Bickesheim
Bickesheim is the name of the northern part of the municipality of Durmersheim ( Rastatt district , Baden-Württemberg ).
history
Numerous finds point to an old settlement that seems to have been inhabited from the later Bronze Age , the so-called Urnfield Culture (approx. 1300–750 BC) up to late antiquity . There are finds from the Merovingian and Carolingian times from the time after the Great Migration. During work on the Federbach in the early 1930s, several medieval dugouts from the 10th and 11th centuries were found. The first documented mentions of "Bickesheim" come from this time ; these are only fragmentary and do not make it possible to reconstruct a coherent history. Around 1065 Samuel, abbot of the Weissenburg monastery in Alsace, bequeathed the altars of the Redeemer and Our Lady to several servants' farms bought with his own money. Four of these farms were in "Bugcheneshem", which may mean Bickesheim (but perhaps also one of the places on the left bank of the Rhine, Bockenheim an der Weinstrasse , Böchingen or Buckenheim / Sarre-Union ). There is a mention from 1102 that clearly refers to Bickesheim, as well as several others from the 12th and 13th centuries. Manors are mentioned several times, but never an independent " community " of Bickesheim. The Herrenalb Cistercian monastery in particular is mentioned several times as the owner of a farm near Bickesheim, the last time in 1292.
After that, the settlement of Bickesheim was abandoned for unknown reasons.
Pilgrimage church
The pilgrimage church “Maria Bickesheim” has been preserved, the oldest parts of which have been preserved dating back to the 13th century. It is therefore unclear whether the church originally had something to do with the “Bickesheim” settlement (the finds mentioned were all made several hundred meters north of the church, not at the church itself). From the year 1459 a document of Pope Pius II reports that the church is "extra habitationem hominum constructa", i. H. "Built by people outside the residential area" - consequently there was no longer a settlement near Bickesheim at that time.
The church seems to have been a joint project of the Counts of Eberstein (who were wealthy in the area and who also founded the aforementioned Herrenalb Monastery) and the Margraves of Baden (who then extended their territory into the Bickesheim area). This is evidenced by a Baden-Eberstein alliance coat of arms on a column of the church, which reminds of Margrave Rudolf I and his wife Kunigunde von Eberstein. However, the church was not completed in the 13th century, but remained a ruined building: the central nave had only one aisle, the main choir was missing (was only added in the 15th century) and the exterior of the church, especially the main entrance, remained unadorned. The lack of a bell tower (the church has to date only a small ridge turret with a bell) perhaps suggests influence of the Cistercian monks of Herrenalb out that yes had property in the area, because the Cistercians built according to the resolution of the General Chapter of 1157 their churches without bell towers ("Turres lapidece ad campanas non fiant"). In the Middle Ages, the church was endowed with several benefices, at that time the fair, which still takes place several times a year, was probably created. The extent to which the church already had a supra-regional significance as a pilgrimage church cannot be determined.
During the Reformation and the multiple changes of denomination to which the margraviate of Baden-Baden was subjected, the church suffered greatly. It only became important again for the Counter-Reformation , which Margrave Wilhelm carried out in 1622. The pastoral care in the church was with the Jesuits, who had a branch in Ettlingen; these also massively promoted the pilgrimage to the Blessed Mother of Bickesheim. During the baroque period, the interior of the church was redesigned and a Jesuit priest, whose name was not known, wrote the first printed publication on the church and the pilgrimage in 1747 with the baroque title: “Clock-old and devout veneration of the wonderful mother of the Eternal Son of God in Bickesheim / Unter the title General Refuge whose Nothleydenden / presented in two parts ... “ .
After the repeal of the Jesuit order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the Bickesheim church was initially looked after by the Ettlingen parish and then from the neighboring Durmersheim. For this purpose, various priests were employed as primissars and beneficiaries, for example Engelbert Kleiser in 1898, who became increasingly blind due to an eye disease and went down in history as the “blind pastor” . During his tenure, the number of pilgrimages increased steadily.
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the exterior of the church was also subjected to a thorough renovation, which was almost the same as a new building. In the years 1908/09 the main nave was extended by 4.8 m to the west and received a new facade, and the side nave also got its own portal. The ceiling of the main nave was raised by 3 m and the main nave received a new roof. A large gallery with openings in the upper aisle towards the main nave was created in the roof structure of the new towing roof over the aisle. The painter Wilhelm Ettle installed the “historical painting” above the triumphal arch of the main choir ; it depicts various personalities from the Baden family who had a special relationship with the Bickesheim church. The church, which was renovated several times in the 20th century, has retained this appearance to this day. To support the pilgrimage, the Redemptorist Order founded a branch in Bickesheim in 1920 . This existed until the dissolution of the convention in September 2010. When the population increased sharply after the Second World War (not least due to the influx of many expellees for whom special pilgrimages are currently taking place in Bickesheim), the community of Durmersheim expanded more and more to the north the area around the church became a residential area. For the newly created “Durmersheim Nord”, the Bickesheimer Kirche, which was previously a pilgrimage church, became a permanent pastoral care station and in 1965 became a parish curatium under the patronage of “Zum blessed Bernhard von Baden” (whom the legend associates with the church; authentic documents about his relationship with Bickesheim does not exist). On May 1, 1990, the curate could look back on 25 years of existence and on this occasion, the Archbishop of Friborg, Oskar Saier, made it an ordinary parish with the patronage “St. Bernhard ”.
literature
- Walfried Blaschka: Pilgrimage Church of Our Lady in Bickesheim . Munich, 1973.
- Martin Burkart (Ed.): The Bickesheimer Pilgrimage Book of 1747 . Durmersheim 2001.
- Martin Burkart: “Maria Bickesheim” in Durmersheim - a religious and historical highlight of the region. In: Heimatbuch des Landkreis Rastatt 46 (2007), pp. 161–172.
- Martin Burkart: Durmersheim. The history of the village and its inhabitants . Durmersheim 2002.
- Anton Kehrer: Historical news about the pilgrimage church ad BMV zu Bickesheim . Freiburg, 1874.
- Rudi Kistner, Fritz Schlick: Durmersheim in the past and present. Update of the local history . Durmersheim, 1980.
- Albert Krieger: Topographical Dictionary of the Grand Duchy of Baden . 2 volumes. Heidelberg, 1904/05.
- Clemens Kieser: We can also do brown signs. Pilgrimage Church of Maria Bickesheim. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , 40th year 2011, issue 3, p. 170 f. ( PDF )
- Julius Naeher : The area around the royal seat of Karlsruhe . Karlsruhe, 1884.
- Valeria Schneider: Contributions to the building history of the Bickesheim pilgrimage church . In: Freiburger Diözesan Archiv 66 (1938) 216–232.
- Wilhelm Störk: Our Lady of Bickesheim. History of the pilgrimage and votive church . Friborg (Switzerland), 1909.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ (In 1910, the community of Durmersheim had a memorial stone erected to commemorate the market rights allegedly granted 500 years earlier by Margrave Bernhard I. This is of course a legend. There is neither a document from 1410, nor did the Baden margraves the right to establish markets in general. The market law was rather a royal right, a so-called regalie )
Coordinates: 48 ° 56 '17.8 " N , 8 ° 16'22.4" E