Barfüßerkirche (Erfurt)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barfüßerkirche and neighboring residential developments before the destruction in 1944
Barfüßerkirche, restored choir, 2007
Bronze relief Dance of Death by Hans Walther 1947, attached to the ruin since 2012
Explanation of the relief "Dance of Death" by the Erfurt sculptor Hans Walther
Barefoot Church ruins, 1953

The Barfüßerkirche was one of the most important church buildings in Erfurt and one of the most beautiful mendicant churches in Germany until it was largely destroyed by a bomb attack in 1944 . It was built in the 14th century as a monastery church of the Franciscans , who were also known as barefooters . The choir , restored in the 1950s, is located in the city center west of the Schlösserbrücke on the right bank of the Breitstrom, a branch of the Gera .

history

Barefoot Church in Erfurt, 2007

Franciscan monastery

On November 11, 1224, the brothers of the Franciscan order founded in 1210 were the first mendicant orders ("Mendicants") to settle at the gates of Erfurt . The order spread from 1221 within a decade in the empire to the Baltic Sea and preferred the cities for its monasteries. In Erfurt they first took over the abandoned church of the Holy Spirit, which had previously belonged to an Augustinian convent . At the instigation of the Archbishop of Mainz, they began building a church and a monastery in 1229/30 and probably dedicated themselves to nursing the sick. Seven years after their arrival, in 1231, they moved into the convent building on the Gera on a piece of land that they received from the archbishopric Vicedominus von Apolda, Gunther. On September 25, 1259, Archbishop of Mainz, Gerhard I, was buried in this church . The monastery was ravaged by fires several times; In 1463 numerous Franciscans succumbed to the plague . In the course of the 13th century, the Erfurt Convent became one of the central places of the Order Province, where most of the provincial chapters of Saxonia took place in the Middle Ages . From this it can be concluded that the buildings must have been of a certain size.

The Franciscans probably soon founded a school, but since the beginning of the 1230s there was a study house ( studium custodiale , studium particulare ) in Erfurt for the training of the young brothers in the Custody of Thuringia, a subdivision of the Saxon Franciscan Province ( Saxonia ) founded in 1230 The course soon changed, both in terms of its level of content and its size. The lecturer had a socius at his side, from 1371 a second lecturer can be found. The religious studies were integrated in 1392 with the religious studies of the Augustinian hermits and Dominicans in the theological faculty of the newly founded University of Erfurt ; Within the order, Erfurt received the status of a general course of the order, to which talented brothers from numerous other provinces of the order - in 1467 from a total of 14 provinces, including the provinces of Argentina (Strasbourg), Sicilia and Burgundia - were sent to study. For Saxonia , Erfurt was the training center for executives; six of the twelve provincial ministers up to 1517 had acquired a doctorate in Erfurt. The first Franciscans to matriculate in 1395 were Provincial Minister Johannes von Chemnitz and his successor (from 1396) Johannes von Minden, who from 1400 also acted as Magister regens , head of Franciscan studies, and held a chair at the university. In the years that followed, the university's teaching staff included almost all of the Franciscans who trained in the theological faculty in a course that was oriented towards the theology of the Franciscans Bonaventure and Johannes Duns Scotus .

The Franciscans in Erfurt were very cautious about the Franciscan Observance Movement and therefore belonged to the Saxon Order Province of St. John the Baptist. The Reformation they opposed; the guardian of the convent, Conrad Clinge, had been Erfurt cathedral preacher since 1530 and vehemently defended the Catholic faith. Since no new brothers could be accepted, the monastery died out; it was closed in 1594, after the death of the last Franciscan, and the convent buildings were used as a school. For a short time from 1628 onwards Minorites from Cologne came to the monastery buildings, but had to give way in 1637 when the Swedes returned to Erfurt.

Church building

After the city fire of 1291, construction began on a new monastery church, the choir of which was consecrated in 1316. The construction work on the nave of the three-aisled pillar basilica lasted until the beginning of the 15th century, the tower construction was completed around 1400. The high-Gothic church with a long continuous gable roof was one of the largest churches in the city and was a prominent point in the cityscape in the following centuries.

The elongated nave differs from that of the neighboring Predigerkirche in that two rectangular vaulted yokes were placed over an arcade. The choir of the Barefoot Church from around 1300 is longer than that of the Predigerkirche and shows simple tracery in steeply proportioned pointed arched windows. In the 15th century a slender, delicate tower was added to the north side of the choir; a low chapel was built on the south side. In the vault of this chapel there are some shield-like vault keystones from the nave, which date from around 1400. The eastern vault beam rests on a figural wall bracket that shows a hand and above it a demon head depicted upside down .

In the course of the Reformation , the church became the parish church of the Protestant Barfüßer community in 1525. Four years later, in 1529, Martin Luther preached in her on October 11th . The monastery buildings in the north of the church were demolished during the Swedish period from 1641 to 1648 and used to build a bastion for the city fortifications. A lightning strike in 1838 damaged the nave and made extensive restoration necessary from 1842 to 1852. Thereafter, the Barefoot Church served as Erfurt's Protestant garrison church . Since August 24, 1874, nameplates have been commemorating all soldiers who had died as members of the Erfurt regiments in the wars of unification .

Around 1925 Lyonel Feininger painted several pictures of the Barefoot Church, one of which is kept in the Angermuseum in Erfurt, another in the Stuttgart State Gallery . In the course of renovation work by Feininger's student Theo Kellner in 1938, ceiling painting by Charles Crodel , destroyed in 1944.

In the Second World War , from 1943 onwards, the movable art of the church and the valuable colored glazing from 1230/1240 were secured by outsourcing . The glass windows came into the vaulted cellar under the cathedral crypt. On November 27, 1944, on the night of the Sunday of the Dead at two o'clock, the church, as well as the neighboring residential area and the rectory, were hit by an air mine when several British mosquito bombers attacked Erfurt . The nave of the masterpiece of Franciscan architecture was destroyed and the high choir was badly damaged. The clearing work and the recovery of valuable architectural parts followed from 1945. The partially destroyed stalls of the church were burned in the emergency winter of 1945 by the freezing population.

On Ascension Day 1957, a service was celebrated again for the first time, in the high choir , which had been repaired since 1950 and which had been separated from the destroyed nave by a wall. The colored glazing from 1230/1240 had been reinserted, as was the restored high altar from 1445. The remains of the nave could only be secured statically and structurally. Due to the decreasing number of members, the Barfüßer congregation and the preacher congregation united in the city center of Erfurt in 1977, and the church was handed over to the city. After further renovations of the choir, the church building became a branch of the Angermuseum for medieval art in 1983 . Urgent further security measures have been taken since 1989. In November 2011, the city of Erfurt received the sum of 100,000 euros from federal funds for renovation work as part of the monument preservation program “ Nationally valuable cultural monuments ”. A total of 1.3 million euros was spent up to 2015 for static and stone renovation as well as monument conservation work.

After 1990, a memorial plaque on the street facing outer wall in front of the ruins from the GDR era was removed, which had contained the following sentence: DESTROYED BY ANGLO-AMERICAN BOMBER ON 11/26/1944. Theatrical performances have been taking place inside the war ruins since around the year 2000 , preferably comedies such as Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

In 2007 a working group “Barfüßerkirche” was formed with the aim of strengthening the awareness of the Erfurt population for this monument of national importance and thus securing the long-term preservation of the ruins or having the church rebuilt one day. In 2009, the “Barfüßerkirche working group” formed the “Barfüßerkirche Initiative Group” as an independent association. It consists of twelve volunteer members.

At the end of November 2012, the “Initiativkreis Barfüßerkirche” installed a bronze relief of the Dance of Death by Hans Walther (1947), cast on the basis of a found plaster cast, on the outer wall in front of the ruins of the Barfüßerkirche, with an explanatory plaque next to it: “Donated by Kulturfreunde aus Deutschland”.

It is planned to use the church more as a museum, using the Luther year 2017. This is how the history of the mendicant orders in Erfurt should be presented.

Furnishing

The polygonal choir has thirteen high windows, some of which have colored glass panes built into them that date from the years 1230 to 1235 and were already present in the first barefoot church. The precious discs show scenes from the Passion of Christ and the life of Francis of Assisi . These discs are the oldest surviving representations of Francis of Assisi on the territory of the German-Roman Empire.

The winged altar from 1445 is one of the most important carved altars in Erfurt. In the middle shrine it shows the coronation of Mary by Christ, scenes from the life of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit .

Also noteworthy are the tombstones of Cinna von Vargula from 1370 with an expressive stylized portrait of the deceased and Auxiliary Bishop Albert von Beichlingen from 1371.

Entombment

  • Wolfgang Ratke (also Rachitius) (1571–1635), educator and school reformer

literature

  • Ludger Meier: The Barefoot School in Erfurt. Aschendorff, Münster (Westphalia) 1958.
  • Otto Arend-Mai: The Protestant Churches in Erfurt. Wartburg, Jena 1989, ISBN 3-374-00936-0 .
  • Uwe Vetter: The Barefoot Church. Memorandum for the 60th return of its destruction on November 26/27, 1944. Published by the parish council of the Evangelical Preacher Congregation, Erfurt 2004.
  • Initiativkreis Barfüßerkirche Erfurt (ed.): One building - two fates. Between despair and hope: The Barefoot Church in Erfurt in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the destruction on November 27, 1944. Self-published, Erfurt 2014.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Chronological outline of the history of the Saxon Franciscan provinces from their beginnings to the present. Werl 1999, p. 23.25.31.55.185.
    Bernd Schmies and Volker Honemann: The Franciscan Province of Saxonia from its beginnings to 1517: basic features and lines of development. In: Volker Honemann (Ed.): From the beginnings to the Reformation. (History of the Saxon Franciscan Province from its foundation to the beginning of the 21st century, vol. 1). Paderborn 2015, pp. 21–44, here p. 30.
  2. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Chronological outline of the history of the Saxon Franciscan provinces from their beginnings to the present. Werl 1999, p. 109.
  3. ^ Jana Bretschneider: Sermon, professorship and provincial leadership. Function and structure of the Franciscan education system in medieval Thuringia. In: Volker Honemann (Ed.): From the beginnings to the Reformation. (= History of the Saxon Franciscan Province from its founding to the beginning of the 21st century , Vol. 1) Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-76989-3 , pp. 325–339, here p. 330.
  4. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Chronological outline of the history of the Saxon Franciscan provinces from their beginnings to the present. Werl 1999, p. 133.139.
  5. ^ Jana Bretschneider: Sermon, professorship and provincial leadership. Function and structure of the Franciscan education system in medieval Thuringia. In: Volker Honemann (Ed.): From the beginnings to the Reformation. (= History of the Saxon Franciscan Province from its foundation to the beginning of the 21st century , vol. 1) Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-76989-3 , pp. 325–339, here pp. 328–334 .
  6. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Chronological outline of the history of the Saxon Franciscan provinces from their beginnings to the present. Werl 1999, p. 303.325.347.349.
  7. ^ Marianne Tosetti, Volkmar Herre: Impressions in Erfurt churches . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1975, p. 7-18 .
  8. ↑ Bernd Könnig: The Prussian-German Garrison Erfurt 1860 to 1918 . Epubli, 2012, ISBN 9783844230611 , pp. 36, 55.
  9. ↑ Helmut Wolf: Erfurt in the air war 1939-1945 (= writings of the association for the history and archeology of Erfurt. Volume 4). Heinrich Jung, Erfurt 2005, ISBN 3-931743-89-6 .
  10. ^ Rudolf Zießler: District of Erfurt. In: Götz Eckardt (Ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Volume 2. Henschel, Berlin 1978, pp. 477-478.
  11. ↑ Joy about money. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung , November 18, 2011.
  12. ↑ Barfüsserkirche.de.
  13. ↑ Steffen Raßloff : Death from the air. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , March 2, 2013.
  14. ^ Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. Thuringia. 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-422-03050-6 , p. 353.

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 32 ″  N , 11 ° 1 ′ 48 ″  E