Ersheim Chapel
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The Catholic cemetery church of St. Nazarius and Celsus in Ersheim , known as the Ersheim Chapel, is considered the oldest church in the Neckar Valley and a regional Gothic gem . A first church in its place probably already existed in the 8th or 9th century, the oldest components today date from the 14th century, when the church was burial place for the Lords of Hirschhorn . The church is older than the town of Hirschhorn on the other bank of the Neckar and until the 17th century was the town's parish church (which can only be reached by ferry), at which up to five altarists temporarily worked alongside a priest . Since 1636 the church has only been used as a cemetery chapel.
location
The Ersheim Chapel is located in today's Hirschhorn district of Ersheim on a peninsula-like headland opposite the main town, which is formed by an extreme loop of the Neckar . The Hirschhorn district is the only area in the state of Hesse south of the Neckar.
history
The village of Ersheim (now part of Hirschhorn) was first mentioned in a document in 773 in the Lorsch Codex and is therefore much older than Hirschhorn himself. According to this document, Liutfrid and Liutbrand donated their entire property in the village of Ersheim to Lorsch Monastery .
There are no documents or archaeological findings on the early history of the church. The Nazarius - patronage indicates a foundation in the 8th or 9th century, after a first wooden church then was probably a Romanesque choir tower . The church was first mentioned in a document in 1345 in a 40-day indulgence that Pope Clemens IV granted the knight Engelhard I. von Hirschhorn for the Ersheim church. The church had been the burial place of the Lords of Hirschhorn for several generations . Engelhard I. received the permission from the Bishop of Worms in 1355 to demolish and renew the church if necessary. He has also started a corresponding construction project, which was only completed by his son Hans after his death in 1361. The vestibule, the oldest surviving part of the building, dates from that time. After Hirschhorn was founded in 1391, the Ersheim church also served as a parish church for the newly founded city on the other bank of the Neckar.
Numerous foundations of the Lords of Hirschhorn and other regional nobles are likely to have ensured a certain prosperity for the parish church, which in the 15th century was incorporated into the parishes of Mückenloch , Reilsheim , Schatthausen , Hoffenheim and Eschelbach . Up to five altarists worked at the church to read around 100 soul masses every year . In addition to the rectory , sacristan's house , hermitage and ossuary, there were also five altar houses around the church .
The nave in its current form comes from a renovation in 1464. In 1517 the church was extended by the brothers Engelhard III, Georg and Philipp II von Hirschhorn to include a larger choir. In connection with the construction of the new choir, the west gable of the church could also have been renewed, as many stones there show signs of secondary use. The church, still the town church for Hirschhorn, was reformed by the Knights of Hirschhorn from 1528 .
In the course of the 16th century the village of Ersheim gradually dissolved. Significant reasons for this were probably the constant danger from Neckar floods, but also the much better development of the town of Hirschhorn, whose walls offered people more protection in times of need than would have been expected in the largely unprotected Ersheim. The rectory and altarist houses had already been abandoned for several decades when, in 1636, the Hirschhorn Carmelite Monastery Church of the Annunciation took over the task of the town church and the Ersheim church from then on only served as a cemetery chapel and gradually fell into disrepair. In 1771 the bell tower on the west gable was demolished and the nave was re-covered. In 1818 the church was finally announced for demolition, which could only be prevented by protests of the Hirschhorn citizens. On the other hand, the demolition of the ossuary around 1826 could not be prevented.
A first modern renovation took place in 1873, with the church receiving modest neo-Gothic furnishings. Only after the church was transferred to the Diocese of Mainz in 1956, the church was comprehensively renovated in 1958 and 1963–68. The roof structure over the choir was renovated in 2004/05.
From 1678 processions took place from the Hirschhorn Market Church to the Ersheim Chapel. The processions continued into modern times, were finally banned by the National Socialists in 1938 and briefly resumed at times after the Second World War. The place Ersheim only experienced a revival as a district of Hirschhorn after the completion of the Neckar Bridge in 1933 and the renewed development after the Second World War.
Shape and equipment
A rectangular, Gothic nave (with a flat beamed ceiling) and a square, likewise Gothic vestibule (with ribbed vaults ) is followed by an east-facing, late Gothic choir with tracery windows , which is crowned by a star vault . A sacristy is attached to the choir building on the north side of the church .
Choir
The polygonal choir consists of three bays and an apse . The total of ten consoles of the star vault are filigree decorated with console figures, including an angel with a banner on which the year 1517 is visible. One of the other console figures, presumably due to their correspondence with a representation in the Dionysius Church in Esslingen, represents the master builder Lorenz Lechler from Heidelberg, paralyzed on one side of the face . The three keystones of the vault bear the colored alliance coat of arms of the noble donors: Hirschhorn-Venningen, Hirschhorn-Bock von Gerstheim and Hirschhorn-Fuchs zu Bimbach.
In the apse of the choir there is an altar with Gothic sculptures made of painted wood. The figures depict Mary enthroned with a child (around 1440) as well as St. Jakobus and St. Nazarius with Celsus (around 1500) and were originally in the monastery church in Hirschhorn. Another figure of the same provenance, representing St. Sebastian, is kept in the Catholic rectory.
Well-preserved medieval tombstones of the Knights of Hirschhorn are placed in front of the walls of the choir building. The most ornate grave slabs are those of Engelhard I. von Hirschhorn and his daughter-in-law Margarete von Erbach, each of which shows the people as life-size relief sculptures.
Grave slabs of the von Hirschhorn family in the choir of the Ersheim Chapel
- Engelhard I. von Hirschhorn, † 1361
- Margarete von Erbach (wife of Engelhard II von Hirschhorn), † 1383
- Konrad von Hirschhorn, † 1358 (son Engelhard II, who died as a child)
- Albrecht von Hirschhorn, † 1400 (son of Engelhard II)
- Hans von Hirschhorn, † 1405 (son of Albrechts)
- Humility treasurer of Worms (wife of the city founder Eberhard von Hirschhorn) † 1425
- Eberhard III. von Hirschhorn, † 1427 (son of Eberhard and humility)
Eberhard I. von Hirschhorn
Margarete von Erbach
Lechler console
Prechoir
The antechamber or the central nave is completely covered (walls and vaults) with frescoes that only came to light during restoration work in the years 1963 to 1965 and which are assigned to the construction period of the antechamber (around 1350). The vaulted ceiling is painted with symbols of the evangelists , the arched shields with prophets and King David, and the walls with representations of the apostles. The richly decorated stucco epitaph of the Hirschhorn-Zwingenberg cellar is embedded in the north wall. Philipp Heimreich († 1622) chose a cricket as the heraldic animal of his speaking coat of arms .
Longhouse
The nave is held generally very simple. On the gable side you can still see the corbels that once formed the base of the bell tower, the lintel of the former tower entrance is dated 1464. To the left of the portal there is a console stone with a face inside, presumably another master builder portrait from the 14th or 15th century. Two smaller wall frescoes depicting saints are striking in the nave. The modern organ is located on a gallery above the entrance portal.
Builder Console
Heimreich epitaph
Frescoes
Outdoor area
The entire outside area of the chapel is a walled cemetery that has been used to this day . A little further away from the church, directly at the cemetery wall, stands the so-called Elendstein , a funeral lamp that was donated in 1412 by the Mainz or Speyer canon Konrad von Hirschhorn .
On the northern outside of the Ersheim Chapel, under a staircase leading from the outside to the organ gallery, there is a painted sandstone mount of Olives scene . The work from around 1520 was originally located below the monastery church in Hirschhorn and was brought to the Ersheimer chapel in 1669.
To the east of it, more medieval tombstones have been placed in front of the outer wall of the cemetery church. Most of these are tombstones of altarists or their relatives. The oldest of the tombstones is that of Canon Gotzo von Beckingen († 1360), whose coat of arms shows three rings. In addition, the tombstones of Friedrich Seitz († 1544) and Petrus Karg († 1544), the last two Catholic altarists, have been preserved. In addition to these historical gravestones, the remains of wayside shrines from the 16th century, which were once along the way from the ferry to the church, have also been placed.
Mount of Olives
Gravestone of Gotzo von Beckingen
Gravestone of the altarist Heylman Runst and his sister Aborg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Minst, Karl Josef [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 4), Certificate 2624, August 11, 773 - Reg. 946. In: Heidelberg historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 188 , accessed on March 16, 2016 .
literature
- Ulrich Spiegelberg : Hirschhorn and its churches . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-02036-8 , pp. 4–28
- Ulrich Spiegelberg: On the building history of the Ersheim church near Hirschhorn in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: The Odenwald. Journal of the Breuberg-Bund , Volume 62, Issue 2, June 2015, ISSN 0029-8360 , pp. 70–75.
- Carl JH Villinger: Catholic cemetery church St. Nazarius and Celsus. In: Hirschhorn and its churches. Schnell, Munich 1982. p. 20 ff.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 27 ′ 9.8 ″ N , 8 ° 54 ′ 34 ″ E