Justice spiral

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The Justice Spiral or Spiral of Justice is a decorative text arrangement in the form of a spiral on a parapet of the lay stalls in the parish church of St. Valentinus in Kiedrich . The stalls were created in the late Gothic style in 1510 by Erhart Falckener , a master of carpentry and flat-cut techniques , and have been completely preserved over the centuries - a very rare case. The spiral is surrounded by acanthus tendrils on the left and thistle tendrils on the right. The tendrils of the flat section is stylized and shows over the last letter of the word verlorn a buffooneryin the form of a human face in profile. The text of the writing spiral, which has a varying letter height of 4 to 6 cm and can be read from the inside out, reads:

Justice spiral - parish church St. Valentinus and Dionysius in Kiedrich
JUSTICE LIT IN GREAT NEED
THE TRUTH IS BEATEN DOT
THE GLAVBEN LOST THE STRIT
THE FALSE THAT'S HIGH BORN
THE DVT GOT THE HERN ZORN
O MAN READ
THE DV NIT WILL BE LOST FOREVER
PRAISE JUSTICE

analysis

In contrast to the other conventional themes of the decorative text bands and inscriptions of Falckener, this text can be understood as a call for social justice and religious honesty in the time of the Reformation and in the run-up to the Peasant War of 1525. In terms of content, the text goes back to the Psychomachia , the struggle of virtues and vice, by Prudentius . This old theme was widely used in the 15th and 16th centuries in a simple German formulation as the Reformation of Emperor Sigismund , especially in a printed version from 1476. The client for the lay stalls and thus probably also for the spiral of justice was the then Kiedrich Pastor Zweifuss who also called himself Bipes in Latin.

literature

  • Werner Kremer, 500 years of lay stalls 1510 - 2010 in the St. Valentinuskirche Kiedrich im Rheingau created by Erhart Falckener (documentation) , self-published: Förderkreis Kiedricher Geschichts- und Kulturzeugen eV, Kiedrich im Rheingau 2010
  • W. Kremer, Falckener Erhart in Kiedricher Personalities from Seven Centuries (pp. 45–49), self-published Förderkreis Kiedricher Geschichts- und Kulturzeugen eV, Kiedrich im Rheingau 2008
  • J. Staab, The spiral of justice by Erhart Falckener and its significance in the time of the Reformation and the Peasants' War , Rheingau Forum, issue 4/1998 ( ISSN  0942-4474 ), pp. 10-15
  • H. Sobel, The church furniture of Erhart Falckener and his workshop with special consideration of flat carving , self-published by the Society for Middle Rhine Church History, Mainz 1980 (dissertation)

Web links

  • Heinrich Koller, Reformation of Emperor Sigismunds , MGH Staatsschriften 6, Stuttgart 1964 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica digital of the Bavarian State Library dmgh )