Goslar Cathedral
The Goslar Cathedral is the former collegiate church of St. Simon and Judas in Goslar . It was built between 1040 and 1050, was part of the district of the Kaiserpfalz Goslar and was demolished in 1819–1822. The northern cathedral vestibule is still preserved today.
The term "Dom" does not have the more recent meaning of cathedral , but the older of Münster .
Local classification
The church was part of the Palatinate District of the Imperial and Royal Palaces of Goslar. It is therefore in close connection with other buildings in the area such as the Aula regia (imperial house), the center of which was pointed by its longitudinal axis, the Liebfrauenkapelle (no longer available), the St. Ulrich chapel and the curia buildings , all of which were in a small space. The cloister with the refectory , granarium and chapter house stood immediately adjacent to the cathedral .
Significant historical events
- In 1056 Pope Viktor II and Emperor Heinrich III met. in Goslar and visited the church.
- In 1063, on the occasion of a prince's day in Goslar, in the presence of the young King Heinrich IV, the Goslar Blood Pentecost (also Goslar rank dispute ), an armed conflict in the church between the followers of the bishop of Hildesheim and the abbot of Fulda with fatalities.
- In 1066 Benno , until then royal chaplain and canon to St. Simon and Judas, became Bishop of Meissen ; he was canonized in 1523 .
- In 1154 Rainald von Dassel took over the provost's office.
Building history
The church building was built according to a uniform design in the form of a three-aisled, initially flat-roofed basilica with alternating pillars. The walls were made of limestone. The building had a westwork with two octagonal low towers and a main entrance as well as three east apses . The crypt was under the choir . There was another tower above the crossing of the nave and transept . The design was the model for many of the following large churches in the Middle Ages.
The church was consecrated on July 2nd, 1051 by Archbishop Hermann of Cologne . At that time it was the largest Romanesque church building on the right of the Rhine.
In the 12th century, the flat roofing was replaced by a vault. Around 1200 the still preserved cathedral vestibule was added and the main entrance - previously facing west to the Palatinate building - was moved here and thus towards the city. During the Gothic period , the choir was changed next to the addition of a fourth nave to the north.
The church's furnishings included the bronze Krodo altar (today along with other important pieces of equipment in the Goslar Museum ) and the Goslar Kaiserstuhl from the 11th century (today in the Palatinate building, replica in the cathedral vestibule).
Consecrated the church was the Apostles Simon and Jude , on whose feast day, October 28, Emperor Henry III. , the builder of the cathedral, was born in 1017. Heinrich often stayed in Goslar. A few years later he founded the Petersstift, which no longer exists in Goslar .
In 1819, the then dilapidated church building was auctioned off due to a lack of funds for its repairs and went to a craftsman who used it as a quarry and largely demolished it until 1822. Only the vestibule has been preserved.
At the beginning of the 1970s, a larger parking area called Kaiserpfalzparkplatz was created at the former location of the collegiate church St. Simon and Judas .
lobby
The vestibule was preserved when the church was demolished in 1824 because it was where the most valuable parts of the church's furnishings were kept. It was probably placed in front of the north portal of the church after 1150 - also preserved in its south wall. The hall comprises two bays with a basilical cross-section. The facade with two portals was provided with elaborate sculptural decorations in accordance with its function - representation of the imperial Palatinate district opposite the city. In two rows of niches - three at the top, five below - are depicted in stucco reliefs with colored stucco: in the middle the Mother of God with the boy Jesus , flanked by (only painted) adoring angels; below in the middle the apostle Matthias , who has been venerated as the patron saint of Goslar for centuries since relics were transferred from Trier and was depicted on the city's coins; at his side the church patrons Simon and Judas; outside two emperors , the one on the left, bearing a model of a church, as Heinrich III can be identified, while the identity of the right one holding a profane structure is uncertain.
Soil remnants
In the course of a major redesign of the area at the Kaiserpfalz, geo-radar measurements were carried out in 2018 and 2019 in the area of the Domplatz, which is now a parking lot . They led to the discovery of the remains of the walls of the collegiate church at a depth of 0.5 to 1.5 meters below the surface. Based on the measurements, components of the crypt, the westwork with the towers, the staircase and the cloister could be identified. A visualization of the measurement results by archaeologists from the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation shows the floor plan of the church. For the archaeologists, the discovery of the church's foundation walls, believed to have disappeared, was a surprise. When the church was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century, an architect wrote that building remains had been removed to a depth of one meter. The district archaeologist of the Braunschweig base of the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, Michael Geschwinde, considers the remains of the wall to be a ground monument of national importance, as they come from an imperial monastery.
An exposure is not planned, as this would cost millions and a permanent protection is not possible. Most of the time, such remains are limestone walls that have not been mortared in clay .
Redesign of the church site
As part of an urban redevelopment, the city of Goslar has been planning to redesign the parking lot on the former site of the church into an open and green area under the name Stiftsgarten . It is intended that the remains of the church, discovered in 2018 and 2019, will be incorporated into the design. According to the winning design of an open space competition, the results of the georadar investigations with wall remnants in the ground are to be displayed above ground using concrete outlines. The draft led to fierce criticism from various institutions from the citizenry involved in the planning. As a result, the earlier church floor plan is not shown clearly and comprehensibly, since only fragmentary results of the georadar investigations are to be shown. In addition, remnants of the wall are projected above ground in the design at places where such structural structures have never been. In 2020, the experts involved in the redesign of the Kaiserpfalzquartier met to concretise the open space concept in the area of the former collegiate church.
literature
- Hans-Günther Griep: Goslar's Palatinate District and the Cathedral Curia. Manuscript for the members of the Museumsverein Goslar eV, Goslar 1967.
- Hans-Günther Griep: Goslar - The Palatinate District. Verlag Goslarsche Zeitung, Goslar 1988.
- Christoph Gutmann, Volker Schadach: Kaiserpfalz Goslar. Verlag Volker Schadach, Goslar 2002, ISBN 3-928728-52-0 .
- Tillmann Lohse: The duration of the foundation. A diachronic comparative history of the secular collegiate monastery St. Simon and Judas in Goslar. Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, Berlin 2011.
Web links
- Goslar cathedral and cathedral vestibule - www.goslarer-geschichten.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bernhard Recker: Preserved stucco in the outer area - the reliefs of the Goslar cathedral vestibule
- ↑ Saxon biography
- ^ Herkenrath, Rainer Maria: Reinald von Dassel, Reich Chancellor and Archbishop of Cologne, dissertation, Graz 1962.
- ^ Eduard Crusius : History of the formerly imperial free imperial city of Goslar am Harze , first delivery, 1842, p. 30.
- ^ Eduard Crusius: History of the formerly imperial free imperial city of Goslar am Harze , first delivery, 1842, p. 32.
- ↑ coingallery.de
- ↑ Foundations of Goslar Cathedral discovered on ndr.de on June 14, 2019
- ↑ Goslar: Foundations of a cathedral believed to have disappeared discovered on n-tv on June 14, 2019
- ↑ Geo-radar measurement of the Domplatz shows the floor plan of the collegiate church at regional-goslar.de from June 14, 2019
- ↑ Kaiserpfalzparkplatz becomes a monastery garden: This is what it will look like at regionalgoslar.de on November 11, 2019
- ^ "A circus arena": Steering group frustrated by the Domplatz plan at regionalgoslar.de from December 27, 2019
- ↑ Design of the Kaiserpfalzquartier: trace the foundations of the collegiate church at regionalgoslar.de from 10 August 2020
Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 11.7 " N , 10 ° 25 ′ 40.1" E