Franciscans in Lechenich
The Franziskaner in Lechenich is a former Franciscan monastery in Lechenich , which is now used as a hotel.
history
In 1648 members of the Franciscan order took over property in Lechenich to build a monastery there. The brothers of the Cologne Franciscan Province ( Colonia ), who belong to the Brühl Convent of Franciscan Recollects (Observants), built a monastery and a small church between 1655 and 1665. The facility was located in the outer south-western part of the city, on the Klosterstrasse, which is still called today, near today's “ Herriger Tor” of the city wall . The monastery was dissolved as a result of the secularization , the buildings were largely demolished. Similar to the depiction of Matthäus Merian , which shows the fortified city in a bird's eye view around 1646 , a view from the beginning of the 18th century illustrates a now slightly changed cityscape. It shows another church on the southwestern outskirts. The illustration is an excerpt from a land map from that time, which showed the limits of the Bliesheim rule , the St. Maria ad Gradus monastery in Cologne. It is not possible to verify which exact period the cityscape inserted in this map shows.
The Brühl Convention
The Brühl Franciscan Observants had lived in Brühl since the end of the 15th century. The consecration of their monastery, founded by Archbishop Hermann , took place in 1494.
Lechenich, with large parts of the electoral office, was one of the areas supervised by the Brühl Franciscans. They were already active in this area after the Archbishop of Cologne Adolf von Schauenburg had entrusted them to the service in the castle chapel in 1556 . From a 1617 Brühler held Medal minister in two weeks sequence specifically for founded belt Society of hl. Francis holds a brotherhood celebration on Sundays. This was held in the parish church of St. Kilian on one of the side altars of the church, which was dedicated to the patrons of the brotherhood.
When the novice master of the Brühl monastery, Father Mathias Sarburg, stayed temporarily in Lechenich before the upcoming Easter days in 1642, he too fell victim to the siege of the city that began on Good Friday during one of the numerous battles of the Thirty Years' War .
In 1643 the local priest, Laurentius Walram, wrote a description of these events under the title
- "Defense and triumph of the castle and the city of Lechenich against the Hessian, Weimarschen and French troops" commissioned for printing from the Cologne printer Wilhelm Friessem.
The events published in this way appeared in a Latin print edition, the manuscript of which was written by the contemporary witness Father Mathias Sarburg. According to Sarburg, Father Sarburg's incentive to defend himself during the siege of the city and the publication of the epic were the reason why the citizens of Lechenich wanted an independent monastery on site.
Gift and status
After the end of the Thirty Years' War , Elector Ferdinand fulfilled the Lechenich's wish on May 6, 1648 and granted Heinrich Lotius, the responsible Provincial of the Cologne Order of the Franciscan Recollects , permission to found a new order in Lechenich and then to build a monastery building and a church with one Bell tower . In the same month the Franciscans received from the Lechenich mayor Adolf Dierath a house surrounded by sufficient building land as a gift. The property comprised the area between Klosterstrasse and Melchiorstrasse up to the south-western fortification wall of the city. Parts of it are still preserved today along the street “Auf dem Graben” (near Herriger Tor). After the renovation of the house, which they did not begin until 1649, the friars moved in in October of the same year. Until their own small prayer house was completed in the following year, they celebrated Holy Mass in the local parish church of St. Kilian . On June 2, 1652 the monastery was raised to a convent.
The parishes of Balkhausen , Kierdorf , Liblar , as well as Burg Türnich and Schloss Gracht were given to the Lechenich Convent by the Brühl convent as " terminating district " as early as 1657 .
Monastery and church
To finance new monastery buildings and a monastery church, the new Lechenich convent received not only donations from the citizenship but also financial support from well-known donors, such as Baron Degenhard Adolf Wolff Metternich, bailiff zu Lechenich and the electoral stables of Cologne , court marshal Baron von Gymnich and the Maltese knight Konrad Scheiffart Merode, Herr zu Weilerswist . The foundation stone of the Franciscan Church could be laid on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, 1655. From 1660, services were held in the new St. Joseph Church.
Destruction and rebuilding
The monastery and its church were also affected by the great fire in Lechenich in 1722, and all of the furnishings were destroyed except for a few parts of the building.
However, the reconstruction only took a few years. The wing of the building in which the refectory was located was rebuilt at the end of September 1722 . In the summer of the following year, the two remaining wings of the monastery were built, after which the reconstruction of the church dedicated to St. Joseph was carried out. During the reconstruction of the church, the service took place in the entrance area of the only slightly damaged bell tower, while the participants stood in the cloister. The church, which was inaugurated with a solemn service on September 8, 1724, was traditionally furnished in a later period (1750) in the Rococo style. It is said to have shown similarities with the Brühl Franciscan Church in some details. Compared to this, nothing remained of the Lechenich church building, only a few remains of the monastery buildings have been preserved in Klosterstrasse.
secularization
A candle shield from the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer , made around 1818 (owned by the parish of St. Kilian) shows a representation of Lechenich before the monastery church was demolished. You can see the Franciscan Church, the Herriger Tor, the parish church and Lechenich Castle as tall buildings starting from the left. The history of the Lechenich Franciscan Order ended with the almost complete destruction of the St. Joseph Church and the other monastery complexes due to the effects of secularization.
The Franciscans worked in Lechenich and the surrounding area for over 150 years. In addition to their main pastoral work , they were involved in teaching. In 1783 they opened an elementary school and a Latin school in Lechenich , both of which were housed in the rooms of the monastery. After the Concordat concluded in 1801 between Napoléon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII , most of the monasteries were closed in July 1802 and their property confiscated. Soon after the sale of the monastery in Aachen, the capital of the Département de la Roer , (1805) the monastery church of St. Josef was demolished.
Information on the whereabouts of the monastery and church inventory is vague . The organ , the confessional stalls and a side altar were later mentioned in other places. The confessional stalls were for a long time in the Alt St. Katharina Church in Hürth and then in the Church of St. Josef Hürth-Knapsack . The late baroque organ was first brought to Weilerswist and from there, after the Second World War , to the former Franciscan and castle church of St. Maria von den Engeln in Brühl. After a restoration in 1967, the magnificent organ was inaugurated. A relic of St. Apollonia was transferred to the parish church of St. Kilian in good time before the inventory was sold (1803).
Hotel Franziskaner
The monastery grounds were initially owned by the state and later parceled out to private owners. The "Hotel Franziskaner" is a reminiscence of the former monastery complex. It is the preserved northwest wing of the monastery on Klosterstrasse. It is not only by its name that it is reminiscent of the former seat of the Lechenich Franciscans. In comparison with an old floor plan of the monastery complex available to the Düsseldorf State Archives and the remaining relics of the old architecture of the hotel and neighboring buildings, knowledge about the arrangement of the individual buildings could be obtained.
reconstruction
The monastery church, built contrary to the traditional east-west orientation ( east ), was located lengthways on the Klosterstrasse, which began at the market and ran in a north-south direction. It is said to have reached about the left corner wall of today's hotel building. The southern choir of the church was joined by a small building used as a hospital. This was followed by a servants' house in front of the stables in the background . The friars ran a brewery on the edge of the monastery grounds, right next to the city wall .
Behind the church were the monastery buildings, whose preserved corridors of the north and west wings, spanned by a groin vault , are part of the current hotel building. These wing structures enclosed the inner courtyard (quadrum), which in turn was surrounded by the cloister and which remained undeveloped even after the demolition.
Cutout
South wall and beginning side wing
Cloister as part of the restaurant
Detail view
The western wing was preceded by a fountain on the left southern side, then the refectory , which was used to refresh the inmates, and the kitchen area on the right began (the refectory as a restaurant and the kitchen still serve the same purpose today). The dormitory , the area where the monks' cells were located, joined the cloister on the north side near the church entrance.
The former monastery grounds are now made up of private residential and utility buildings. There is not much left of the old days of this area dominated by the monastery complex.
Structural changes
Further structural changes were made to the former monastery complex in 2011/2012. A new building was built parallel to the former southern cloister, which connects to the listed residential building at Klosterstrasse 20. During the restoration of this house, the former sacristy of the monastery church and part of the choir, which were integrated into the house as living space, were rediscovered. They were already known in 1960, but have not been considered to have existed since then. A two-story stump of the former bell tower, which was also integrated into the residential building, could also be located. The discoveries correspond to a sketch published by Kretschmar. The listed cellars under the cloister have also been preserved and are used by the residents of the residential buildings at Klosterstrasse 18 above the cloister.
literature
- Frank Bartsch, Hanna Stommel: Lechenich. From Roman times until today. An illustrated city history , Erftstadt-Lechenich: Bookstore Heinz Pier 2004 ISBN 3-924576-07-6
- Karl Stommel: History of the Electoral Cologne city of Lechenich. Association of history and home friends of the district of Euskirchen eV, Euskirchen 1960.
- Frank Kretzschmar: Churches, monasteries and chapels in the Erftkreis , Erftkreis publication No. 94, 3rd edition. Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1992; P. 168 f. ISBN 3-7927-0821-3
- Karl Stommel : The Franciscans in Lechenich in: Monasteries and monasteries in the Erftkreis . Rheinlandverlag. 1988. ISBN 3-7927-1044-7
- Oliver Meys: Construction observations on the extension to the choir of the former Lechenich Franciscan Church, Erftstadt City Yearbook 2013, pages 53–63, Erftstadt Cultural Office
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Stommel; Monasteries and monasteries in the Erftkreis , p. 260
- ^ Karl Stommel: History of the Electoral Cologne City of Lechenich , pp. 72, 75 f
- ^ Frank Bartsch, Hanna Stommel: Lechenich. From Roman times until today. An illustrated city history , p. 22
- ^ Karl Stommel: History of Lechenich, note 71: For the following: Walram Laurentius:… 1643; Holler A. The heroic defense in 1642 against the united Hessian, Weimar and French armies. Lechenich high school program. 1876; Cölln P: The siege of Lechenich in 1642.1909
- ↑ Düren City Archives Documents 199 and 200
- ^ Fritz Wündisch: 500 years of the Franciscan monastery. Sources on the history of Brühl VII. Brühl 1991. No. 63
- ^ Karl Stommel: "The Franciscans in Lechenich" in monasteries and monasteries in the Erftkreis p. 270/271
- ↑ Karl Stommel, p. 81
- ^ Franz Kretzschmar, p. 168 and Karl Stommel, p. 76
- ↑ Floor plan of the monastery complex: Main State Archive Düsseldorf Government Cologne Rentei Brühl.
- ^ A b Franz Kretzschmar: Churches, monasteries and chapels in the Erftkreis , p. 168
- ↑ Karl Stommel, p. 60
- ^ Karl Stommel, p. 60, based on a reconstructed drawing by Siegfried Jahnke
