Franciscan monastery Fritzlar

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
City church and hospital
Church of the former Minorite monastery, today a Protestant town church
Church portal

The Franciscan monastery Fritzlar in the eastern part of today's old town of Fritzlar in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse existed, with a brief interruption during the Reformation , from 1237 to 1811. It belonged to the Franciscan order ( ordo fratrum minorum , "Friars Minor Order", also "Minorites" "). The former monastery church, still called the "Minorite Church" today, has served as the Protestant town church since 1824. The remaining monastery buildings were converted into a hospital, which has been expanded and modernized several times over the years.

founding

After the total destruction of Fritzlar by Landgrave Konrad of Thuringia in 1232, the Franciscans requested and received from Archbishop Siegfried III on August 6, 1236 . permission from Mainz to build a monastery in the city . On June 20, 1237, only eleven years after the death of the order's founder, Francis of Assisi and 27 years after the order was founded, the town's citizens sold the order for six silver marks an urban plot of land within the new city wall, which had been moved considerably to the east, between the Werkeltor and the Jordan Tower, with exemption from all civil requirements, and allowed building right up to the city wall due to lack of space; During construction, however, the city wall was not allowed to be torn down and the city moat not to be filled in. The order set up a small settlement and began building the monastery complex.

When the Franciscan order was divided into the Upper Servants and the Conventuals ( Ordo fratrum minorum conventualium , Minorites ), the monastery joined the less strict direction of the Conventuals.

investment

The monastery, which belonged to the Cologne Franciscan Province ( Colonia ), was consecrated as early as 1244 . The monastery complex stretched from today's Gießener Straße, immediately north of the Werkeltor, north to the Jordan Tower and encompassed the entire area between the new city wall in the east and Brüdergasse in the west - an area of ​​around 40 × 100 meters. As a result of considerable renovations, extensions and new buildings since the 18th century, much of the original structure can no longer be seen today, but the overall size of the monastery complex is still clearly visible.

church

Fritzlar, with the Franciscan monastery church on the right edge of the picture (from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian the Younger 1655)

The construction of the monastery church at the southern end of the monastery area, probably the most important building in the city after the collegiate church (cathedral) of St. Peter , was completed in the first quarter of the 14th century. The Minorite Church was probably built at the same time as the Gothic south aisles and the cloister of the cathedral.

It is a long, two-aisled Gothic hall church with a long choir of the same height , with eight ribbed vaults , high buttresses and high, colorless glazed tracery windows, which make the room appear bright and spacious. The aisle is on the south side and only extends to the beginning of the choir. Like all Franciscan churches , it was remarkably large in order to serve the pastoral care of the city population , which the order intensely pursued , but simply and without many art treasures in the style of a mendicant order church . The main nave is separated from the aisle by slender columns with leaf ornaments on the capitals . The north wall has no windows and is interrupted halfway up by a walkway on arched arcades . The keystones of the four vaults in the choir show the blessing Christ, the adoring Francis of Assisi, a head with a wreath of leaves, and a rose with a husband and wife. On July 5, 1658, the Mainz auxiliary bishop Adolph Gottfried Volusius consecrated the high altar again , a sign that a significant change had been made to this one. The consecration took place in honor of Francis and Elisabeth, Landgrave of Thuringia.

The high altar

In the 19th century were Baroque altars removed except one Nepomuk - high altar from 1735, which stands in the choir today. On the north wall of the choir there is a fresco of Mary from around 1330, which shows a clear relationship with the representation of Mary in Fritzlar Cathedral. From the Gothic construction phase of the church only a relief of the handkerchief of St. Veronica stayed. The choir closes in a five-eighth shape and ends directly at or on the city wall. After the church was built, the city wall was reinforced at this point by a hurdle in 1377 . The church has a distinctive roof turret , but otherwise has no towers. A crucifixion group from around 1320/30 is located above the entrance portal in the south facade . The former main portal in the west facade to the Brüdergasse is not used today for traffic reasons.

Interior view (2017)

A first renovation took place in 1827–1830, when the church was given a new roof with a too shallow slope and a high turret over the nave. (The Dating back to 1630 was Renaissance - organ removed and the lying outside the city Fraumünsterkirche brought.) In a 1848-1849 renovation and refurbishment, a new, decorated with figures pulpit built. In 1928/29, the continuous roof, which had been renewed 100 years earlier, was brought back to its original shape, visible on old engravings , and provided with mid-roofs over the four bays of the aisle. A smaller hooded roof turret, which is offset slightly to the east over the choir, was placed on the roof as a bell tower. When the interior was renovated in 1929/30, new community galleries were installed in the main and side aisles and an organ gallery in the choir.

Jesus, Francis and sheet mask with bared grotesques as keystones in the ribbed vault of the choir

In 1981/82 the interior was fundamentally redesigned with the aim of opening up the room, which has since been kept in the original Gothic colors. The galleries in the aisle and in the choir were removed, the organ was moved to the west gallery, and the galleries were given light, glazed parapets.

Epitaph on the outside wall

Churchyard

The churchyard, which adjoins it to the south and is high above the road leading by, is walled and today overgrown with trees and bushes; it was originally the cemetery of the Franciscans and the urban patriciate . After the Reformation , mainly people from the Protestant surrounding area were buried here who could not be buried there as Catholics - including members of the Landgrave's House of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg . On the south wall of the church, tombstones from the Renaissance can be seen. The stairs and the portal to the churchyard are from the baroque era .

history

When Pope Leo X recognized the split in the Franciscan order brought about by the poverty dispute on May 19, 1517, the Fritzlar monastery confessed to the order of the Minorites (conventuals), who were allowed to share property. All other Hessian Franciscan monasteries passed to the Observants , Fritzlar probably only not because Mainz was less pressing than the Landgrave of Hesse and because the citizenship was well-disposed towards the conventuals. In the run-up to the papal bull Ite et vos in vineam meam , there were differences and a trial in Rome in 1496. At that time there were 30 brothers living in the convent. In 1548, when the Lutheran Reformation had many followers in the city, the monastery had to close, and in 1553, when Landgrave Hessian troops occupied the city and the Reformation was introduced, the Franciscans had to leave the city. Only the brothers who had become evangelicals were allowed to stay in the buildings. The landgraves' occupation ended in 1555 after the religious peace of Augsburg , and the city ​​belonging to the Archdiocese of Mainz remained Catholic. However, on January 14, 1562, the dean of Mainz had to end an uprising of the Protestant citizens with 200 horsemen and 300 foot soldiers.

With the Counter-Reformation , Jesuits first came to the monastery in 1615 and Minorites again in 1619. In 1628 the latter also took over the management of the Latin school founded by the Jesuits in a house opposite the church in the Brüdergasse (house number 1).

Cancellation and current use

After secularization , the monastery was put on the extinction budget in 1804 and finally abolished in 1811; the entire monastery property, including the church, was transferred to the city of Fritzlar. The last Franciscan, the Guardian Norbert Jestädt, born in Haimbach near Fulda on November 3rd, 1750, died in 1814. The monastery church was acquired in 1817/1824 by the Protestant township founded a few years earlier and has been a Protestant town church ever since. The remaining monastery buildings were converted into a poor house in 1820 and later into a hospital , which since then has been expanded and modernized several times, the "Hospital of the Holy Spirit".

Bells

Today's roof turret of the church carries a four-part chime from the Rincker bell and art foundry from Sinn . It sounds in the so-called "ideal quartet" b '- des "- es" - ges ".

The full bell sounds both for the church service bell on Sundays at 9:55 a.m. and for the Sunday bell on Saturdays at 4:55 p.m., in both cases for five minutes. The third bell rings for three minutes for the daily prayer time at 8 a.m., 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. and for baptisms and for the prelude to church services on Sundays for five minutes. The big bell acts as the church's death bell .

The older and still functional bell control of the Herford Electricity Works (HEW) can be found in the sacristy, but is no longer used. When switched on manually, this is done with a newer radio remote control instead.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Konrad Eubel : History of the Cologne Minorite Order Province. J. & W. Boisserée, 1906.
  2. ^ Certificate of March 1, 1496 , German commission for the processing of the Regesta Imperii eV at the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz

literature

  • Clemens Lohmann: Cathedral and Imperial City Fritzlar: Guide through history and architecture. Ed. Magistrat der Stadt Fritzlar. 2nd edition. Fritzlar 2005, ISBN 3-925665-03-X .
  • Paulgerhard Lohmann: Franciscans in Fritzlar 1229-1821. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-3128-7 .
  • Fritzlar: Portrait of a historical city. Compiled by Annelise Janzig. Ed. Magistrat der Stadt Fritzlar, Fritzlar 1964.
  • Sven Hilbert: Fritzlar in the age of the Reformation and confessionalization. Historical Commission Darmstadt and Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt / Marburg 2006, ISBN 3-88443-303-2 .

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 56.2 ″  N , 9 ° 16 ′ 38.5 ″  E