Arnheider Chapel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Arnheider Chapel (also Arnheiter Chapel ) was an early medieval church building in the Mümlingtal near Breuberg in the Odenwaldkreis ( Hesse ). It was not identified as such until the 1950s. Together with the neighboring courtyard, it has a long history and is one of the oldest sacred buildings in the Odenwald .

Exterior view from the southwest. View of the chancel
Excavation plan of the Roman bath at Arnheiter Hof from the 17th century with handwritten entries and redrawing by the Imperial Limes Commission on the lower right
Exterior view from the southeast
Interior view with removed transverse wall to the chancel

Arnheiter Hof

Today's farm complex goes back to the Arnheiden desert . The village fell into desolation in the second half of the 14th century when the Counts of Wertheim founded the town of Neustadt . The re-establishment served as the center and place of jurisdiction for the majority of the Breuberg dominion, which was owned by local people . the residents were relocated.

In 1543, a plowing farmer and his ox broke into the subterranean components ( hypocaust ) of a Roman bathing building. The Counts of Wertheim let the clerk of Breuberg carry out excavations. A Fortuna motif altar and numerous brick temples of the Legio XXII Primigenia were discovered. A report ( Widmann'sche Chronik ) written by 1550 at the latest has been preserved from these activities . In 1597 Simon Studion reported the event. A precise plan with numerous marginal notes has been in the possession of the Heidelberg professor Jan Gruter since 1627 . In 1604, two four-god stones apparently came to light not far from the site , one of which is now in the Breuberg Museum on the castle of the same name .

The similarity to the fort baths of the Neckar-Odenwald-Limes led to the fact that in the early days of the Reich Limes Commission the complex was classified as a fort bath. The unfavorable location makes this seem unlikely, so that a fort "Arnheiter Hof" is no longer suspected from the middle of the last century. The bathing building could therefore be assigned to a villa rustica at the foot of the Breuberg. Despite numerous investigations, the Roman bath cannot be found today, probably due to its location in the bottom of the Mümlingtal.

The current residential building of the courtyard is of monumental value as an elongated, two-story single house with half-timbered buildings from the 18th century. The gable, roof and hayloft were later changed. There are old vaulted cellars under the farm buildings. The entire facility is privately owned and cannot be visited.

chapel

exploration

A chapel from Ottonian times has long been suspected on the basis of documentary mentions. In 1956 it was discovered by Otto Müller , the researcher of the Steinbacher Einhardsbasilika in the shepherd's house with attached wooden shed. In 1955 and 1956, the Breuberg Association had excavations carried out under the supervision of the Darmstadt archaeologist Werner Jorns, as well as construction studies under Otto Müller and Otto Ehlers, which were published in 1963 in the journal Der Odenwald . In the following years, based on the investigations carried out at the time, the chapel was built before or around the year 1000.

After a lease and exemption from use as a stable and shed in the 1990s, a “Arnheider Chapel Working Group” was founded in the Breuberg Bund. This prompted a further investigation by the University of Heidelberg , which was reported in the journal in 2004 and 2007.

investment

The chapel is a hall church with a parish room on a rectangular floor plan. The masonry consists of broken stone. The altar house is slightly narrower and has no apse , the external staircase on the side was added later. A triumphal arch formerly in between was removed during a later renovation. The first significant renovations are likely to have started with the secession of the chapel after the Reformation . In the late 19th century, a false ceiling was added, which is why all the windows that were previously installed were walled up. There was an apartment on the upper floor, a stable or a distillery on the first floor. The transverse wall was demolished down to the level of the false ceiling. Further modifications and mortar samples made it possible to identify six construction phases.

Finds

The earliest ceramic finds, apart from prehistoric sherds, can be dated between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, and these are quite long-lived forms. The find material also includes Pingsdorf goods , but most of the ceramic material comes from the 18th and 19th centuries, and late medieval ceramics are underrepresented. Among the tile finds are fragments of a Tannenberg tile, from the late 16th or first half of the 17th century there is a fragment of a so-called woodpecker glass . The latter two finds, however, are more likely to be attributed to the court than the later tenth place.

literature

  • Michaela Jansen: Archaeological investigations at the Arnheider Chapel. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 54/4, 2007. pp. 139–154.
  • Hans Teubner and Sonja Bonin: Cultural monuments in Hesse. Odenwaldkreis. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen , Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1998 ( Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ), ISBN 3-528-06242-8 , p. 222f.
  • Matthias Untermann : The early medieval chapel of the Arnheider Hof. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 51/1, 2004. pp. 3–20.
  • Gerald Wassum: The various early descriptions of the Roman bath "At the foot of the Breuberg" discovered in 1543. The chronicles of Dehner (1654) and Widmann (1550) . In: The Odenwald. Journal of the Breuberg Association . 59th volume, issue 4, December 2012, ISSN  0029-8360 , pp. 152-167.

Web links

Commons : Arnheider Kapelle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Egon Schallmayer : The Odenwald Limes. Along the Roman border between the Main and Neckar. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2309-5 , p. 11f.
  2. ↑ ORL BV, 1, No. 46 a; Friedrich Behn : The "Arnheiter Hof Castle". In: Germania 47, 1969, pp. 176-178.
  3. ^ Egon Schallmayer, in: Dietwulf Baatz , Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (ed.): The Romans in Hessen . 3. Edition. 1989. Licensed edition Nikol, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933203-58-9 , p. 244f.
  4. ^ Hans Teubner and Sonja Bonin: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Odenwaldkreis. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen , Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1998 ( Monument Topography Federal Republic of Germany ), ISBN 3-528-06242-8 , p. 222.
  5. ↑ Alexander Röder: On the building history of the Arnheiden chapel. In: Der Odenwald 10, 1963, pp. 3–9; Wolfram Becher: Report on the excavations of the Breuberg Association in the area of ​​the Arnheider Hof from July – August 1956. In: Der Odenwald 10, 1963, pp. 12–27.
  6. ^ Matthias Untermann : The early medieval chapel of the Arnheider Hof. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 51/1, 2004, pp. 3–20; Michaela Jansen: Archaeological investigations at the Arnheider Chapel. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 54/4, 2007. pp. 139–154.
  7. ^ Matthias Untermann: The early medieval chapel of the Arnheider Hof. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 51/1, 2004. pp. 3–20.
  8. ↑ Michaela Jansen: Archaeological investigations at the Arnheider Chapel. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 54/4, 2007. pp. 149–152.

Coordinates: 49 ° 49 '35.7 "  N , 9 ° 3' 7.7"  E