Evangelical Church of Ulfa

Church from the south

View from the northeast

The Evangelical Church in Ulfa , a district of Nidda in the Wetterau district in Hesse , was built as a basilica in the 12th century . In addition to the western tower of the fortified church, the north nave wall with the upper aisle windows and the two northern arcades to the former aisle have been preserved from the Romanesque period . After changes in the late Gothic period, it was converted into a Protestant hall church in 1719–1721 . Some baroque inventory items date from this period. The Hessian cultural monument has one of the oldest completely preserved triple bells in Germany from 1334.

history

Ulfa is first mentioned as "Olôffe" in a deed of donation from the Fulda Abbey (around 750–802). Aganth and his wife Tuticha gave the monastery a yard and twelve yokes of land. The church was built in the second half of the 12th century as a three-aisled pillar basilica in place of an older chapel and consecrated to St. Catherine . Ilbenstadt Monastery served as a model . In 1206 a priest is proven. At the beginning of the 15th century, the aisles were demolished and the church received a rectangular choir with a sacrament niche , tracery windows and a new west portal. Around 1435 Ulfa was an independent parish and had Stornfels as a branch. Ecclesiastically, Ulfa belonged to the Deanery Friedberg to the Archdeaconate St. Mariengreden in the Diocese of Mainz and formed its own broadcasting district . The patronage right was held by the Ulfa noble family, which passed to the Schencken zu Schweinsberg family after the death of Knight Guntram von Ulpha († around 1306) due to the succession .

With the introduction of the Reformation in 1526, the parish changed to the Protestant confession. Ludwig Waborn was the first Lutheran pastor to work here until 1536. At this time, Stornfels received a wooden chapel. In a damage list from the office of Stornfels from 1621/1622 it is stated what items of equipment were stolen or destroyed by the Braunschweig troops. Accordingly, the damage to the chalice, godparents , candlesticks, altar, stalls and money box comprised 39.5 Reichstaler . In inventory lists from 1629 and 1646, two silver-gilded goblets with sponsors are mentioned, which were donated by the Schencken zu Schweinsberg. In 1690 the interior of the church in Ulfa was painted and the pulpit was renewed, presumably to repair the damage caused by the Thirty Years' War.

Baroque pulpit from 1720

In the years 1719 to 1721 an extensive renovation in the Baroque style took place. The choir and nave were extended to the south, galleries were built and the interior was renewed. A storm in November 1769 damaged the church tower and organ. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the private pews were drawn by lots and bought hereditary, but then, with the exception of those, were abolished by the nobility, church leaders, pastors and teachers. In 1840 the civil parish in Stornfels was released from its building obligation, as it moved into its own building as a church. Since the first half of the 18th century, Stornfels was responsible for a seventh of the building obligation and the bourgeois community of Ulfa six seventh. Disputes arising from the new regulation were contractually settled in 1848. At the end of the 19th century, the abandoned walled-up extension, which is referred to as the sacristy in the Salbuch from 1741 and served as a family burial for the Rau von Holzhausen , was demolished. According to a description of the church from 1829, “the half-ruined masonry of an old noble family burial still stood”. Pastor Reusch estimates the number of casualies in 1877 as 42 baptisms, 10 confirmations, 9 marriages and 18 burials. In the course of an external renovation in 1917, the plastered arcades were exposed again, the tracery window was restored using found fragments and the external staircase to the gallery was built. The width of the aisles was determined by excavations. In 1922 Otto Kienzle from Lich-Eberstadt painted the interior. In 1964 the church received an exterior plaster. The ornamental paintings on the southern window reveals were painted over, as was the floral painting on the gallery balustrade. Renovations and the installation of a heating system followed in 1992. A very well-preserved grave slab made of red sandstone from 1586 was discovered, which bears the following inscription under a coat of arms : “DER.VORNEME.HER.ZALOMON.DERNE. 6 CHILDREN. "

The parish of Ulfa is parishally connected with the church of Stornfels. The community belongs to the Deanery of Schotten in the provost of Upper Hesse in the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .

architecture

Interior to the west

The east-facing church is built in the center of the village, surrounded by a wall of quarry stone . The church is plastered in white outside and inside; The corner blocks and walls made of red sandstone were left out. The hall building on a rectangular floor plan has a rectangular choir the same width as the nave, which is covered by a pseudo-mansard roof hunched to the east . The Gothic choir was originally vaulted, as can be seen from the remains of a service next to the tabernacle. On the north side of the nave there are two large arcades with protruding carnies - fighter panels , which are clad with wood and have lattice windows in the upper area. The western arch has two small rectangular windows, the eastern one serves as an entrance. Above the arcades, below the eaves, three small round-arched upper clad windows have been preserved, in the east of the north side a lofty square lattice window. Below that, a covered outside staircase from 1917 with a narrow roof resting on four wooden posts leads to the gallery. On the east side there is an ogival tracery window, which has moved out of the central axis due to the southern expansion. The two-lane tracery has nuns' heads and a quatrefoil in the pointed arch. Three rectangular windows on the south side, which have reveals inside with arched arches, illuminate the interior. A square window is let in on the west side to the south of the tower.

The walled-up, undivided tower shaft of the defensive west tower on a square floor plan extends to the roof ridge of the nave. The tower has no windows on the lower floors. The upper storey of the tower has coupled windows on all four sides with a central column and saddles. On the north and south sides, the windows are covered by the clock dials, which are attached below the eaves. On the east side, the window is cut through the roof of the nave. The completely slated helmet structure with the bell floor dates from the middle of the 14th century and was thus probably built at the same time as the three-way bell. The square bell storey has two square sound openings on each side. The pyramid helmet is crowned by a tower knob, a wrought iron cross and a gilded weathercock. The tower cock with a cross was renewed in 1996, the original is in the church. The round-arched west portal opens up the church. It leads into the tower hall, which serves as an entrance area and vestibule. An inner door in a niche roughly hewn on both sides has an old wooden wall with a cantilever arch .

Furnishing

Interior facing east

Stucco medallion with a golden pelican

The interior is closed off by a flat ceiling, which is decorated in the middle with a stucco medallion from 1721. The medallion by painter J. C. Paul from Nidda is enclosed by a large octagonal profiled frame and framed by a gilded banner with a Bible verse from Jn 14,19  LUT and an inscription: “I LIVE, AND YOU SHOULD ALSO LIVE, IOH aM 14 / RENOVAtVM IN THE JAR CHRISTI, 1721. JCP. ”In the center, a gilded pelican with its three young is depicted in plastic, above the words“ MORTVOS, VIVIFICO ”(I bring the dead to life). A gallery running around three sides is built into the ship; the south side for the pulpit is left free. The east and west galleries rest on a girder supported by three square wooden posts with short headbands . In the east gallery, a supporting pillar was taken from the previous gallery, which is marked 1613 and bears a coat of arms. The figure in a crest-like frame on the gallery column shows a winged woman holding a wheel in front of her lower body, probably St. Catherine, to whom the church was consecrated. Two eight-sided posts, which include the north gallery, are continued above the gallery up to the ceiling, where they support a longitudinal beam on which the ceiling rests.

A rectangular sacrament niche in the north side of the choir dates from the late Gothic period. The red sandstone cladding has a round arch panel above the barred niche. To the left of the sacrament niche is a rectangular oil painting hung on wood, which shows the Lord's Supper scene. The faded panel is painted in the rural baroque style. The bricked-up block altar is covered by a slab with a bevel made of Michelnau tuff , which was introduced during the renovation after the First World War. On it stands a crucifix of the three-nail type .

A wooden parsonage on the eastern south side has coffered panels in the lower part and openwork latticework in the upper part. It is crowned by flat-carved tendrils. The parish chair gives access to the wooden pulpit , which consists of a pulpit staircase with simple panels and a richly decorated, polygonal pulpit basket and octagonal sound cover . The Baroque pulpit, marked 1720, rests on a wooden post supported by a cup-shaped stone foot. The pulpit fields have panels with gilded profiles, above which the name of the pastor Johann Conrad Bintzer can be read, and are structured by twisted, black free columns with gilded capitals. Between the consoles with gilded faces, rectangular panels with a Bible verse from Jn 10.27  LUT are painted. A surrounding frieze below the upper cornice carries the Bible verse from Lk 8:15  LUT . The sound cover is crowned with points and flat-carved tendrils.

A memorial plaque by church painter Scriba from Herbstein for the fallen of the two world wars is hung on the western south wall. The middle field of the three-part panel shows the risen Christ with a victory flag. Below and on the sides are the names of the fallen.

organ

Organ by Förster & Nicolaus

In 1687 Heinrich Julius Siegfried from Staden possibly built an organ . The not very durable work was repaired by Siegfried in 1694. In the course of the reconstruction of the church, the congregation acquired a new instrument in 1722 or 1726. Ten stops on a manual and pedal were contractually agreed with organ builder Johannes Bien from Blankenau . The open bass in the prospectus had wooden pipes wrapped in tinfoil . In the description of the church from 1829, there is talk of a single-manual organ with eight registers and an attached pedal.

In 1839 Friedrich Wilhelm Bernhard from Romrod submitted an offer for a new organ, while the pastor started negotiations with Heinrich Krämer from Leusel. Repairs to the old Bien organ followed in 1841/1842, 1853, 1866, 1874 and 1888. Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau from Lich built a two-manual organ with 16 parts on pneumatic cone chests in 1901 . The prospectus had three round arch fields under a large triangular gable. The same company replaced the work in 1970. The organ has twelve registers. The five-axis, flat prospectus has a three-part square central field, which is flanked by two larger rectangular pipe fields.

I Manual C-g 3 Gemshorn 8th' Principal 4 ′ flute 4 ′ Schwiegel 2 ′ Mixture III

II Manual C-g 3 Dumped 8th' recorder 4 ′ Principal 2 ′ Sesquialter II

Pedal C – f 1 Sub-bass 16 ′ Octave bass 8th' Chorale bass 4 ′

• Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P

Peal

The church tower houses a triple bell, which is one of the oldest completely preserved in Germany. According to the inscription, Master Bertuld poured the big bell in 1334. Since the two other, unmarked bells of the big ones are the same in every detail and have the same tonal properties, the same bell caster can be assumed according to an expert report by the bell and organ expert Hans Martin Balz . Josef Riederer from the Berlin Rathgen Research Laboratory used the atomic absorption method to prove that the bell metal of all three bells came from the same bell caster, even if not from a single casting. The bronze has a tin content of 20–22% and a low lead content of 1.3–1.8%. After a clapper fell out in 2001/2002, the Lachenmeyer company in Nördlingen welded in a new hanging iron in 2004 and repaired the knocked out areas. The Rincker foundry reassembled the bells on oak yokes. The total cost of the renovation was 27,000 euros. The two larger bells sound on chimes a short second apart.

No.	Casting year	Foundry, casting location	Chime	inscription	image
1	1334	Master Bertuld	c sharp 2	" + MESTIR BERTVLC.DE.SVLCEH + O + MARIA + AMMO + DHI + M + CCC + XXX IIII "
2	around 1334		d 2	" GOTWALDIS + LVCAS + MARCVS + IOhANNES + HATEVS "
3			g 2	" LVCAS + MARCVS + IOhAMNES + HATEVS "

Pastor

The following pastors are proven in Ulfa:

• 1206 : a plebane00000
• 1439 : Johannes Heregott00000
• before 1495 : Johannes Barth00
• before 1495 – after 1511: Heinrich Finck
  • 1511 : Gerlach Kempf, chaplain00
• until 1536 : Ludwig Warborn00
• 1536–1550: Ludwig Schneider from Nidda
• 1551–1571: Wilhelm Lotz (Lotichius) from Niederzell
• 1571–1583: Andreas Meissner from Friedberg
• 1583–1611: Matern Wolff from Echzell
• 1611–1627: Konrad Matthäus from Grünberg
• 1627–1635: Christoph Wicelius (Vicelius) from Butzbach
• 1636–1656: Johannes Tonsor from Alsfeld
• 1656–1679: Georg Heinrich Fabricius
• 1679–1691: Tobias Raab from Grünberg
• 1691–1704: Philipp Bindewald from Echzell
• 1704–1721: Johann Conrad Bintzer from Ober-Kleen
• 1721–1730: Johann Kaspar Bock from Bottendorf
  • 1723–1731: Deacon Johannes Koch
• 1731–1736: Johann Gerhard Schmidt from Kirtorf
  • from 1731: Deacon Kaspar Peter Jugard
• 1736–1772: Bernhard Kempf from Gießen
• 1773–1795: Georg Philipp Scriba from Königsberg near Gießen
• 1795–1828: Karl Christian Welcker from Grünberg
• 1829–1849: Ludwig Friedrich Münch from Nieder-Gemünden
  • 1829–1831: Vicar Johannes Kißner
• 1850–1875: Gustav Baist from Grünberg
• 1876–1880: Julius Reusch from Rodheim near Langd
• 1880–1897: Emil Münch from Kirtorf
• 1897–1899: Philipp Uhl from Laubach
• 1899–1914: Karl Peters from Babenhausen
• 1914–1916: Peter Bock from Langen-Brombach
• 1916–1924: Hermann Römer from Schotten
• 1924–1932: Otto Crull from Gleiwitz
• 1933–1949: Günther Flechsenhaar from Frankfurt
• 1949–1973: Wilhelm Schmitt from Enkheim near Hanau
• 1973–1979: Horst Dieter Bleek from Stettin
• 1979–1997: Dean Werner Jung from Holzheim (Pohlheim)
• 1998-2000: Cornelia Otto
• 2000–2002: Detlev Maresch as representative
• 2002–2005: Johannes Dittmer from Limburg
• since 2006 0 : Reiner Isheim from Gießen

literature

• Ottfried Dascher (Ed.): Nidda. The history of a city and its surroundings. 2nd Edition. Niddaer Heimatmuseum, Nidda 1992, ISBN 3-9803915-8-2 .
• Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. Edited by Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Michael Wolf and others. 3. Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , p. 776.
• Wilhelm Diehl : Hessen-Darmstädtisches Pfarrer- und Schulmeisterbuch (= Hassia sacra ; 1). Self-published, Darmstadt 1921, pp. 338-340.
• Wilhelm Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt (= Hassia sacra. Volume 5). Self-published, Darmstadt 1931, pp. 347-349.
• Felicitas Janson: Romanesque church buildings in the Rhine-Main area and in Upper Hesse. A contribution to Upper Rhine architecture (sources and research on Hessian history; 97). Self-published by the Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and the Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt 1994, ISBN 3-88443-186-2 , p. 180.
• State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Siegfried RCT Enders (arr.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Wetteraukreis I (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Theiss, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-528-06231-2 , p. 346.
• John Stephen Porter: Selection. Archive of the Evangelical Church Congregation Ulfa. Nidda, Hera 2012.
• Günter Stahnke; History Association Ulfa e. V. (Ed.): The story of Ulfas. 2015. 2nd edition. Self-published, Nidda-Ulfa 2015.

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church (Ulfa)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Presence on the website of the Büdinger Land deanery
• Ulfa. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on April 6, 2015 . 
• Ulfa on nidda.de
• Ringing on hr4

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. Wetteraukreis I. 1982, p. 346.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. 2008, p. 776.
3. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015, pp. 9-10.
4. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015, p. 105.
5. ^ Gerhard Kleinfeldt, Hans Weirich: The medieval church organization in the Upper Hessian-Nassau area. (= Writings of the institute for historical regional studies of Hesse and Nassau 16 ). NG Elwert, Marburg 1937, ND 1984, p. 34.
6. ↑ Ulfa. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on April 6, 2015 . 
7. ^ Günther Stahnke: Ulfa. 15th to 17th centuries. From the time of the 30 Years War, the time before and after. History Association Ulfa, Nidda 2018, p. 8.
8. ^ Günther Stahnke: Ulfa. 15th to 17th centuries. From the time of the 30 Years War, the time before and after. History Association Ulfa, Nidda 2018, pp. 63, 66, 75.
9. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015, p. 111.
10. ↑ Porter: Selection. Archive of the Evangelical Church Congregation Ulfa. 2012, p. 8.
11. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt. 1931, p. 348.
12. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt. 1931, pp. 347-348.
13. ↑ Porter: Selection. Archive of the Evangelical Church Congregation Ulfa. 2012, p. 45.
14. ↑ Porter: Selection. Archive of the Evangelical Church Congregation Ulfa. 2012, p. 73.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt. 1931, p. 347.
16. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015, p. 118.
17. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015. p. 119.
18. ↑ Internet presence in the Evangelical Dean's Office Büdinger Land , accessed on September 7, 2018.
19. ↑ Janson: Romanesque church buildings in the Rhine-Main area and in Upper Hesse. 1994, p. 180.
20. ↑ Via the “chicken ladder” into the bell tower. In: Kreis-Anzeiger from September 16, 2010.
21. ↑ Krystian Skoczowski : The organ builder family Zinck. A contribution to the research of organ building in the Wetterau and the Kinzig valley in the 18th century. Haag + Herchen, Hanau 2018, ISBN 978-3-89846-824-4 , pp. 23, 48, 292.
22. ↑ Porter: Selection. Archive of the Evangelical Church Congregation Ulfa. 2012, p. 47.
23. ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine. Vol. 3: Former province of Upper Hesse (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history 29.2 . Part 1 (M – Z)). Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1331-5 , p. 931-933 .
24. ^ Stahnke: The story of Ulfas. 2015, pp. 129–130.
25. ↑ Die Kirchenblocken, Historisches Dreiergeläut , accessed on April 10, 2019.
26. ^ Diehl: Hessen-Darmstädtisches Pastor and Schoolmaster Book. 1921, p. 341 f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 27 '46.53 "  N , 9 ° 0' 29.1"  E