Brothers Church (Braunschweig)

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The Brothers Church in Braunschweig

The Evangelical Brothers Church “St. Ulrici Brothers ”in Braunschweig is a former Franciscan church that was originally consecrated to Saints Maria , Franziskus and Bernward . It was the center of a partially preserved monastery complex.

Today it belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Propstei Braunschweig .

Origin and history of use

Franciscan monastery

After the 1491 incurred Saxony Chronicle Cord Bothe 1209 are already in Franciscan optional Emperor Otto IV. Have settled in Brunswick. However, there is no documentary evidence that Otto had a chapel built for the order in 1215. However, due to the history of the Franciscan order, both dates are excluded. The founder of the order, Francis of Assisi , received his first twelve companions from Pope Innocent III in 1210 . in Rome the ecclesiastical confirmation of his fellowship. The first brothers reached Germany in 1217 at the earliest, probably not until 1219, but were expelled as heretics. In 1221 Franz von Assisi again sent brothers to Germany who settled in the Salzburg, Regensburg and Rhine-Main area.

In 1223 some Franciscans came to Hildesheim with brother Johannes de Plano Carpini and then also reached the cities of Braunschweig, Halberstadt , Goslar and Magdeburg . In the following years, a Franciscan monastery was built on the northern edge of Braunschweig's old town . The Franciscan Brothers started building their own chapel in 1242, the original Brothers Church, but nothing has survived. Only a few arched windows in the south wing of the cloister have survived from the former monastery.

Due to the population's great need for church services, pastoral care and medical care, the chapel quickly became too small and was replaced by a new building in the Gothic style in the 14th and 15th centuries . The year 1350 brought the first construction interruption with the great plague, which besides the population also killed a large part of the religious. More epidemics and famines followed, so that the new church was not completed until 1451. The high choir was consecrated in 1361 by Bishop Heinrich von Hildesheim. The convent building and the three-wing Gothic cloister , the construction of which had started after the completion of the church, had also been completed by 1522 .

As early as May 1458, the annual chapter of the Saxon Franciscan Province , to which the convent in Braunschweig belonged, was held with 300 brothers in the newly built remter (chapter house and refectory ) . Following the construction work, the premises of the Franciscan monastery were also used by the city council, so that the monastery played a key role during the Reformation.

Reformation time

Bugenhagen memorial from 1970

Years of development preceded Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558), closest colleague and confessor of Martin Luther, on May 21, 1528 (Ascension), gave his first sermon in the Brothers Church. The Reformation began in Braunschweig with Gottschalk Kruse , a Benedictine from St. Aegidien who had studied with Martin Luther. The population's approval of the Reformation increased, and after Bugenhagen's sermon, which also had a large influx, he stayed in Braunschweig and worked with the "spiritual ministry", the clergy and the council to develop the Braunschweig church order . Since the premises of the monastery were already available to the council, the new Reformation church order, which was adopted by the city council on September 28, 1528, was also drawn up there. The Franciscans were banned from preaching and any other public activity as early as Easter 1528. Because they were also forbidden from "begging", which secured the livelihood of the brothers, with the ban on public appearances, they left the city for good at Easter 1529. In doing so, they took documents such as the foundation documents with them, which means that the history of the Brothers' Church's origins is only incomplete and research into the Franciscan order in Braunschweig is difficult. Due to its influx and the resulting new design as a hall church, the Brothers Church had a great influence on the parish churches of the city of Braunschweig, which were also converted into such. As a result, there were several churches in Braunschweig suitable for the new form of Lutheran worship. In 1902 a memorial was erected in honor of Bugenhagen on the west side of the Brothers Church, which was destroyed during the Second World War. In 1970 a new bronze statue of the reformer was erected next to the choir.

The Brothers Church and the monastery stood empty after the Reformation until the Brothers Church became the parish church of the St. Ulrici parish in 1544 , whose original church on the Kohlmarkt was demolished that year. The monastery buildings were initially used as apartments by the parish.

16th to 19th century

In the post-Reformation period, some structural changes were made in the church that matched the general development in Protestant church building. The monastery buildings were used by the city for different purposes. In 1569 was in the refectory , the monastery of the arsenal of the five precincts set up, which was extended in the following years. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Pauline monastery on Bohlweg was converted into a princely armory, so that the former municipal armory slowly fell into disrepair and was temporarily used for garrison purposes.

In 1753 the library of the Ministry of Spirituality was merged with the books of Liberei in the Brethren Church. The library remained in the sacristy of the Brothers Church until it was moved to the Neustadtrathaus in 1863 .

Restoration, destruction and reconstruction

altar

Between 1861 and 1865 the Brothers Church was restored by Carl Tappe and in 1903/1904 by Max Osterloh . During the Second World War , particularly as a result of the bombing of October 15, 1944 , the Brothers Church and the former monastery were badly damaged. The roof was completely destroyed and large parts of the monastery complex no longer existed. The ground floor of the sacristy could be used again as the first room for church services, i.e. the area of ​​the complex that was probably already available to the first Franciscans. After 1945, both the church and the former monastery were restored in several construction phases, so that the high choir could be consecrated again in 1957 and the entire church in 1978. The cloister, the sacristy and a small polygonal chapel have been preserved from the medieval monastery complex. The church still contains the choir stalls from the 14th century, the high altar and a relief image of St. Francis. In addition, the partially preserved rood screen from 1592/94 is now placed in the entrance area and the baptismal font from the Ulricikirche, which was demolished in 1544, is also preserved.

Building description

Exterior construction

The exterior of the church, structured by buttresses, has a powerful, uniform gable roof. In front of the west portal there is a three-part, neo-Gothic vestibule. The three-winged cloister attached to the nave has been preserved and has a ribbed vault made of molded brick.

Like all mendicant churches , the church does not have a tower but has a roof turret .

inner space

Interior design

The interior has a total length of 62 m, the width of the nave is 21 m. The height of the central nave is 19.43 m. The spacious, three-aisled relay hall is divided by five bays. The slim three-bay choir with a 1/8 end is 25 m long, 10 m wide and 21 m high.

Furnishing

The interior of the church is richly decorated. The large winged altar, which was created between 1380 and 1400 by an unknown Lower Saxon master, is preserved. The relief plaque of St. Francis with a Franciscan.

The choir stalls were built at the end of the 14th century. Its back walls were decorated with 42 pictures of Catholic and Protestant theologians around 1600 by Reinhard Roggen from the Rhineland , including Luther , Melanchthon and Bugenhagen.

The first rood screen existed during the Middle Ages and was removed after 1544. In its place was the rood screen from the Renaissance , created by Jürgen Röttger in 1592/94 , which was dismantled during the renovation between 1861 and 1865. In 1904 the preserved neo-Gothic rood screen designed by Wilhelm Sagebiel (1855–1940) was installed. Röttger's Renaissance rood screen was relocated during the Second World War and suffered only minor damage. After an extensive twelve-year restoration, it was installed in the western nave and consecrated on February 2, 2000, so that the Brothers Church today has two rood screens.

The cast brass baptismal font created by Barthold Sprangken around 1440 comes from the St. Ulrici Church on Kohlmarkt, which was demolished in 1544. The community also owns a Romanesque lecture cross and a Gothic communion chalice from 1496 .

organ

Main organ

The foundation of an organ by Dietrich von Winningstedt is documented for the year 1414 . In 1439 a choir organ is mentioned for the first time. After a few modifications to the existing instruments, the master organ builder Gottfried Fritzsche from Dresden built a new instrument with 26 registers in 1626/27 , distributed over three manuals and a pedal . Six of these registers were preserved until 1945, when the organ, which had grown to 61 registers and was now romantically oriented, was destroyed by an aerial mine.

In 1958, the Hildesheim organ builder Ernst Palandt built a choir organ in a historic baroque case , which was purchased from Northern Hesse. This choir organ was moved to the main nave in 1978 and taken over as a Rückpositiv in the current organ, which was built from 1980 to 1991 by the Gustav Steinmann company from Vlotho - Wehrendorf . The disposition follows French influences without being an immediate style copy. The instrument has 40 registers (on slider drawer ). The playing and stop action is mechanical.

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
1. Dumped 8th'
2. Praestant 4 ′
3. Reed flute 4 ′
4th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
5. octave 2 ′
6th Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Zyfflöt 1'
8th. Voix humaine 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
9. Bourdon 16 ′
10. Principal 8th'
11. Pipe bourdon 8th'
12. octave 4 ′
13. Night horn 4 ′
14th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
15th octave 2 ′
16. Cornet III-V 8th'
17th Mixture IV-VI 2 ′
18th Trumpets 8th'
19th Clairon 4 ′
III Oberwerk C – g 3
20th Ital. Principal 8th'
21st Coupling flute 8th'
22nd Voix céleste 8th'
23. Pointed octave 4 ′
24. Flûte octaviante 4 ′
25th Nasard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
26th Capstan flute 2 ′
27. Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
28. Larigot 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
29 Plein jeu V
30th Hautbois 8th'
31. Trumpet harm. 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
32. Principal 16 ′
33. Sub bass 16 ′
34. Octave bass 8th'
35. Metal dacked 8th'
36. Violoncello 8th'
37. Dolkan 4 ′
38. Bombard 16 ′
39. Trumpets 8th'
40. Clairon 4 ′

Cabinet organ

In 1789 the cabinet organ was built in the Emden organ building workshop of the East Frisian organ builder Ibe Peters Iben . This instrument was overhauled in 2013 by Reinalt Johannes Klein . It has six registers on one manual.

Convention library

Origin and development

When exactly the library in the Braunschweig Franciscan monastery was founded is not documented. However, a manuscript from 1411, which mentions 2 lecturers in the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig, gives first indications of its existence. A lecturer was responsible for the education of his brothers and was a prerequisite for an in-house study at the convent. Such an activity could only be carried out with the help of a larger collection of books. Originally the ideal of poverty forbade the Franciscans from owning books, but the bull of Pope Gregory IX. Quo elongati from 1230 created the basis for the creation of libraries in the individual convents with the distinction between usage and property rights. After the Franciscans left Braunschweig in 1528 and the library was inventoried, the information about the accommodation and administration of the estate are contradictory. It is possible that the book holdings were integrated into the newly established library of the Ministry of Spirituality as early as 1570 , or it was not until 1753 that all other manuscripts from other Braunschweig churches were merged into the library of the Ministry of Spirituality. This merged library remained in the sacristy of the Brothers Church until it was relocated to the Neustadtrathaus in 1863 and was finally transferred as part of the ministerial library to the new building of the city archive and the city ​​library on the Steintorwall in 1910 .

Structure and content of the library

After the Franciscans left Braunschweig, the library was inventoried on behalf of the council. The presence of councilors as witnesses and the total recorded number of 444 volumes testify to the importance attached to the library. The structure of the library followed a pattern that was common at the time. There were two rows of desks with double desks, which were set up to the right and left of a central aisle. On each desk there were between 20 and 40 volumes, each attached to the desk with a chain. In terms of content, the stock of theological as well as (ecclesiastical) legal and medical literature was sufficient. The books and writings themselves were, in accordance with the vow of poverty, kept very simple and, for reasons of economy, often unadorned with abbreviated script on cheap paper. Nowadays only a good 40 volumes in the Franciscan Library can be clearly assigned, as in the centuries up to the transfer to the city archive there were many possibilities of losing books from the original inventory due to sometimes chaotic conditions.

Significance for the order and the city

For the Franciscan order, the convent's own libraries became more and more important after the scientific methodical foundation of the order's own study system became more and more popular at the end of the 13th century. As a result of the division of the course into the areas of logic, natural philosophy and theology and the adoption of scholastic methods, the need for scientific literature grew. The books remained officially the property of the order and it was also the order, through the general chapter, that controlled the selection of books in order to prevent heresy from entering its libraries.As many of the Franciscan brothers went on hikes, the organized distribution also guaranteed that the brothers, regardless of which convent they were in, always found the necessary conditions for their studies, which was seen as an important condition for the fulfillment of the preaching commission. The library of the convent was also important for the city, since the lending of books for non-members was generally not closed. The books of the libraries in the respective Franciscan monasteries were consulted by pastors in disputes relating to canon law, or to expand their knowledge of preaching.

Pastor

literature

Essays
  • Friedrich Berndt: Brethren Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. A contribution to its building history, taking into account more recent findings during reconstruction after the war. In: Braunschweiger Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch / 3. Episode , Vol. 60 (1979), pp. 37-63, ISSN  0068-0745 .
  • Andrea Boockmann: The inscriptions of the city of Braunschweig until 1528 (based on a collection of material by Dietrich Mack from 1945 to 1986 ) . In: The German inscriptions / Göttinger series , vol. 35, part 5 (1993), p. 63 ff. ISBN 3-88226-513-2 .
  • Jürgen Diestelmann : Brothers Church. In: Luitgard Camerer, Manfred RW Garzmann and Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf with special assistance from Norman-Mathias Pingel: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon , main volume . Verlag Meyer, Braunschweig 1992, p. 47. ISBN 3-926701-14-5 (on behalf of the city of Braunschweig).
  • Jürgen Hodemacher: Brunswick Stories, Vol. 1 . Verlag Meyer, Braunschweig 2003, pp. 48–52, ISBN 3-926701-56-0 .
  • Helga Wäß: "St. Ulriki Brothers ”in Braunschweig . In: Diess .: Form and Perception of Central German Memory Sculpture in the 14th Century. A contribution to medieval grave monuments, epitaphs and curiosities in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, North Hesse, East Westphalia and South Lower Saxony, Vol. 2: Catalog of selected objects from the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the 15th century . Tenea Verlag, Berlin 2006, pp. 79-84, ISBN 3-86504-159-0 .
Monographs
  • Luitgard Camerer: The library of the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. Orphanage printing and publishing house, Braunschweig 1982, ISBN 3-87884-019-5 .
  • Georg Dehio (greeting), Gottfried Kiesow (editing): Bremen / Lower Saxony ( manual of German art monuments ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-422-00348-7 .
  • Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig (Langewiesche library). Langewiesche, Königstein / T. 1982, ISBN 3-7845-0285-7 .
  • Eberhard Isenmann : The German city in the late Middle Ages. Late Middle Ages, 1250–1500. City design, law, city government, church, society, economy ( UTB for science). Ulmer, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8001-2571-4 .
  • Herbert Kunze : The sculpture of the fourteenth century in Saxony and Thuringia (monuments of German art; Vol. 6). Cassirer Verlag, Berlin 1925.
  • Herbert Kunze: The Gothic sculpture in Central Germany (art books of German landscapes). Publishing house Cohen, Bonn 1925.
  • Richard Moderhack : Braunschweig. The image of the city in 900 years, vol. 1: Braunschweiger Stadtgeschichte. With timetable and bibliography . Verlag Wagner, Braunschweig 1997, ISBN 3-87884-050-0 .
  • Eva Schlotheuber : The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library (Saxonia Franciscana; Vol. 8). Dietrich-Coelde-Verlag, Werl 1996, ISBN 3-87163-222-8 (plus dissertation, University of Göttingen 1994).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ St. Ulrici Brothers on the Propstei side
  2. ^ Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 37.
  3. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 19.
  4. ↑ Ralf Michael Nickel: Between city, territory and church. Franziskus' sons in Westphalia until the beginning of the Thirty Years War. Dissertation at the University of Bochum 2007, p. 21f. www-brs.ub.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (PDF; 8.3 MB); Friedrich Berndt: Brethren Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 41, where Brother John is referred to as Father "John of Tiano".
  5. ↑ Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig. Pp. 2-3.
  6. ↑ a b c Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig. P. 4.
  7. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 171.
  8. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 179.
  9. ↑ a b Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig. P. 5.
  10. ↑ Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig. P. 6.
  11. ↑ a b Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P.56.
  12. ↑ Jürgen Diestelmann, Johannes Kettel: The Brothers Church in Braunschweig. P. 8.
  13. ↑ a b Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 57.
  14. ↑ a b Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 60.
  15. ^ Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 59.
  16. ^ Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 61.
  17. ^ Friedrich Berndt: Brothers Church and former Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 62.
  18. ↑ a b Jürgen Diestelmann: Brothers Church. In: Camerer u. a. (Ed.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon. P. 47.
  19. ↑ All information on the organs from Bach Orgel-Werke 4a. Matthias Eisenberg at the Steinmann organ of the St. Ulrici Brothers Church in Braunschweig, RAM 59044.
  20. ^ A b Luitgard Camerer: The library of the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 11.
  21. ^ Eva Schlotheuber: The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library. P. 101.
  22. ^ Eva Schlotheuber: The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library. P. 32.
  23. ^ Luitgard Camerer: The library of the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 32.
  24. ^ Luitgard Camerer: The library of the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 30.
  25. ^ Luitgard Camerer: The library of the Franciscan monastery in Braunschweig. P. 33.
  26. ^ Eva Schlotheuber: The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library. P. 104.
  27. ^ Eva Schlotheuber: The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library. P. 133.
  28. ^ Eva Schlotheuber: The Franciscans in Göttingen. The history of the monastery and its library. P. 110.

Web links

Commons : Brüdernkirche  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 56 ″  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 8.1 ″  E