Bernward Cross
The designation Bernward Cross is mainly due to two crosses from the Ottonian period kept in the Hildesheim Cathedral Museum :
The Great Bernward Cross is a 48 cm high splendor cross in the basic shape of a Latin cross . The cross arms end in protruding rectangles. It is set in gold and richly set with precious stones , pearls and crystals.
The cross is named after St. Bernward , Bishop of Hildesheim 993-1022. According to tradition, he had from Otto III. Receive particles of the cross of Christ as a gift and have a precious reliquary made for them in the cathedral workshops . However, this can at best be an archetype or pre-form of the Bernward Cross, which in its current form was probably created around 1130/40. In iconography , it is Bernward's attribute of saints .
The Bernward cross was created as an ostensorium for the cross particles, the most precious of all relics venerated in Hildesheim; they are arranged in a cross shape under the large central rock crystal . Its original place was on the cross altar at the eastern end of the nave of St. Michael . Behind it stood the Christ column, in front of it a bronze-clad column, the body of which is made of Greek marble and is now in the Magdalenenkirche .
From the 14th century, the cross appears in the abbot seal of the Michael's monastery. After the abolition of the monastery, it was moved to the Magdalenenkirche, and then in the 20th century to the cathedral treasury.
Smaller, but of no less importance, especially for the history of medieval sculpture, is the small , silver Bernward cross , which was also created in a Bernwardin workshop. It is considered to be "a masterpiece of all early cast crucifixes, both formally and technically perfect". Inscriptions on its back leave no doubt that even this - stylistically the bernwardinischen also Ringel Heimer Cross and the Cologne Gero related - Crucifix served as a reliquary.
literature
- Martina Pippal : Lecture Cross, so-called Bernward Cross. In: Bernward von Hildesheim and the age of the Ottonians . Vol. 2, Hildesheim 1993, p. 588 (on the Great Bernward Cross; detailed description and analysis).
- Bernhard Gallistl: Bishop Bernwards Foundation St. Michael in Hildesheim: Liturgy and legend. In: Concilium medii aevi 14, 2011, pp. 239–287 ( full text ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Victor H. Elbern , Dom and Domschatz in Hildesheim , Königstein 1979, p. 70.
- ↑ so u. a. Bernhard Gallistl: Hildesheim Cathedral and its world cultural heritage, Bernward door and Christ column , Hildesheim 2000, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Bernward Cross. In: Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon, 14th edition, Vol. 2, 1893, pp. 845f.
- ↑ Ernst Günther Grimme : Goldsmiths in the Middle Ages , Cologne 1972, p. 41f.