Murten ossuary
The Murten ossuary was an ossuary built in Merlach west of Murten in 1485 for the bones of the soldiers and allies of Duke Charles the Bold who died on June 22, 1476 in the battle of Murten . It was demolished in 1798.
history
After the fatal outcome of the Battle of Murten on June 22, 1476 for Burgundy , the battlefield with around 10,000 fallen Burgundians and their allies was held for three days by the victors under Wilhelm Herter von Hertneck . The landowners were then forced to bury the dead on the spot and then in two pits. About ten years after the battle, the bones and skulls were exhumed and taken to the specially built ossuary, which was filled to the ceiling. The initiative to build the ossuary came about at the instigation of the prior of the Katharinenkapelle zu Murten, Peter von Erlach. The ossuary was repeatedly renovated at state expense until it was demolished. In 1506 it was provided with inscriptions on the outside of the battle. The inscriptions from the 16th century on two stone and ore plaques were brought to the town hall of Murten during a renovation of the ossuary in 1755 and replaced by two plaques with texts that follow the spirit of the times, written by Albrecht von Haller .
On March 3, 1798, when French troops marched through, with the approval of the French High Command, the musicians of the 75th Half-Brigade, who came from Burgundy, razed the ossuary with the support of Junot , the Vaudois evacuation commissioner who collaborated with France . At first the attempt had been unsuccessful to set the building on fire and to detonate it with 30 to 40 pounds of black powder . The bones were buried in the earth. A freedom tree was erected over the foundation walls . The aim of the campaign was to wipe out the shame that was supposedly inflicted on France.
The freedom tree gave way to a linden tree, which in turn was replaced by an obelisk in 1822 on behalf of the Freiburg cantonal government .
Building history
The first building around 1486 consisted of two rooms, a chapel and the storage room for the bones. In 1506 a new building was started with funds from the Bern and Freiburg governments, into which a chapel was also integrated. The use of the chapel ended with the Reformation. In 1560 the building was raised and given a new roof and external decorations. In 1755, as part of the road works between Murten and Pfauen, the roof and the front were renewed by attaching Haller's panels.
The Murten ossuary as an early tourist destination
Until it was demolished, the ossuary had the function of a national memorial and was an important tourist destination. Legends like that of the Swiss-hating knight Dürrenast, who was supposed to haunt and romp in the ossuary at night, were reported. Giacomo Casanova reports in the eighth chapter of the sixth book of his memoirs (" Histoire de ma vie ") about the visit to the ossuary. Goethe visited the ossuary in 1779, about the visit of which he wrote to Frau von Stein : We got to Murten in the rain, rode to the ossuary and I took a piece of the back skull from the Burgundians with me. Christoph Reimers wrote in 1788: Here we found many more inscriptions on the walls than fewer bones and skulls than in 1782 . In 1826, Goethe processed the impressions in a poem: "In the serious ossuary it was where I looked". One of the last prominent visitors was Napoleon , who visited the ossuary in 1797 on the way to the Rastatt Congress .
The inscriptions
On the facade of the ossuary there were panels with inscriptions. The oldest stone version dates from 1504–6 and was renewed in 1723. An identical second inscription was made in bronze in 1564.
On the occasion of the renovation work in 1755, the Bern government asked Albrecht von Haller whether the old inscriptions should be renovated or redesigned. In his reply of October 29, 1755 to the Bernese mayor of Diesbachden, Haller rejected the old text and submitted two new texts he had written in Latin with information about the ossuary and the poem below in German. The texts were accepted by the government and affixed by the Bernese sculptor Johann Friedrich Funk I to two black marble panels on the outer facade of the ossuary.
In 1797, the evacuation commissioner Junot had the bronze plate from 1564 brought to Paris , where it is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France . The stone tablets are kept in the Murten City Museum.
The inscription renewed in 1723 (1504)
DOM Caroli inclyti, et fortissimi Burgundiae ducis exercitus Muratum obsidens, from Helvetiis caesus, hoc sui monumentum reliquit anno 1476
Albrecht von Haller (1755)
Stand still, Helvetii! / here lies the bold army, before which Liittich fell, and France's throne trembled. / Not the number of our ancestors, not the artificial rifle, The unity struck the enemy, who animated their arm. / Learn, brothers, your power, it lies in your faithfulness, O would it still be, new with every reader!
On the obelisk (1822)
Victoriam / XXII Jun.MCCCCLXXVI / Patrum Concordia / Partam / Novo signat Lapide / Respublica Friburg. / MDCCCXXII
literature
- Heinrich Runge: Switzerland in original views with historical-topographical text. Volume 3, Gustav Georg Lange, Darmstadt 1866, p. 166f.
- Richard Merz: From the ossuary to Murten. In: Freiburg history sheets. Volume 30, 1929, pp. 171-181.
- Theodor de Quervain: How Albrecht Haller's inscription on the ossuary in Murten was created. In: Bern journal for history and local history. Issue 3, 1950.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Burgundy Booty and Works of Burgundian Court Art. Catalog for the exhibition in the Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bern 1969, p. 308.
- ^ Heinrich Zschokke: The classic places in Switzerland and their main places. Kunstverlag, Aarau 1838, p. 298.
- ↑ The Bein House near Murten. (March 3, 1798). on: bbf.dipf.de
- ^ Heinrich Runge: Switzerland in original views with historical-topographical text. Volume 3, Gustav Georg Lange, Darmstadt 1866, p. 166.
- ↑ W.-W. Ehlers: Casanova, the Burgundians and the Murten ossuary. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy. 70, 1987, p. 293 ff.
- ↑ Christoph Reimers: Letters about Switzerland. Volume 4, Spener 1790, p. 81.
- ↑ Albrecht Schöne: Schiller's skull. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2002, p. 55.
- ↑ The Burgundy Booty and Works of Burgundian Court Art. Catalog for the exhibition in the Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bern 1969, p. 309.
- ^ Hermann Schöpfer: Les monuments d´art et dhistoire du canton de Friborg. Volume 5: The lake district. Wieseverlag, 2000, p. 241.
Coordinates: 46 ° 55 '10.9 " N , 7 ° 5' 59.5" E ; CH1903: 574196 / one hundred and ninety-six thousand five hundred sixty-seven