Clemens Church (Essen)
The St. Clement Church was a Catholic church from the 10th century until 1802 in the area of the Werden Abbey outside the monastery and city walls in Essen - Werden . In addition to a separate church attached to the westwork of the abbey church , the Marienkirche ("turris sanctae Mariae") and the Lucius church for the northern parish, it served in the southern area - the later Honschaft Heidhausen - the parish church services. Its ruin has been entered in the list of monuments of the city of Essen as an architectural monument since July 10, 1986, and as a ground monument since September 8, 1994 .
state of research
Previous buildings
Presumably under Abbot Wigger (930-940), the first construction work began, in which initially only a collecting basin measuring 30 by 50 centimeters was created to absorb the water of the four springs emerging from the Pastoratsberg at their confluence. Tradition has it that Abbot Wigo (approx. 940–945) was responsible for a second archaeologically proven building. The actual Clemens Church was on May 1, 957 Archbishop Bruno of Cologne , the brother of Emperor I. Otto , consecrated .
The appearance of the structure
It is a three-apsid hall church, a type of building that was common in the diocese of Chur, but not north of the Alps. This type of building can only be found in the previous building of the Hervormde Kerk in Oosterbeek near Arnhem, and here in the Clemenskirche.
A choir , which is very unusual in its design , had been preserved in the final east wall of the transept, which was 1.5 meters high during the excavations in 1895. While the entire length of the east wall formed the end of the church and ran in a straight line on the outside, it has three semicircular niches (apses) inside, the middle 2.06 meters, the two side niches each 1.95 meters wide. Its depth has been increased by 0.46 meters by means of double-stepped templates. Further excavation finds suggest that the choir wall had an architecturally structured design in pilasters .
Effmann's assumption that it was a basilica cannot be maintained after the excavations by Bindings (see below). After that, the mentioned second archaeological building remained as a spring chapel and the three-apsid hall church was built around it. The floor height in the east of the church covered the chapel, which kept a clear room height of 1.75 m.
demolition
After the secularization of the Reichsabtei Werden by Prussia on December 18, 1802, the two Werden parishes St. Lucius and St. Clemens by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. repealed and the abbey church declared a parish church of a new parish with two outstations in Heisingen and Kettwig . Robbed of its previous purpose for the parish church service, the Clemenskirche was designated for sale and demolished on November 20, 1817. The Ferber inn was built in Werden from the stones of the demolished church, and in 1857 the St. Josef Catholic Hospital was established there. The walls of the inn have been preserved to this day as the old hospital building. The gable lintel with a relief cross from the inner chapel of the Clement Church was built into these walls; it is now in the treasury of the former abbey church.
Excavations and current condition
In 1869 the young Wilhelm Effmann tried to uncover the foundation walls of the demolished church, but later had to confess that he had not dug deep enough. In 1895 another excavation by Effmann led to success: with the exception of the - apparently completely demolished - western wall
"Parts of all the other wall sections still exist, which protrude as rising masonry above the floor of the church."
More recent excavations in 1967/68 under the direction of Günther Binding expanded the knowledge that Effmann had gained.
In 1987/88, Effmann's proposal from 1896 was finally implemented by building up the foundation walls at a height of about one meter and covering them with a layer of plaster to prevent rainwater from entering.
The road from Werden to Heidhausen , on which the remains of the Clemens Church are located, is called Klemensborn to commemorate the source of the spring over which the church was built . The previously so-called streets Borner Weg and Borner Straße were jointly renamed Klemensborn on January 15, 1936 (Born historically stands for well or spring).
literature
- Wilhelm Effmann : The remains of the St. Clemens Church built in the 10th century in Werden ad Ruhr . In: Journal for Christian Art , year 1896, Issue 11, Sp. 343–348.
- Ders .: To become the Carolingian-Ottonian buildings. Vol. 2: Clemenskirche, Luciuskirche, Nikolauskirche. Heitz Publishing House, Strasbourg 1917.
- Handbook of the Diocese of Essen . 2nd edition, Vol. 1: History . Ludgerus-Verlag, Essen 1974, pp. 149f.
- Stefan Leenen: St. Clement: Source Shrine and Church. In: Detlef Hopp (ed.): Under our feet. An archaeological expedition through becoming . Klartext Verlag , Essen 2005, ISBN 978-3-89861-490-0 , pp. 21-23.
Individual evidence
- ↑ St. Clemens monument ; accessed on January 21, 2016
- ↑ St. Clemens ground monument ; accessed on January 21, 2016
- ^ Günter Binding: The former parish church of St. Klemens in Essen-Werden . In: Pre and early history of the lower Lower Rhine . Dr. Rudolph-Habelt-Vertlag, Bonn 1982, p. 11-30 .
- ^ History of the Catholic Hospital St. Josef in Essen-Werden
- ^ Wilhelm Effmann: The remains of the St. Clemens Church in Werden ad Ruhr , built in the 10th century , in: Journal for Christian Art 1896, No. 11, Sp. 345.
- ↑ Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads . Ed .: City of Essen - Historical Association for City and Monastery of Essen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1231-1 .
Web links
- Entry on the deserted church of Sankt Klemens in the database " KuLaDig " of the Rhineland Regional Association
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 59 ″ N , 7 ° 0 ′ 21.3 ″ E