Franciscan Church (Rothenburg ob der Tauber)

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The Franciscan Church as seen from Herrngasse

The Franciscan church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the monastery church of the former convent of the Franciscan in Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria ( Diocese of Bamberg ). Today the church is an Evangelical Lutheran parish church.

History of the Franciscan Monastery

The monastery consecrated to the Virgin Mary was founded in 1281 by Hermann von Hornburg, Schultheiss and others. It belonged to the Upper German (Strasbourg) order province Argentina of the Franciscan order founded in 1210. The monastery church, which has been preserved to this day, was built as early as 1282. When the Franciscan order was divided in 1517, it joined the Franciscan conventuals ( Minorites ), who lived a less strict form of the vow of poverty . Around 1400 a community of Franciscan Terziaren lived in the monastery for a while until they got their own brother house; The Terziarenkloster continued to be looked after by the Franciscan monastery.

The Minorite monastery died out in 1548 during the Reformation . The buildings of the voluntarily abandoned monastery first housed a Latin school , and later an apartment for pastor widows. After 1805 the buildings served u. a. as a salt magazine. Parts of the complex ( cloister , refectory, etc.) were demolished, and much of the inventory was destroyed or sold.

Architecture of the church

The Franciscan Church of Our Lady ( Latin Beatae Mariae Virginis ) is an important example of a mendicant order church with a rood screen and important art treasures. It is considered to be “the best preserved and probably the most important” mendicant order church in Franconia. Construction began in 1282. The choir was consecrated in 1309 (second consecration in 1333). A high, elongated choir with a ribbed vault is attached to a three-aisled basilica nave with a flat ceiling.

Furnishing

Rood screen

A rood screen five bays wide separates the three-aisled nave from the choir, the church interior of the lay people from that of the monks. But it goes laterally over the width of the choir and extends over the entire width of the nave. It is divided into (rood screen) chapels by fixed partition walls; in each of the four sides there is an altar (at least one altar table); a door in the middle yoke allows access to the choir. After the Reformation, the rood screen was not removed, but used as a gallery. As a result, the spatial image of the 14th century was preserved, as it is rarely found today. A small organ still stands on it today.

In the medieval church, the rood screen was a place of annunciation. It was used for reading and sermon as well as a pulpit for singers. In the Rothenburg church, the wooden rood screen parapet was designed as a picture Bible in this sense: around 1370/90 it was painted with a cycle of passion; In 1494 the pictures of the “Rothenburg Passion” were attached above (today in the Reichsstadtmuseum ). After the Reformation, this tradition was continued with a picture of the Lord's Supper (early 17th century).

Altars

Of the eight altars attested from the Middle Ages, five were still preserved in the 18th century: the high altar (Marienaltar) and four altars in the rood screen chapels, which were consecrated to St. Louis , Francis , John and Catherine. Fragments of the Ludwig and Johannes altars were later placed in the Jakobskirche . The rest were lost.

In the late 19th century the choir was equipped with a new Trinity altar as a high altar, in which a late Gothic Trinity group (around 1500) and two reliefs (around 1560) were inserted. This is now under the rood arcades (on the second altar from the left).

The Francis altar (around 1480/90) is considered to be the most important work of art in church furnishings today . Its origin is unknown, it can hardly be identical with the Francis altar in the rood screen chapel, as it was mentioned as early as 1366. Possibly he was standing in a Francis chapel on the cloister of the monastery. In the 20th century it was placed in the nave , in front of the center of the rood screen . Since it was replaced at this point by a simple altar table and placed in the place of the high altar, the church visitor can again look from the nave through the rood screen door into the choir.

The predella , which was probably connected to the altar at the beginning of the 1870s, comes from the Johannes altar mentioned above and is attributed to Jakob Mülholzer . It shows the adoration of the Christ child by the holy family and the donor family (von Eyb) of that altar . Above it stands a retable with a carved relief in the middle part and painted wings. If the altar had a crack , it is lost.

The relief shows the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi : the saint is kneeling on the left, Brother Leo is sitting on the right, listening to him, in the background the mountainous landscape of Alverna or La Verna can be seen. The figure of the angel , to whom the saint looks up and from whom he receives the wounds, is missing . Either this seraph was part of the blast and was lost with it, or the seraphic crucifix was placed in the center of the relief, or a crucifix hung near the altar and the saint looked up at it. The attribution of the relief is controversial; Most art historians look for the artist in Tilman Riemenschneider's environment or ascribe it to him as an early work.

The colored version of the relief and the painting of the altar wings are attributed to Frater Martinus Schwarz , who himself belonged to the monastery. The wings are mounted upside down. The insides (actually outsides) show in a continuous image that should not be separated by the relief, the beheading of the first martyrs of the Franciscan order by the Sultan of Morocco . They are worse, but at least received in full. On the other hand, from the outside (actually inside) only the lower half of the depictions has been preserved, but in better condition: the confirmation of the rule of the order by Pope Honorius III. and the animal or bird sermon of St. Francis .

organ

The Strebel organ

The organ of the Franciscan Church comes from the workshop of the Nuremberg organ builder Johannes Strebel . The instrument, built in 1889 as Opus 12, with 14 registers on two manuals and a pedal was restored in 1992 by Orgelbau Sandtner . It is considered "one of the most important monument organs in Bavaria".

Bicycle path church

The Franciscan church of the monastery with its location on the Taubertal cycle path is designated as a cycle path church.

literature

General
  • Ernst Gall : Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Recordings by Helga Schmidt-Glassner (= Burkhard Meier [founder] [publisher]: Deutsche Lande, deutsche Kunst ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1955, p. 18–19 with figs. 28–33 .
  • Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . (Publication without indication of place or year, Rothenburg, approx. 1957–1975; neither listed by DNB nor BSB Munich).
  • Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-422-00359-2 , p. 725 .
  • Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , p. 910–911 (new version of the text on the city of Rothenburg by Vincent Mayr).
Francis altar
  • Hartmut Krohm: winged altar with depiction of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . With technological investigation and restoration reports by Andrea Kleberger, Regina Becker and Erwin Mayer. In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–89 cat. 10 with color plate 3 .
  • Hartmut Krohm: Today's predella of the Rothenburg Franziskus Altar with depiction of the knight family von Eyb in adoration of the Christ child . With a technological investigation report by Erwin Mayer. In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 89–91 cat. 11 with color plate 3 .

Web links

Commons : Franziskanerkirche (Rothenburg ob der Tauber)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

gallery

  • Franciscan Church (outside)

  • The Francis altar in the choir of the church, ascribed to Tilman Riemenschneider

  • Franciscan Church (rood screen)

  • The vaulted ceiling of the choir room

  • View from the town hall to the Franciscan Church

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christine Riedl-Valder: Rothenburg od Tauber, Terziarenkloster. In: House of Bavarian History: Monasteries in Bavaria.
  2. ↑ Herbert Schindler : Great Bavarian Art History . Volume 1: Early and Middle Ages . Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1963, p. 210 .
  3. ↑ The dating fluctuates: Karl Strobel: Small guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 5 ("first half of the 14th century"). - Ernst Gall : Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Recordings by Helga Schmidt-Glassner (= Burkhard Meier [founder] [publisher]: Deutsche Lande, deutsche Kunst ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1955, p. 18 ("late Gothic forms").
  4. ↑ On the rood screen in Bettelordenskirchen in general and on his training as a cross-ship rood screen: Wolfgang Schenkluhn : Architektur der Bettelorden. The architecture of the Dominicans and Franciscans in Europe . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2000, p. 81-83 .
  5. ^ Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , p. 910 .
  6. ^ Chronicle of Johann Ludwig Schäffer, 1729: Hartmut Krohm: winged altar with depiction of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 74 .
  7. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 7 . - Ludwigs and Johannes altars: Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , p. 907 . - Ludwig altar : Hartmut Krohm: fragments of an altar of St. Louis of Toulouse . With technological research reports by Erwin Mayer and Andrea Kleberger. In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 180-184 cat. 29 .
  8. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 7 .
  9. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 7-8 .
  10. ↑ Most of the altar is dated around 1490. - Before 1490: Hartmut Krohm: winged altar with depiction of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 80 (“The Franziskus Altar should also precede the Münnerstädter Altar (1490–92)”). - Early dating around 1480: Ernst Gall : Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Recordings by Helga Schmidt-Glassner (= Burkhard Meier [founder] [publisher]: Deutsche Lande, deutsche Kunst ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1955, p. 19 .
  11. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 7 . - Hartmut Krohm has a different view: winged altar with depiction of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 74 .
  12. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 7–8 and illustration on page 3 . - In the years around 1980 it was outsourced to the Jakobskirche: Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-422-00359-2 , p. 724 . - Hartmut Krohm: winged altar depicting the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 74 .
  13. ↑ Hartmut Krohm: Winged altar with representation of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 75 .
  14. ↑ Hartmut Krohm: Today's predella of the Rothenburg Franziskus Altar with depiction of the knight family von Eyb in adoration of the Christ child . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 89–90 cat. 11 with color plate 3 .
  15. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 8 . - Hartmut Krohm is of a different opinion, who assumes that the altar was created for installation under the rood screen and, because of the low height available there, had no cracks and was at most crowned by a smaller carved figure: Hartmut Krohm: winged altar with depiction of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 74 .
  16. ↑ Hartmut Krohm: Winged altar with representation of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 75 . - The investigation report of the relief does not reveal any evidence of the earlier attachment of such a figure in the relief background. See, however, an assumption in the investigation report of the shrine box: Erwin Mayer: Technological investigation report on the shrine . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 86–87 ("Three nail holes on the underside of the upper end board (...) perhaps served to attach the seraphic crucifix.").
  17. ^ Ernst Gall : Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Recordings by Helga Schmidt-Glassner (= Burkhard Meier [founder] [publisher]: Deutsche Lande, deutsche Kunst ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1955, p. 19 .
  18. ↑ Karl Strobel: Little guide through the Franciscan Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 8 ("... the hand of a very great master, whose creative power was not inferior to a Riemenschneider. In fact, Riemenschneider, who saw the altar in Rothenburg, created some of his works based on it ..."). - Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-422-00359-2 , p. 724 ("Michel Erhart School"). - Hartmut Krohm: winged altar depicting the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10 (“Tilman Riemenschneider (attributed as early work)”). - Herbert Schindler : The Romantic Road. An art journey from the Main to the Alps . 4th edition. Prestel, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7913-0073-3 , pp. 148 ("Riemenschneider created this altar around 1490. (...) The altar is close to Ulm art, the circle around Michel Erhart, but there is also a relationship to the (...) 'Wiblinger Altar' (...) ) do not overlook."). - Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , p. 910 ("at least from the workshop of Tilman Riemenschneider").
  19. ↑ Hartmut Krohm: Winged altar with representation of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi . In: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 74–80 cat. 10, here p. 79 .
  20. ↑ So already Karl Strobel: Small guide through the Franciscan church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . S. 8 (“reversed and reversed”). - Most of the photos also show this incorrect arrangement. The correct, original arrangement can be seen in the exhibition catalog from 1981: Tilman Riemenschneider - Early Works . Exhibition in the Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg (...). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0724-8 , p. 84, 85 and color plate 3 .
  21. ^ Sandtner organ building - information. In: sandtner-orgelbau.de. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  22. ^ Tilmann Breuer u. a. (Editor): Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia (=  Georg Dehio [founder], Dehio Association [Hrsg.]: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , p. 911 .
  23. ↑ Tourism Association Liebliches Taubertal (Ed.): Cycle Path Churches . Brochure. 12 pages. District Office Main-Tauber-Kreis, Tauberbischofsheim, p. 6.

Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 36 ″  N , 10 ° 10 ′ 35 ″  E