Enghausen Cross
_41.jpg)
The Enghausen Cross is considered to be the oldest larger-than-life crucifix and thus the oldest monumental cross at all. The wooden work is located in the branch church of the Holy Cross in Enghausen (municipality of Mauern ) in the Freising district .
Historical background
_51.jpg)
It has been suspected for a long time that the monumental carving came from the former Benedictine and later collegiate church of St. Kastulus in nearby Moosburg . This monastery was given to the Freising Bishop Waldo in 895 AD . In the 11th century the conversion was carried out in a canons , the Church of Enghausen incorporated was. It is possible that this cross was honored because of a high-ranking donor - it could have been King Arnulf himself - and then handed over to the branch church when the Kastulus Minster was refurbished in late Gothic style . As a result of this renovation, the important cross by Hans Leinberger was also created .
At an unknown point in time, the church in Enghausen changed its patronage . In place of the Hl. Stephanus which entered Finding of the Holy. Cross .
Art-historical classification and description
size
The cross is 2.32 meters high and 1.78 meters wide, the body 1.88 meters high and 1.75 meters wide. According to recent studies, it dates from the period between 890 and 900 and could have been created in connection with the coronation of Arnulf of Carinthia in 895. It is probably the oldest monumental cross that has survived to this day.
Representation of the crucified
_37.jpg)
Christ is nailed to the cross with four nails and is depicted standing on a suppedaneum that is designed as a demon's head. Christ is represented as “the divine human being, who looks at the viewer in his dignity and majesty as the savior and conqueror of death and suffering”. The cross thus corresponds to the usual representation of Christ in the Carolingian period and stands out from the Romanesque , which preferred Christ to be represented as king. And also from later art epochs that emphasize Christ as suffering. The hairstyle of Christ and the lack of a thorn or royal crown also point to the Carolingian era.
One important thing is the frame . Twelve conditions were detected, but only traces of the first five. The main difference to the visual version, which presumably dates from the 17th century, is the color of the loincloth in the oldest versions. It was dark red, whereas today it is gold. The painted wounds and blood vessels also belong to this version of the early modern period. They are carelessly not designed accordingly.
Renovation and age determination
_05.jpg)
The Enghausen Cross was extensively restored from 2004 to 2006 because the setting was unstable and the cross was generally very dirty. The restoration also brought to light the exact age of the Enghausen Cross. Before that, the cross was dated to the Romanesque about 300 years younger.
A routine age determination using the C-14 method , which was later confirmed by reference and cross-samples, resulted in a fairly reliable dating to the last decade of the 9th century, i.e. the late Carolingian period . As already mentioned, its current location in the subsidiary church "St. Cross Finding" in Enghausen supports the theory that the cross originally came from the former Benedictine monastery Moosburg, to which Enghausen belonged for a long time under canon law.
Current condition
After the restoration was completed, the cross was brought back to the branch church in Enghausen, which belongs to the parish of St. Johannes Baptist Priel, on May 5, 2006 . The Diocesan Museum in Freising would of course have liked to add this rarity of a Carolingian monumental cross to its collections of sacred art, but it remained in Enghausen at the disposal of the bishop. The branch church got a new alarm system to secure its treasure.
During the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. decorated the Enghausen Cross on September 10, 2006 at the service in Riem on the back wall above the Pope's cathedra .
Web links
literature
- Enghausen. Branch church of the discovery of the cross. Late Carolingian crucifix. (= Documentation of the Archbishop's Ordinariate Munich, restoration measure) Ed. By the Archbishop's Art Department, Issue 1, 2006.
- Sylvia Hahn: Cross and Crucifix. Sign and image. On the occasion of the exhibition “Cross and Crucifix. Signs and Images ”in the Diözesanmuseum Freising, February 20 to October 3, 2005, Lindenberg im Allgäu 2005. 375 pages, ISBN 3-89870-217-0
- Hans Rohrmann: Early Benedictine large-scale sculpture north of the Alps? The crucifixes in Enghausen, Schaftlach and Schlehdorf. In: Yearbook of the Association for Christian Art in Munich 23 (2006), pp. 68–80.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Enghausen. Branch church of the discovery of the cross. Late Carolingian crucifix. (= Documentation of the Archbishop's Ordinariate Munich, restoration measure) Ed. By the Archbishop's Art Department, Edition 1, 2006. p. 3
- ↑ Enghausen. Branch church of the discovery of the cross. Late Carolingian crucifix. (= Documentation of the Archbishop's Ordinariate Munich, restoration measure) Ed. By the Archbishop's Art Department, Edition 1, 2006. p. 6
- ^ Statement by the art consultant of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Norbert Jocher.
- ↑ Enghausen. Branch church of the discovery of the cross. Late Carolingian crucifix. (= Documentation of the Archbishop's Ordinariate Munich, restoration measure) Ed. By the Archbishop's Art Department, Issue 1, 2006. p. 5
- ↑ Documentation of the Archbishop's Ordinariate Munich, 2006 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.0 MB)
- ↑ Festschrift on the return of the restored cross to the Enghausen church , May 6, 2006.
Coordinates: 48 ° 32 ′ 18 " N , 11 ° 54 ′ 27" E