St. Martin's Basilica (Bingen)

Basilica from the south

The St. Martin Basilica is located in Bingen am Rhein in Rhineland-Palatinate on the banks of the Nahe .

The Basilica of St. Martin has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 , and is also a protected cultural asset under the Hague Convention .

Late antique tombstone of the priest Aetherius, today exhibited in the basilica

history

The first references to Christian life in Bingen come from the 5th and 6th centuries. For example, the tombstone of priest Aetherius, which is exhibited in the church today, dates from this time. During archaeological excavations in the crypt of St. Martin, a piece of an ancient altar was found, from which the theory was derived that a temple had stood on the site of the later Christian church in Roman times. At river crossings, for example, a sanctuary of the god Mercurius would be plausible for ancient times . However, the piece of stone found does not allow such interpretations with certainty, especially since there is also the possibility that it was originally built in another place in Bingen and only found its way into the crypt of the church at a later time. The first mention of the church in written sources is a document from 793, which only proves that a piece of land near Bingen belonged to an institution that was under the patronage of St. Martin. It is possible, but not provable, that this is today's St. Martin Church.

St. Martin's crypt

The first reliable proof of the existence of today's church is a document from Archbishop Willigis of Mainz from the year 1006, which speaks of the St. Martin monastery in Bingen. Its collegiate church was St. Martin until the abbey was abandoned at the end of the 16th century or until it was formally abandoned in 1672. However, when the abbey was founded is not clear from the surviving sources, only the year 1006 is certain as the latest possible date . From the early Romanesque basilica , the crypt from the middle of the 11th century is still preserved, the groin vault of which is supported by four stone pillars with cube capitals . A column base , which was uncovered during excavations in 1925, indicates that the rest of the church was being rebuilt around the same time as this crypt.

This church building burned down in a major city fire in August 1403. Only the crypt remained and was integrated into the Gothic , originally single-nave new building consecrated in 1416 . Until 1657, the monastery choir was separated from the rest of the church, which was open to lay people , by a rood screen. In 1417, the Archbishop of Mainz, Johann II of Nassau, united the foundations associated with the Bethlehem Chapel on Rochusberg with the monastery, which was completely impoverished by the fire. In the following years the aisles were completed. The northern one was replaced around 1500 by the two-aisled, late Gothic "Barbarabau", which served as a parish church. This construction project is often dated in the literature to the years 1502–1505 without any sources, but in reality it probably took much longer and could possibly have been completed in 1510/1511 (at least one indication in the Binger Annalen indicates this).

Basilica from the west

In 1819 the monastery buildings were demolished. During the extensive restoration by Max Meckel (Limburg), the chapels on the south aisle, the sacristy and the tracery galleries on the towers (the one on the left was never completed) were added.

Pope Pius XI elevated the church on April 1, 1930 with the Apostolic Letter Moguntinae dioecesis to a minor basilica . After severe damage in World War II , it was rebuilt by 1958. In 2006, the parish of St. Martin's Basilica celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the mention of their church on October 3rd with a big festival around the church.

St. Barbara . Clay sculpture from the 1st quarter of the 15th century in the so-called soft style

Furnishing

• Crypt, probably from the third quarter of the 11th century
• Madonna Enthroned in the Barbarabau, created around 1320
• Two clay sculptures of Saints Barbara and Catherine from the early 15th century
• Dutch Altar of Mary with five paintings by Antonius van Montfoort , called "Blocklandt" (1579)
• Baroque pulpit, signed PM 1681
• Baroque high altar ( ciboria altar ) by the Mainz court sculptor Peter Heinrich Henke , donated in 1768, based on a design by the architect Johann Peter Jäger
• Otto Linnemann made glass paintings from Frankfurt

organ

Today's organ in St. Martin was built in 1971 by the organ builder Paul Ott (Göttingen). The history of the organs goes back a long way to the year 1508. In the course of time there were several new buildings. Today's organ has 46 registers ( sliders ) on four manuals and a pedal . The Spieltrakturen are mechanically, the Registertrakturen electrically. In 1995 the instrument was revised and equipped with an electronic setting system.

I Rückpositiv C – g 3 Tube bare 8th' Principal 4 ′ Capstan flute 4 ′ octave 2 ′ Sifflet 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Sharp V 1' Krummhorn 8th' Tremulant

II Hauptwerk C – g 3 Pommer 16 ′ Principal 8th' Pointed flute 8th' octave 4 ′ Flute 4 ′ Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ octave 2 ′ Mixture VI 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Trumpet 8th'

III Oberwerk C – g 3 Wooden flute 8th' Quintad 8th' Principal 4 ′ Reed flute 4 ′ Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Hollow flute 2 ′ third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ octave 1' Principle mixture V 2 ′ Dulcian 16 ′ shawm 4 ′

IV Swell C – g 3 Music-playing 8th' Chamois pomeranian 4 ′ recorder 2 ′ Principal 2 ′ Third cymbal III 1 ⁄ 4 ′ Rankett 16 ′ shelf 8th'

Pedal C – f 1 Principal 16 ′ Sub-bass 16 ′ octave 8th' Gemshorn 8th' octave 4 ′ Night horn 2 ′ Rauschpfeife II Mixture IV 2 ′ trombone 16 ′ Trumpet 8th' Trumpet 4 ′

• Pair : I / II, III / II, IV / II, IV / III, I / P, II / P, III / P, IV / P
• Playing aids: free combinations, fixed combinations (pleno, tutti), release, tongue holder, 650-fold setting system

Bells

In 1895 , the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen supplied a total of eleven bronze bells for St. Martin 's Church in Bingen and the St. Rochus Chapel , six for St. Martin and four for the Rochus Chapel. All bells fell victim to the bell confiscations of the two world wars. Today the Martinskirche has six bells made by the bell foundry Schilling from 1955.

literature

• Carl JH Villinger: The St. Martin's collegiate church in Bingen, minor basilica. Their history and their works of art. Catholic Parish Office St. Martin, Bingen 1959.
• David Hüser: Tour of St. Martin's Basilica. Basilica Parish Office St. Martin, Bingen 2006.
• Dieter Krienke: Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Volume 18.1: Mainz-Bingen district: towns of Bingen and Ingelheim, Budenheim community, Gau-Algesheim, Heidesheim, Rhine-Nahe and Sprendlingen-Gensingen ( monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2007, ISBN 978-3-88462-231-5 , pp. 80–84.
• Regina Schäfer (Ed.): St. Martin in Bingen. The history of the basilica. edition-tz.de, Roßdorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-940456-75-5 .

Web links

Commons : Basilica of St. Martin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Internet pages of the Catholic parish of St. Martin, Bingen
• Full bells of the Catholic Basilica St. Martin in Bingen am Rhein

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CIL 13, 11963
2. ^ Hauke ​​Horn: The building history of St. Martin zu Bingen. In: Regina Schäfer (Ed.): St. Martin in Bingen. The history of the basilica. edition-tz.de, Roßdorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-940456-75-5 , pp. 92–122, here p. 92.
3. ^ Hauke ​​Horn: The building history of St. Martin zu Bingen. In: Regina Schäfer (Ed.): St. Martin in Bingen. The history of the basilica. edition-tz.de, Roßdorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-940456-75-5 , pp. 92–122, here p. 93.
4. ^ Hauke ​​Horn: The building history of St. Martin zu Bingen. In: Regina Schäfer (Ed.): St. Martin in Bingen. The history of the basilica. edition-tz.de, Roßdorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-940456-75-5 , pp. 92–122, here pp. 93–97.
5. ^ Hauke ​​Horn: The building history of St. Martin zu Bingen. In: Regina Schäfer (Ed.): St. Martin in Bingen. The history of the basilica. edition-tz.de, Roßdorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-940456-75-5 , pp. 92–122, here pp. 109–114.
6. ^ Pius XI .: Litt. Apost. Moguntinae dioecesis , in: AAS 22 (1930), n.11, p. 486s.
7. ↑ St. Martin in Bingen
8. ^ Bingen / St. Martin organ. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 23, 2015 ; Retrieved November 11, 2014 . 
9. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, in particular pages 246, 247, 507 .
10. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, especially pp. 228-231, 474 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).

Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 0.1 ″  N , 7 ° 53 ′ 31.6 ″  E