Barefoot Church (Augsburg)

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The barefoot church

The Protestant barefoot church in the old town of Augsburg was built in the 13th century by the Franciscans ( barefooters ). After its extensive destruction in World War II , it was partially rebuilt in a simplified manner. The church building, which today consists mainly of the former choir and side walls and has no tower, protrudes from the tangle of narrow streets and simple gabled houses and appears straight and accurate in its strict form.

The Barfüßerkirche is Bertolt Brecht's baptistery and is now a monument in the Augsburg district of Lechviertel, eastern Ulrichsviertel .

History of the Barefoot Church

The interior of the church in the 18th century

In 1243 the Barfüßerkirche was built as a small church by the brothers of the Franciscan Order, founded in 1210, in the middle of Augsburg's Lechviertel next to the Barfüßertor . The Franciscans were on the large Chapter of Mats of the Order at Pentecost in 1221 at the Portiuncula Chapel in Assisi of St. Francis of Assisi was sent to Germany, reaching over Trento, Bolzano and Bressanone on 16 October 1221 in Augsburg, where they built the first monastery in Germany . In 1244 the church consecrated to James the Elder was given the patronage of the Holy Virgin Mary. The Romanesque successor building, consisting of a single-nave basilica from 1265, was destroyed by fire in 1398. From 1407 to 1411, the Barefoot Church was rebuilt as a single-nave basilica in the Gothic style on the old foundation walls. The Alexius Chapel was donated by Ulrich Rehlinger, an Augsburg patrician . The inauguration took place on August 23, 1411 by Bishop Friedrich Wilhelm Wiedenholzer.

During the Reformation , a first Protestant sermon was held in the Barfüßerkirche in 1524. In 1535, after the Franciscan monastery was dissolved , the church became the first Protestant church in Augsburg.

The first documented mention of the organ by Marx Günzer goes back to 1609. In 1758 the renaissance instrument was dismantled for the installation of a new, no longer preserved, magnificent organ and transferred to the parish church of St. Martin von Gabelbach . It is considered to be the oldest known organ in southern Germany.

The crucifix and the "Christ Child" were created by Georg Petel from Augsburg in 1631 and 1632. Matthäus Gundelach , Abraham Synacher and Andreas Löscher designed the gallery pictures. From 1724 to 1760 it was redesigned according to the late Baroque taste of the time. In the course of the redesign, the pulpit was also created by Christoph Friedrich Rudolph in 1750 .

In 1757, the magnificent organ created by Johann Andreas Stein was installed. In 1777 Wolfgang Amadé Mozart played on his city ​​trip (1777–1781) on this instrument, which Stein had built without a short octave , and said: […] we came up with the choir. I started to Præludiren, then he (= Johann Andreas Stein) laughed , then a fugue. I think so, he said, that they like to play orgl; Whom you play like that - - from the beginning the pedal was a little strange to me because it wasn't broken. it started c, then d - e, in a row. But Beÿ is D and E above, like Eb and F # here. but I got on straight away. […] Johann Samuel Birkenfeld's choir grille was completed in 1760. In 1825 the neighboring Barfüßertor and the Alexius Chapel were demolished.

During the Second World War , the Barefoot Church was destroyed in the British air raids from February 25th to 26th, 1944, except for the outer walls of the choir. The entire interior - including the carved pulpit and the magnificent organ - was lost in the flames. Until 1951 the church was rebuilt in a simplified form and without towers. In the place of the rear nave, which was not rebuilt, there is now an inner courtyard.

The organ, built in 1958, was built by the Rieger workshop . It has 35 registers on three manuals and a pedal .

In 2013, by chance, part of the “Barefoot Archive” with historical documents, believed to be lost, was rediscovered in an old cupboard in the attic. It has been considered lost since 1944.

Art treasures of the Barefoot Church

The large painting “The Baptism of Christ” by Johann Heiss dates from between 1680 and 1690. Together with the altarpiece “The Last Supper” by Gottfried Eichler from 1730, it still adorns the otherwise simple interior of the Barefoot Church.

The organ built in 1609 for the Barfüßerkirche by the Augsburg organ builder Marx Günzer is currently the oldest known organ in southern Germany. This Renaissance instrument has been in the village of Gabelbach near Zusmarshausen since 1758 . It was played in the Barfüßerkirche for 150 years before it was replaced by a new one for the 200th anniversary of the Augsburg religious peace in 1755, which is why it was dismantled and sold to Gabelbach, where it was restored in 2016. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played on this new organ by JA Stein in October 1777 , as can be seen from a letter to his father. Albert Schweitzer also played on this organ on May 31, 1929.

The figure of the "Christ Child" by Georg Petel from Augsburg can be seen in the choir. This figure was placed on the pulpit created by Christoph Friedrich Rudolph in 1750 as the crowning of the sound cover. The figure is considered one of Petel's most important works and is one of the few remnants of the pulpit.

  • View into the church towards the altar

  • patio

  • Part of the cloister in the Barefoot Church

  • The new organ

  • The door in the choir lattice by Johann Samuel Birkenfeld

  • "Christkind" by Georg Petel , 1750

  • "The Baptism of Christ" by Johann Heiss

  • “The Last Supper” by Nicola Grassi

literature

  • Gerd Geier (Red.): Tradition and new beginnings: To the Barefoot Augsburg; a reader; Festschrift for the barefoot anniversary 1999. Wißner, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-89639-509-2 .
  • Dorothea Band, Markus Johanns: God to praise and honor: precious altarpiece of the Barefoot Church Augsburg; Catalog for the exhibition in the Schaezlerpalais in cooperation with the municipal art collections Augsburg; April 17th to June 27th, 1999 on the occasion of the barefoot anniversary "Tradition and Awakening". Wißner, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-89639-510-6 .

Web links

Commons : Barefoot Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 19.
  2. ↑ The Franciscan Monastery to the Barefooted. (PDF; 46 kB) on the website of the House of Bavarian History.
  3. ↑ Manuela Bauer: The Mecca of organ fans. Retrieved May 21, 2019 .
  4. ^ Andreas Link: Augspurgisches Jerusalem: Citizens, Artists, Pastors: Evangelical Baroque Painting . Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009, ISBN 3-4220-6867-8 , page 37
  5. ^ Salzburg, International Mozarteum Foundation: Letter from Wolfgang Amadé Mozart to his father. Augsburg on October 17, 1777. In: Mozart letters and documents. Online edition, digitized
  6. ↑ Sensational find in the Barfüßerkirche: woman finds centuries-old archive. In: Augsburger Allgemeine . 4th June 2013.
  7. ↑ The oldest organ in southern Germany. ( Memento from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Press release University of Augsburg, February 15, 2006.
  8. ↑ Franz Körndle: The history of Günzer organ from 1609 in Gabelbach . In: Ars Organi . Vol. 64, 2016/4, pp. 199–202.
  9. ↑ Source: Exhibition in the cloister of the church

Coordinates: 48 ° 22 ′ 10 ″  N , 10 ° 54 ′ 3.1 ″  E