Alt St. Thomae (Soest)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alt St. Thomae in Soest.
Note the redesign to the hall church that can be seen on the structure : the older axis of symmetry went from the Romanesque church tower to the Gothic choir . The main nave was later extended to the south so that the tower and choir are now north of the main axis of the church.
Aerial photo summer 2014

"Leaning Tower" is the colloquial name for the church of St. Thomae in Soest, which was founded in the 12th century in the course of the construction of the new Archbishop's Palatinate . The official name of this church, Alt St. Thomae, is used to distinguish it from the nearby former monastery church of Neu St. Thomae . The leaning spire of Alt St. Thomae occupies a special and eccentric place in the silhouette of the Soest church towers. With the expansion of the Romanesque building to the early Gothic hall church in the 13th century, Alt St. Thomae is one of the oldest Gothic church buildings in Germany. Alt St. Thomae is the only church in Soest in the immediate vicinity of the city wall and is also the only one of the Soest churches to have a church garden.

history

The oldest Romanesque parts of Alt St. Thomae date from around 1180. However, there was already a chapel-like predecessor building in the same place around 900. Around 1270 the church was extended in the early Gothic style. The leaning tower spire was not erected until the 17th century. The Evangelical Reformed Church, which narrowly escaped demolition in the 19th century, was severely damaged in March 1945. The traces have been preserved up to the present day: Church services in the small evangelical-reformed congregation mostly take place under the tower, while the actual church interior (visible through a pane) is largely unplastered and without a uniform floor covering as a reminder of the eventful past.

Leaning tower dome

"Leaning Tower" from the north. Clearly recognizable is the purely Romanesque design of the tower

The idiosyncratic crooked spire, inclined to the west, was built in 1653 by the town carpenter Goebel Styes. This means that attempts to explain the misalignment that refer to older historical conditions are ruled out from the outset, according to the widespread explanation that the tower dome bowed, as it were, to the Archbishops of Cologne as lords of Soest. Because as early as 1449 Soest had become independent of the Archbishops of Cologne as rulers in the Electoral Cologne Duchy of Westphalia as part of the Soest feud . Today, two - not mutually exclusive - explanations of misalignment are usually used:

  1. The inclination of the tower hood results from damage in the beams (supported by wood investigations).
  2. The tower hood leans against the local main wind direction (west wind).

Bells

Three bells from three centuries hang in the tower . They sound together in a diminished triad . The oldest, the large prayer bell , is one of the best sounding bells of its time in Westphalia.

No.
  		Surname
  		Casting year
  		Caster
  		Diameter
(mm) 		Mass
(kg) 		Nominal
( HT - 1 / 16 )
1 Prayer bell 1571 Rochus Nelman 1,227 ~ 1,400 f sharp 1 -5
2 - 1962 Bell and art foundry Rincker 0.999 a 1 -2
3 - 1767 IF Heintz 0.720 0.~ 200 c 2 -5

See also

literature

  • Hugo Rothert: The parish of St. Thomae zu Soest. On the history of a Protestant community in Westphalia. Kurtze (i. Komm.), Soest 1887.
  • Helmut Deus: Building history of the church St. Thomae zu Soest (=  Soest scientific contributions, volume 9). Mocker & Jahn, Soest 1954, ISSN  0171-3752 .
  • Evangelical Church Community St. Thomae Soest (Ed.): St. Thomae Soest. Festschrift of the Protestant St. Thomae parish for the inauguration of the church on October 2, 1966. Libertas-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1966.
  • Hubertus Schwartz : Soest in his monuments. Second volume: Romanesque churches (=  Soester Scientific Contributions, Volume 15). 2nd unchanged edition. Westfälische Verlagsbuchhandlung Mocker & Jahn, Soest 1978, ISBN 3-87902-029-9 , pp. 153-179.
  • Fritz Bamberg: Romanesque and Gothic churches in the Soest district on both sides of the Hellweg. Published by the Soest district. Laumanns, Lippstadt 1984.

Web links

Commons : Alt St. Thomae  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt Kramer : The German bell landscapes . Volume 1: Claus Peter: Westphalia . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-422-06048-0 , p. 55 (Westphalian art) .

Coordinates: 51 ° 34 ′ 10 ″  N , 8 ° 6 ′ 56 ″  E