Evangelical town church (Schönau)
The Evangelical City Church in Schönau in the Rhein-Neckar district in the north-west of Baden-Württemberg was built in the 13th century as the gentleman's refectory of the Schönau monastery.
history
Schönau was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1142 by the Bishop of Worms Burkhard II. It was a house monastery until 1400 and the preferred burial place of the Count Palatine near the Rhine . After Elector Ottheinrich introduced the Reformation in the Electoral Palatinate in 1556 , the monastery was closed. His successor Friedrich III. In 1562, 35 Reformed families, religious refugees from Wallonia , settled in Schönau. Their first pastor was the important Reformed theologian Franz Junius . The settlers were obliged to maintain the monastery buildings. The former refectory was used as a church very early on, because the old monastery church was too big with a length of 84 meters. It is not known when it and the other monastery buildings were destroyed. Presumably they were damaged in the Thirty Years' War and not rebuilt. In 1882 the church was restored. The remnants of the previously attached warming room and kitchen were removed from the northern part of the church and the exterior was adapted to the rest of the building. Between 1985 and 1987 the church was extensively renovated.
description
The ground plan of the Schönau monastery corresponded to the ideal plan of the Cistercians, in which the refectory was connected to the cloister on the opposite side of the abbey church . The yoke that now forms the porch of the church is the only remaining part of the cloister. Due to the late Romanesque architectural style with early Gothic elements, the refectory is classified in the period around 1230/40. The two-aisled room rises above a floor plan 13.75 meters wide and 31.35 meters long. Four pillars divide the hall into two equal parts with five ribbed vaults each . Paintings from around 1490 have been preserved in the two southern vaults. A reading pulpit is built on the western long wall.
The late Gothic three seat decorated with artistic carvings has been preserved from the abbey church . In front of and in the town church several grave slabs were erected, which were found during excavations in 1992 at the northern transverse arm of the church, including that of Dieter von Katzenelnbogen († 1191), Chancellor of Emperor Heinrich VI. , as well as from members of the Erbach , Strahlenburg and Frankenstein families . The organ was built by Walcker (Ludwigsburg) in 1894 , expanded and greatly modified by Steinmeyer in 1959, and rebuilt and re-voiced by Gerhard Lenter in 1998. The instrument has 22 registers on two manuals and a pedal .
literature
- Jürgen Kaiser : Ev. City Church Schönau . Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7954-5442-5 .
- Rainer Laun: Rhein-Neckar-Kreis , in: Dagmar Zimdars u. a. (Ed.), Georg Dehio (Gre.): Handbook of German Art Monuments : Baden-Württemberg I. The administrative districts of Stuttgart and Karlsruhe . Munich 1993, ISBN 3-422-03024-7 .
- State Archive administration Baden-Württemberg in connection with d. Cities and districts Heidelberg u. Mannheim (Hrsg.): The city and the districts of Heidelberg and Mannheim: Official district description , Bd. 2: The city of Heidelberg and the communities of the district of Heidelberg . Karlsruhe 1968.
- Martin Kares, Michael Kaufmann, Godehard Weithoff: Organ guide Rhein-Neckar-Kreis . Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-932102-07-X .
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 26 '9 " N , 8 ° 48' 34.3" E