Franciscan monastery Koblenz

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The old civic hospital, formerly a Franciscan monastery, around 1900

The Franciscan Koblenz was a convent of the Franciscan in the old town of Koblenz . The monastery, founded at the beginning of the 13th century, was secularized during the French period in 1802 and then used as a community hospital , the forerunner of today's Kemperhof hospital , until 1923 . The monastery complex was destroyed in 1944, only a wall in the street “Am Alten Hospital”, which is reminiscent of the hospital, has been preserved.

history

Franciscan monastery

Shortly after the Dominicans , at the beginning of the 13th century, the brothers of the Franciscan mendicant order founded in 1210 ( Ordo fratrum minorum "Order of the Friars Minor") settled in Koblenz. The Franciscan monastery was first mentioned in a document in 1236 in a will of the provost Gerlach of St. Castor . At this time the construction of a church and the monastery buildings began. They were still under construction in 1246 and partly habitable for 1250, as a document by Arnold II of Isenburg shows . The location of the monastery was given in a document from 1287, in Castorstraße about halfway between the St. Kastor monastery and the Kornpforte (next to the residential tower of the German Emperor ). A certificate of the consecration of the monastery church has not survived, but it should have been completed by this time. The church was an asymmetrical, two-aisled and five-bay hall with rectangular cross-rib vaults in the main nave and square ones in the side aisle. The monastery buildings were located around a rectangular cloister on the south side of the church.

The pulpit from the monastery church is now in the parish church of St. Pankratius in Koblenz-Niederberg
The destroyed old town of Koblenz in 1945, the old Bürgerhospital (middle right) is in ruins
The preserved wall section of the former Franciscan monastery

In the poverty struggle within the Franciscan order that arose at the end of the 13th century and the subsequent split, the Koblenz monastery, which belonged to the Cologne Franciscan Province ( Colonia ), initially considered a moderate conventual in the 14th century . However, under the influence of Johannes Capistranus , they switched to the stricter observance movement in the mid-15th century . In 1451 the Koblenz Franciscans handed over all documents in which income from houses, fields, vineyards and interest had been assigned to them, together with all expendable furnishings from their monastery to the Magistrate of the City of Koblenz, who later transferred them to the Liebfrauenkirche and the hospital Redistributed Holy Spirit. The pulpit from the monastery church (middle of the 17th century) is now in the parish church of St. Pankratius in Niederberg .

After the devastating bombing during the siege of the city in 1688 by French troops in the Palatinate War of Succession , the Franciscan monastery was rebuilt in 1693–1696. The foundation stone was laid on July 15, 1693 by the Provost of Kesselstadt.

Secularization and Hospital

During the First Coalition War , the French Revolutionary Army captured the city of Koblenz in 1794. The Franciscan monastery in Koblenz was secularized in 1802 . According to a decree by Emperor Napoleon I of October 1, 1804, the monastery was converted into a hospital called "Hospice spécialement destiné au traitement des blesses et des maladies curables" (hospital for the sick and boarding school for the insane). For this it was rebuilt according to a plan of the bridge and road inspector, the engineer Six. The construction management lay with the city master builder George Trosson. Further renovations followed, for example in 1825 by Johann Claudius von Lassaulx and in 1869 by the city master builder Hermann Nebel and building inspector Carl Cuno . The last two redesigned the former monastery in neo -baroque and neo-renaissance styles . The nurses were taken over by Borromean women .

The hospital became the property of the city in 1871 and was now called “Bürgerhospital Koblenz”. The city architect Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwin Mäckler carried out the last renovations in 1890–1891 . The chapel and choir of the former monastery church were restored and an administrative building in the neo-renaissance style was added. After the First World War , the old hospital on Kastorstrasse no longer met the requirements. The city bought the Kemperhof estate in Moselweiß in 1921 and expanded it into the new city hospital by 1923. After that, the old hospital was used as a retirement home.

Destruction and demolition

During the air raids on Koblenz during World War II , the old hospital in the old town was destroyed in 1944. The outer walls of the buildings were still partially preserved after the destruction, and even the vaults of the monastery church initially survived. However, since no security measures were taken, the ruins continued to crumble.

The ruins of the former Franciscan monastery and community hospital were removed in May 1957, although Koblenz citizens had campaigned to at least preserve the church, which the first plans for the reconstruction of the area had even included. The Kastor district around Kastorstraße was threatened by floods and so the area, which was completely devastated by the air raids, was fundamentally redesigned after the war. All the ruins were leveled and the area raised by embankments. New, flood-proof residential buildings were built.

The street “Am Alten Hospital” was rebuilt across the area in a west-east direction. At the intersection of Eltzerhofstrasse / Am Alten Hospital, a section of the wall of the former monastery has been preserved behind a residential building (Eltzerhofstrasse 14).

See also

literature

  • Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz. Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992-1993;
  • Peter Brommer and Achim Krümmel: Monasteries and monasteries on the Middle Rhine , Koblenz, Görres-Verlag 1998 (Wegweiser Mittelrhein 6), p. 57f., ISBN 3-920388-72-0 .
  • Herbert Dellwing (editor): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany. Volume 3.2: City of Koblenz. Downtown. Werner, Worms 2004. p. 122. ISBN 3-88462-198-X
  • Fritz Michel : The art monuments of the Rhine province. The church monuments of the city of Koblenz , ed. by Paul Clemen, Düsseldorf 1937, pp. 246-253, (Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz. Twentieth volume. 1st section).
  • Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People from the city's history - namesake for streets and squares. Verlag für Werbung Blätter GmbH, publisher: Bernd Weber, Mülheim-Kärlich 2005 (2nd revised and expanded edition), p. 178 f., ISBN 224-0-00345-226-2 .

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 42 "  N , 7 ° 35 ′ 59"  E