Franciscan monastery Speyer

Jakobskirche (2), Marxtor (3), Franciscan monastery (4) after an engraving by Merian

The Franciscan monastery was in the core city of Speyer situated convent of the Franciscan , the 1221 or 1230 south of the Moritz church and northeast of All Saints was built. Today the building of the foundation hospital stands there.

history

The Franciscan monastery in Speyer goes back to Caesarius von Speyer , who came from Speyer and from 1221 was the first German provincial of the order, which was founded in 1210. Around 1222 the Franciscans received from Speyer Bishop Konrad III. von Scharfenberg used the leper house , which was located near the city ​​wall , as accommodation. The first guardian of the monastery was Brother Johann. On the birth of Mary (September 8th) 1223, Brother Albert von Pisa, who had previously been appointed provincial in Assisi, held a chapter of the order in which the custodians for the various German order districts were appointed. Due to a speech that the later Provincial Johann de Plano Carpinis gave in Speyer, the Franciscans received even more extensive support from the bishop. This gave them permission to preach and confess in the Diocese of Speyer . This support finally encouraged Canonikus Mitter from Speyer to donate his apartment to the Franciscans in 1224. It is unclear whether and how the Franciscans used them. What is certain is that they still lived in the leper house in 1230, when they received the fortune of their brother Colini.

Construction of the monastery buildings

In 1230 the cloister was built by the citizens of the city between what was then Viehmarktgasse (today Ludwigstraße), Allerheiligengasse (today Allerheiligenstraße between Ludwigstraße and Lindenstraße branch), Herdgasse (today Herdstraße) and one north of Petersgasse (today part of Allerheiligenstraße) Gasse, which was later given the name Brudergasse because of the monastery. In addition to the complex, the Franciscans received a number of foundations from the citizenship.

Over the course of many years, the monastery's possessions grew so that it eventually had properties in Berghausen , Diedesfeld , Dudenhofen , Hahnhofen , Mühlhausen and Rupertsberg . In 1260 the brothers from the cathedral chapter exchanged the Frohnhof and received a ton of herrings from Haverne. As part of the poverty dispute in the Franciscan Order between the Observants and the Conventuals , the brothers of the Speyer monastery joined the Conventuals (Minorites), who were allowed to own property, when the order was divided in 1517. Around 1500 the city of Speyer was very interested in the Franciscans taking over the strict observance, as the city was striving to control the goods of the monastery; However, the Speyer Franciscans were able to successfully oppose this with the support of their order province.

Like the Dominicans , the Franciscans were very respected in the population for a long time. This meant that the Franciscans and Dominicans were allowed to stay in Speyer, although all clergymen, even the bishop, were expelled by the citizens in 1421 as a result of disputes with the council. As a result of this expulsion, Speyer was besieged from Midsummer Eve (June 24th) by troops of the Bishop of Speyer, the Electors of the Palatinate, Trier and Mainz and the Archbishop of Salzburg. However, this siege had to be abandoned because of an imperial order.

The moral decline and its consequences

At the end of the 16th century, the customs of the two or three remaining brothers - earlier it had been 60 at times - deteriorated very strongly. They left the buildings to decay, squandered their assets, ignored their duty to worship and indulged in drunkenness "the greatest debauchery", which had a bad influence on the Poor Clares in the St. Clare Monastery in Altspeyer and made them the mockery of Protestants made, which is why the Catholics were very angry. When Pope Gregory XIII. heard of it, he ordered the abandonment of the monastery and the handover of all properties to the Bishop of Speyer, who ordered the abandonment of the monastery through his bull of July 9, 1580, which was stored in Remling's time in the district archive (today the state archive, unless destroyed in the Second World War) at the same time received the power to release "the degenerate monks" and to set up a Catholic boys' school in the monastery within a year. This bull was confirmed by Emperor Rudolph II on September 9, 1580 , but was not carried out, presumably due to the intervention of the superior of the order. After order was restored, the monastery received generous donations again. Especially important was the wealth that they the Sexpräbendar Rudger Eding (s) left in 1598, it was made possible by this to resume 20 brothers.

New construction of the monastery

In the following years the monastery fell into disrepair due to insufficient income. In order to finance a new building, the brothers asked the bishop for permission to collect money in the diocese. This permission was finally given by Bishop Philipp Christoph in 1629. In 1630 the bishop allowed the Guardian Johann Ludwig a Musis, who was also the Provincial of the Upper German (Strasbourg) Franciscan Province ( Provincia Argentina ), to which Speyer belonged, money for the establishment of a philosophical one To collect the chair. However, the collection for the new building seems to have brought little money, probably also because of the troubled times, since Bishop Johann Hugo von Orsbeck gave another permission for a collection to build the dilapidated monastery in 1679. In 1677 the noblewoman Agnes Apollonia Elisabeth von Neuneck , the last member of her family and canoness in Münsterbilsen , was buried here.

During the town fire in 1689, the monastery burned down to the ground, so that the brothers and the other residents had to leave the town. After the brothers returned, a new building, for which they were very committed, seemed absolutely necessary. To finance the same, they received a new collective letter from Bishop Johann Hugo on April 5, 1698, which was confirmed by Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn in 1722. In 1735 the monastery was completed and the church consecrated.

The French revolution

Because of the outbreak of the French Revolution, imperial troops came from Schwetzingen to Speyer on August 2, 1792 and used all the monasteries as accommodation or as a hospital. Only the Klara monastery was spared from being used, but in return had to take care of the eight field bakers and their families who were housed in the hospital building “am Wormserthore”, the former Holy Sepulcher monastery . The troop core withdrew to France just a few days later, so that only 3,000 men from Mainz and Hungary remained in Speyer.

The downfall of the monastery began with the siege of Speyer by French troops under General Custine , which began at noon on September 30, 1792 and ended with the conquest a few days later. The first serious consequence of the conquest was the instruction from General Custine, with which he called all friars and nuns to the War Commissariat on October 10th and informed them that they had to pay 2,100 guilders within 24 hours. In contrast to the Poor Clares, the Franciscans apparently did not succeed in paying the required sums because the nuns ' confessor , a Franciscan religious priest , was deported to Landau in the Palatinate as a hostage . After the payment, which was made later, he was released again. The next day the French left the city after 10 days and moved to their camp near Edesheim and Rußdorf. During their stay, the troops emptied or destroyed the Austrian provisions stores, set all ships on fire, tore down parts of the city wall and filled in the trenches. The troops advanced to Mainz on October 18 and took over the fortress . Shortly afterwards, French troops came to Speyer again, and on November 12th they ate all of the monastery's food. The first freedom tree was erected on November 13th . On November 25th, the old administration was dissolved, the councilor Petersen was appointed mayor and another tree of freedom was erected. The fear of losing all their possessions, like the monasteries in France, grew among the Franciscans as well as among the Poor Clares. Because of the guarding, it was impossible to bring valuable objects across the Rhine.

For the residents of the city, the burdens caused by billeting increased, and the raw behavior of the soldiers was also a great burden. In addition, the soldiers confiscated signs and locked the shops. Similar to the Poor Clares, Carmelites were probably also forced to compile a precise register of the property, letters of mortgage and income of the monastery and to send it to the administration in Mainz . In addition, they received orders from the Mairie to take an oath on the civil constitution of the clergy , which they probably refused to do. This oath took place for the Catholics in the Franciscan Church and for the Protestants in the Lutheran Church. After the order was repeated to the clergy on February 27th, the clergy fled secretly and in disguise at night.

As Prussian and Austrian troops drew closer, the Republicans began to drive away everything they could transport and set fire to the hay and straw stacks on March 31, Easter Sunday 1793. They also wanted to set fire to the Franciscan monastery, but were bribed to stop them. Around three o'clock Austrian troops with about 7,000 men finally moved into Speyer, on April 2 an additional 5,000 soldiers from the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt came to the city with their Landgrave and General Wurmser . They were followed by other troops and prisoners over the next few days. At that time 180 gunners were camped in the Franciscan monastery, their horses "devastating the cloisters", while the hay for the horses was stored in the church. On May 21st, order seemed to be restored, as the old city council was reinstated and the revolutionary order abolished. On June 27, the French suffered a heavy defeat near Germersheim and the Hainbach commandery. But this victory of the German troops did not mean that the Franciscans and many religious were allowed to return to their monastery, as it was now a prison for 225 French and the church continued to serve as a hay store. The three remaining fathers and a lay brother had to look for other accommodation.

Ultimately, the peace turned out to be deceptive, as on December 28, 1793 it was heard everywhere in the city that the German troops were withdrawing after their defeat at Salmbach . As a result of this news, many people, probably including the three Franciscans, fled along the Rhine. In the evening, when the French had already conquered Speyer, the imperial reserve artillery and 2000 people with countless carts crossed the Rhine near Mannheim. The three brothers, the Guardian Bernhard Weck († 1803 in Würzburg) and the Fathers Friedrich Hoffmann and Martialis Kirsch came to the monastery in Würzburg .

End of the monastery

When German troops crossed the Rhine on May 22, 1794 and expelled the French from Speyer on May 25, some Franciscans may have returned. But on July 14th, Speyer was conquered again by French troops, who pursued the defeated Austro-Prussian troops. The dissolution of the monastery, the handing over of the church as a parish church to the Catholics and the leasing of the remaining monastery property declared national property may already have taken place after the final conquest of Speyer, but probably not until after March 21, 1797, when Speyer officially became part of the French Republic .

On November 21, 1804, the area of ​​the " Rekollekten monastery in Thiermaktgasse", with the exception of the church, which continues to serve as a parish church, was sold to the previous tenant Theopilus Fesenbeck for 4,225 florins. The monastery lands were also sold to private individuals, mostly the previous tenants.

In 1806 the Franciscan parish was merged with the parish of the Jesuit Church and with the main parish in the Capuchin Church of St. Giles . This new city parish received as parish church the cathedral , which had been devastated as a result of the revolution , the restoration of which Napoleon allowed with a decree signed on September 23 in Saint-Cloud near Paris and which was financed from the sale of the Capuchin Church of St. Giles, the Franciscan Church and the Jesuit Church should be. The funds acquired in this way were only sufficient for a rough repair of the damage, so that the service continued to take place in the monastery church of St. Magdalena . After the sale, the Franciscan church was torn down in the same year. The empty monastery may have already been demolished together with the neighboring Moritzstift .

In 1834 the Bürgerhospital ( St. Georg Spital until 1798 ) moved into the building that had been erected south of the former monastery since 1828.

Today's remains

Today only Mönchsgasse and Brudergasse are reminiscent of the monastery. On the map from 1730 on which the monastery is listed, it is referred to as the barefoot monastery . There are pictorial representations on a woodcut from 1550 from Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia , on a copper engraving from Frans Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum from 1537, a similar city view from 1600 and on the city view from 1637 by Matthäus Merian . The complex can be seen very well in Philipp Stürmer's picture The Free Imperial City of Speyer before its destruction in the Palatine War of Succession in 1689 .

Monastery grounds

The monastery grounds originally stretched from today's Ludwigstrasse in the north to Herdstrasse in the east, Brudergasse in the south and Allerheiligenstrasse in the west. Since the Brudergasse was called the old Brudergasse around 1335, it is assumed that the monastery grounds may have been reduced in size and a new Brudergasse, today's Mönchsgasse, was created. On the city map from 1730, the Brudergasse is called Uhrenmachergasse, while Mönchsgasse is called Bruder- or Münchengasse, Munich being a synonym for barefoot or Franciscan. In 1773 today's Brudergasse was called Brudergasse sive Uhrenmachergasse. In addition to these streets, the Franziskanerschlupfgasse, which branches off from Allerheiligengasse halfway between Viehmarktgasse and Mönchsgasse, reminded of the monastery.

After the end of the Franciscan monastery, the community hospital, which was demolished in the 20th century, was built to the south of it, while a garden was located on the area of ​​the church. The only reminder of this hospital is Spitalgasse, which connects Ludwigstrasse and Herdstrasse and then led to the entrance of the hospital. The building of the foundation hospital was then built on the site of the hospital, but it is empty after the merger with the deaconess hospital.

According to a map from the Palatinate Atlas from 1967, which shows Speyer in 1525, the monastery consisted of an east-facing church with an approximately square building with an almost square courtyard, apparently the cloister, attached to the south wall. To the north of the church was the cemetery of the monastery. The church of the monastery consisted of a nave, on the east side of which the choir was attached. On the north side there was probably a kind of aisle, on the east wall of which one apparently looked from the part of today's Spitalgasse coming from Herdstrasse. This alley formed one of the entrances to the monastery area.

According to the Merian engraving, which shows the city from the southeast, from 1637, the roof of the church was crowned by a ridge turret. On this city view, the monastery known as the barefoot monastery bears the number 4 and is on the right just by the Marxtor (number 3), the only tall city tower on the left edge.

For the church, consecrated in 1735, Remling gives 154.25 shoe length and 64.5 shoe width for the nave, and for the choir he gives 70 shoe length and 31 shoe width. Assuming that the shoe, the Speyer normal shoe attached to the old gate, is 28.889 cm long, the nave is about 44.56 m long and 18.63 m wide, and the choir is one Length of 20.22 m and a width of 8.95 m.

literature

• Max Heinrichsperger: Speyer. Franciscan conventuals and tercaries. In: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua V (1959) pp. 48-83.
• Franz Xaver Remling : Documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria . tape 2 . Christmann, Neustadt an der Haardt 1836, p. 235–238 ( full text in Google Book Search).
• Christoph Lehmann, Johann Melchior Fuchs: Chronica of the Freyen Reichs city Speier . Oehrling, 1698, p. 529-530 ( full text in Google Book Search).
• Konrad Eubel : On the history of the Minorite monastery in Speier . In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine . tape 45 , 1891, p. 675-698, 736 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3DZgo45-6~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn687~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ).

Remarks

1. ^ ^{A b} Hans Ammerich: Brief history of the city of Speyer . 1st edition. G. Braun Buchverlag, Karlsruhe 2008, ISBN 978-3-7650-8367-9 .
2. ^ Max Heinrichsperger: Speyer. Franciscan conventuals and tercaries. In: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua V (1959) pp. 48–83, here p. 65.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Fritz Klotz: Speyer - Small town history . 4th expanded edition. Speyer 1971.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Franz Xaver Remling: Documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria . tape 2 . Christmann, Neustadt an der Haardt 1836 ( full text in the Google book search).
5. ^ Robert Haaß :  Edinger (Edingius), Rutger. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 314 ( digitized version ).
6. ↑ Konrad Eubel : On the history of the Minorite monastery in Speier . In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine . tape 45 , 1891, p. 675-698, 736 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3DZgo45-6~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn687~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ). Here p. 690 and 691.
7. ^ Max Heinrichsperger: Speyer. Franciscan conventuals and tercaries. In: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua V (1959) pp. 48–83, here pp. 82f.
8. ↑ Wolfgang Schieder (Ed.): Secularization and Mediatization in the Four Rhenish Departments 1803-1813. Edition of the data of the national goods to be sold. Part 4. Donnersberg Department . Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1991, ISBN 3-7646-1911-2 , p. 408 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
9. ↑ Konrad Engelhardt: Historical memories of Speyer based on the Speyer corridor and street names . 2nd Edition. Buchdruckerei A. Dieckert, Speyer 1934, p. 22-23 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 54.7 "  N , 8 ° 26 ′ 10.7"  E