar under the large window on the back wall of the choir was created by the Oldenburg artist Max Gökes .
Under the cross is the 12 apostle altar and on the south side the new pulpit, both created by Gerhart Schreiter during the renovation in 1951–1970.
sacristy
The sacristy at the southern end of the transept is a remnant of the monastery building. On the walls there is a cycle of frescoes from the 15th century depicting the youth and suffering of Christ. In 1954 another layer was found underneath it with paintings from before 1270, in particular a beautifully designed falcon hunt.
organ
The organ was built in 1970 by the Kleuker company to complete the renovation . The slider chest instrument has 38 registers on three manuals and a pedal . The breastwork is swellable. The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, III / I, I / P, II / P, III / P
- Playing aids: 6 setter combinations, pleno, single tongue storage.
Peal
The church tower houses three church bells . One of these was cast in 1448.
local community
The church became Evangelical Lutheran in the course of the Reformation in 1699. A service takes place every Sunday at 10 a.m., once a month at 5 p.m. (“G17” service in modern form).
See also
literature
- Hans-Joachim Prochnow, Lothar Klimek : The Alexander Church in Wildeshausen . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1970.
- Hans-Christoph Hoffmann: Evangel.-luth. Alexanderkirche Wildeshausen (= Small Art Guide No. 1769). Schnell und Steiner publishing house, Munich / Zurich 1989.
- Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Alexander Church in Wildeshausen. In: If stones could talk. Volume 1. Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1989, ISBN 3-7842-03973 , pp. 106-108.
- Wilhelm Gilly: Medieval churches and chapels in the Oldenburger Land. Building history and inventory. Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-126-6 , p. 180 ff.
- Hartmut Berlinicke: The Alexander Church of Wildeshausen. An art and cultural historical consideration of changing content-related religious ideas in the artistic design of a Saxon-Romanesque basilica . Culturcon Medien, Berlin / Wildeshausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-941092-26-6 .
- Hermann Haiduck: The architecture of the medieval churches in the East Frisian coastal area . 2nd Edition. Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebs-GmbH, Aurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-940601-05-6 , p. 101 .
Web links
References and footnotes
- ↑ Information on the organ
- ^ Bells of the Ev.-luth. Alexanderkirche Wildeshausen , accessed on September 3, 2018.
Coordinates: 52 ° 53 ′ 56.2 " N , 8 ° 26 ′ 15.7" E