Dominican monastery in Frankfurt am Main
The Dominican monastery in Frankfurt am Main is the seat of the Evangelical City Deanery Frankfurt am Main and Offenbach and the Evangelical Regional Association , an amalgamation of the Frankfurt and Offenbach Evangelical communities. The Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau also meets in the Dominican monastery, usually twice a year.
The monastery, founded in 1233, and its rich possessions came into the hands of the city in 1803. Completely destroyed in an air raid in 1944 , it was rebuilt from 1955 to 1957 by the architect Gustav Scheinpflug on the old floor plan and in old proportions in the style of the post-war period . Only the choir of the Church of the Holy Spirit , built in 1470 in the late Gothic style , remains of the originally Gothic structure .
history
Foundation and advancement
In 1233 the order of the Dominicans , also known as preacher monks , established a first branch in Frankfurt, which initially only included two or three brothers. They came on the intercession of the emperor and the pope to improve the moral conditions of the city and to ward off devil worship, the desecration of the sacrament of the altar and fornication . The city therefore welcomed them with goodwill and assigned them a piece of land not far from the pool, right next to the medieval Staufen wall . Here the brothers first built a small four-room house, which later served as the entrance to the monastery complex. In 1238, the order began building the actual monastery, which was to provide space for at least 10 to 12 brothers. Since the city and its citizens were already busy with the construction of the new collegiate church of St. Bartholomew , which was consecrated in 1239, the Dominicans were dependent on alms from outside for their project. Construction was therefore slow. In 1245 the convent buildings were completed. The construction of the three-aisled hall church located south of it on Dominikanergasse dragged on for a few years. A papal bull of indulgence dated May 30, 1259 shows that the church was already consecrated at that time. In addition to the high altar consecrated to the Virgin Mary , the consecration of several other altars in the years 1279, 1280 and 1283 is attested.
The heyday of the monastery in the 14th century
Among the five religious settlements that arose in Frankfurt during a period of rapid population growth in the 13th century, the Dominican monastery was the second oldest and largest after the Teutonic Order House, before the Carmelite monastery and the barefoot monastery . It attracted prominent scholars and preachers - Albertus Magnus stayed for a while in the Frankfurt Convention on his return from Regensburg to Cologne in 1262 - and received numerous donations and foundations from Frankfurt citizens who contributed to the equipment of the church. After the imperial collegiate church of St. Bartholomew, the Gothic monastery church was the largest and most richly decorated church in Frankfurt and was the scene of important events in the history of the empire. For example, the kings Adolf von Nassau (1292), Heinrich VII. Von Luxemburg (1308) and Günther von Schwarzburg (1349) were elected in the Dominican monastery because the St. Bartholomew's Church was unusable at that time due to the Gothic conversion of the nave and the choir.
Also in the conflict between Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian and Pope Johannes XXII. the monastery was drawn into it. The emperor had in 1324 in the Sachsenhausen appeal to the claim pope to the approval rejected a royal choice after the pope previously declared him deposed and the excommunication had occupied. In this conflict, Frankfurt was loyal to the Kaiser, who had promoted it with numerous privileges. Therefore the Pope occupied the city with the interdict and forbade the clerics from any church official acts. The Dominicans followed this request and were therefore expelled from Frankfurt and other places in 1330. Only at the request of the council and the citizenry did the emperor want to allow the Dominicans again, under the condition “of the Kaysser's justice against the pope in public preaching for the people, hence the success that the man at the same time, not differently, then this teaching in all churches and preached, the päbst should be subservient to the Kayser, then they would have no power in the regiment, and should be entrusted to them alone the spiritual administration of the church office, and something like that more to learn from occano , and other authori ”. In a letter of August 17, 1337, the emperor followed the citizens' request, but obliged the Dominicans to sing and read like other clergymen and to do nothing against the emperor and his loyal clergy "neither with words nor with work".
In 1359, Emperor Charles IV placed the Dominicans under his protection, a privilege that his successors regularly confirmed.
Development in the late Middle Ages
On March 11, 1486, the Saturday after Laetare , Elector Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg , who was staying in Frankfurt for the election of Maximilian I , died of a stroke during daily prayer in the monastery . His heart was buried under an ore plate in the choir of the Dominican Church. In addition to the electors, numerous bishops and princes gathered in Frankfurt took part in the funeral service.
At this time, to the east of the monastery, the Judengasse stretched along the Staufen wall , in which all Frankfurt Jews had to live since 1462 ( settlement ). A watchtower of the Staufen wall, the Mönchsturm named after the Dominicans , protruded into the Jewish area. Due to the close proximity to each other, there can always be conflicts between Dominicans and Jews.
To the north there was a convent founded in 1336 by Metza Gerliben from Frankfurt . Its approximately 50 residents belonged to a religious community of beguines who lived according to the Dominican order, but only had to take a vow for a limited period of time and could withdraw from the community at any time. B. to get married. The Nonnengäßchen was named after the Beguine Monastery , a narrow connecting lane between the Klostergasse and the Fahrgasse . In 1452 Anna Rosenberger , the widow of lay judge and mayor Henne Rosenberger donated her estate to the beguinage. Since then the Beguine Monastery has been called Rosenberger Einung .
To the south of the monastery was the Kompostellhof , a hostel run by the Teutonic Order House in Sachsenhausen for St. James pilgrims .
In the 15th century the Dominican monastery was significantly expanded. In 1449 a cloister was built , which was expanded again in 1499 so that it was closed in all four directions. The monastery library was the largest in Frankfurt, its important but uncatalogued collections later fell to the city library .
Among the four built in the 15th century chapels of the monastery church in 1414 consecrated called was Old chapel of aldermen John Monis and his wife Adelaide of Fochen the first. It had direct access from the cloister and served as a sacristy for a while . Between 1470 and 1472 the choir of the monastery church was rebuilt in the late Gothic style by Jörg Österreicher . This essentially concluded the development of the monastery in terms of building history.
Late medieval foundations
The church received numerous altarpieces at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries through donations from wealthy patricians , including the cloth merchant Jakob Heller . The most important work is the Heller Altar , donated in 1507 , a work by Albrecht Dürer and Mathias Grünewald .
The high altar with an altarpiece from 1496 was made 1500/1501 by Hans Holbein the Elder. Ä. and his workshop expanded with several tablets and a predella . The outside of the altar wing showed the family tree of Christ in two panels on the left , the family tree of the Dominicans on the right. The inner pages bore eight scenes from the Passion of Christ and four scenes from the life of Mary, the predella a representation of the Lord's Supper and on the left and right the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the washing of the feet of Peter .
Around 1505 a brotherhood donated the Anne Altar of the Master of Frankfurt , an unknown Dutch painter. Other important works of art were the depiction of Christ in the temple of Martin Caldenbach from around 1509/10 , the St. John altar created by Hans Baldung Grien around 1520 and the three Anna herself with Saint Barbara and Saint Apollonia by Hans von Kulmbach, painted around the same time .
Decline
The heyday of the monastery ended with the introduction of the Reformation in Frankfurt in 1533. The council initially forbade the brothers from preaching in public and planned to use the previously privileged church property for public duties. In particular, he wanted the property donated by Frankfurt citizens to be inventoried and supervised by the city custodians. In 1537, the provincial of the order initiated a lawsuit against the city before the Reich Chamber of Commerce . The council then withdrew its plans so as not to come into open conflict with the emperor. The Dominican monastery remained as a Catholic enclave in the city, which had become almost entirely Lutheran, until the secularization of 1803. During this time the complex underwent only minor changes, the most noticeable being a baroque extension built around 1680 in front of the west facade of the church. In 1685 the neighboring women's convent of the Beguines signed a contract with the Dominicans, based on which the prior of the Dominican monastery had to read them a mass every morning. In return, they undertook to wash and iron the monks' clothes and to clean the church utensils. During the 18th century the Beguines joined the Dominican community.
In the 18th century, the monastery was the meeting place for the district assemblies of the Kurheinische and Oberrheinische Reichskreis, which usually take place annually . In 1790 the Archbishop of Mainz dissolved the Dominican Convention and transformed it into a world-spiritual association, the Congregatio ad Sanctum Fridericum .
secularization
With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , the Dominican monastery fell to the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt in 1803 . In the 19th century the monastery served various purposes, including a. as a magazine for the collections that came into municipal possession during the secularization, as a warehouse and after 1815 as the barracks of the line battalion , the military of the Free City of Frankfurt . The fact that the collections were not dispersed is thanks to the then Grand Duke Carl von Dalberg , who bought 82 important paintings with his own funds in 1809 at an estimate of 806 guilders and gave them as a gift to the museum , a society founded by Frankfurt citizens to care for the muses and promoting the fine arts . In addition to the altarpieces mentioned, the collection also contained works by Hans von Aachen and Philipp Uffenbach . Most of these pieces are now in the Historical Museum or on permanent loan from the Städel .
The demolition of the monastery church, which was already planned in 1875, was prevented - in contrast to the nearby Johanniterkirche - from a successful intervention by the Prussian general curator Ferdinand von Quast . Another attempt at demolition was prevented in 1884, but the church was then rebuilt from 1885 to 1889. From then on, a massive wall divided the nave of the church. The eastern half with the choir was set up as a gym of the Arnsburg school housed in the monastery buildings . The west side of the nave received an organ gallery as well as some side rooms as cloakrooms and cash registers and was used in the future as a concert and city hall. The painting was created by Atelier Linnemann from Frankfurt. It was not until the 1920s that the church was restored and the profaning interventions of the 19th century removed.
National Socialism, Bomb Warfare and Reconstruction
Before the Second World War , the monastery was the seat of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History , today's Archaeological Museum , located in the former Carmelite monastery . According to some sources, the church also served as a storage room for the confiscated art treasures of deported Jewish citizens .
On March 18, 1944, the church was destroyed by one of the air raids on Frankfurt am Main , and in the post-war period its rubble was cleared apart from the remains of the choir and the north wall.
In 1953, the Paulskirche and the Weißfrauenkirche, which was destroyed and not rebuilt during the Second World War, were exchanged for the Dominican monastery and the Dominican church through a donation agreement between the city and the Protestant community association . The city commissioned the architect Gustav Scheinpflug to rebuild the monastery . On the second Advent in 1961, the rebuilt church was consecrated again. It bears the traditional name Heiliggeistkirche. As early as 1840 there was a Protestant Church of the Holy Spirit in Frankfurt , which had emerged from the Church of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit .
The Dominican monastery today
Today the monastery is the seat of the Protestant city dean's office and the Protestant regional association, in which the Frankfurt parishes and dean's offices have come together in order to organize joint tasks in the areas of administration, education, diakonia, pastoral care and counseling, youth work, and migration and refugee aid more efficiently. On January 1, 2019, the ten Evangelical communities in Offenbach joined the city dean's office and the regional association.
In addition, the state synod of the EKHN (Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau) meets here - usually twice a year .
architecture
The monastery church was an early Gothic hall church with three aisles, 53.60 meters long and 15.60 meters wide, without a transept. It was built mainly from simple rubble stones , some hewn cuboids were also used. The broad main nave had eight bays which, apart from the richly decorated star vault of the westernmost bay, were designed as simple ribbed vaults . The vaults of the south and the somewhat narrower north aisle were about one to two meters lower than the 11.60 meter high main nave. The vaults were supported by seven pairs of simple round pillars with a base of slabs and bevels and unadorned, cup-shaped capitals . The nave carried an octagonal Gothic roof turret above the eastern pair of pillars . The chapels on the south side of the church were demolished around 1820.
In the bombing of March 18, 1944, the central nave and some yokes of the side aisles were destroyed by high explosive bombs and the interior of the church burned out. The choir vaults, a large part of the columns of the nave and several vaults of the side aisle had remained. However, they collapsed in 1954 before the reconstruction began. From the original church, only the outer walls of the single-nave choir , consisting of a yoke with a cross-ribbed vault and five-eighth end , as well as the tracery of three of the five choir windows are preserved. The former sacristy (known today as the refectory ) and the chapter house of the monastery have been preserved to such an extent that their remains could be integrated into the new building.
The new building of the Heiliggeistkirche between 1958 and 1961 was based on the unadorned aesthetics of the reconstruction period . Only the choir was restored according to the old model. The new nave was again divided into three naves by two rows of pillars. The existing foundations were reused, but for structural reasons the load distribution was changed so that the pillar supports bear a higher load than in the previous building, while the outer walls were relieved. The new building is also over 10 meters shorter than the old monastery church. The Heiliggeistkirche offers space for around 700 visitors today.
Arts and Culture
Numerous cultural events take place in the Dominican monastery and the Church of the Holy Spirit. B. Exhibitions and church music concerts. From 1975 to 2007, the Volkstheater Frankfurt played every summer on an open-air stage in the courtyard of the monastery. The concert series of the Frankfurt Church Music Association has been held in the Heiliggeistkirche since the 1960s and the Frankfurt Organ Days every autumn since 1979 , a series of 9 to 10 organ concerts on consecutive Sundays.
Furnishing
organ
The organ of the Heiliggeistkirche was built by Walcker in 1961 . It is a three-manual slide organ with mechanical play and electrical stop action . The organ has 40 registers , which are divided into Hauptwerk, Brustwerk, Positiv and Pedal.
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- Coupling : I / II, III / II (also as sub-octave coupling), III / I, III / III (as sub-octave coupling), I / P, II / P, III / P
Bells
In 1958 the Heiliggeistkirche received a small peal from three bells from the Rincker brothers. Together they weigh 841 kg. The bells are part of the Frankfurt city bells and form a treble to the cathedral bells, as the strikes coincide with those of the three smallest bells of the cathedral bells.
| No. | Surname |
Nominal (16th note) |
Weight (kg) |
Diameter (mm) |
inscription |
| 1 | Holy Spirit Bell | a 1 −2 | 391 | 883 | Lord God, Holy Spirit |
| 2 | Witness bell | h 1 ± 0 | 267 | 787 | You should be my witnesses |
| 3 | Prayer bell | cis 2 +1 | 183 | 697 | Pray without ceasing |
literature
- Kurt Beck: The Dominican monastery in Frankfurt am Main. In: Series of publications of the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main. Volume 1. Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt 1977.
- Friedrich Bothe : History of the city of Frankfurt am Main. Verlag Wolfgang Weidlich, Frankfurt 1977, ISBN 3-8035-8920-7 .
- Konrad Bund (ed.): Frankfurter Glockenbuch. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt 1986, ISBN 3-7829-0211-0 .
- Frankfurt Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 .
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 4 (German, English).
Web links
- The reconstruction of the Dominican monastery ( Memento from July 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt
- Harald reports: photos of the ruins of the Dominican monastery in the 1950s
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Dominikanerkloster u. Ev. Heilig-Geist-Kirche In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz Henel: The Frankfurt Dominican Church. From their building and cultural history. In: Frankfurter Kirchliches Jahrbuch 1959, p. 9 ff.
- ↑ a b Adolph Meurer, The importance of the rebuilt Dominican monastery in terms of art history and imperial history. In: Frankfurter Kirchliches Jahrbuch. 1958, p. 149 ff.
- ↑ Franciscus Jacquin: adminiculum ad notitiam conventus ordinis praedicatorum in Civita francofurtana. Chronicle of the Dominican Convention in Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main 1777. Book 16a, p. 68.
- ^ HH Koch: The Dominican Monastery in Frankfurt am Main. 13th to 16th centuries. Freiburg 1892, p. 44
- ^ G. Edelmann, On the building history of the Dominican Church in Frankfurt am Main. In: Writings of the Historical Museum. XI, Frankfurt am Main 1958, p. 46.
- ↑ Disposition of the organ
Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew | Old Nikolaikirche | Leonhardskirche | Carmelite Monastery | Paulskirche | Dominican monastery | Church of Our Lady | Katharinenkirche | Peterskirche | Dreikönigskirche | Teutonic Order Church
Former churches: All Saints Chapel | Antoniterkirche | Barefoot Church | German Reformed Church | French Reformed Church | Holy Spirit Church | Johanniterkirche | Weißfrauenkirche
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 42 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 16 ″ E