Greek gate

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Sketch of the Greek Gate from 1315
Gate system shortly before its demolition

The Greek gate, also called "porta Grecorum", was a gate system of the south-western Cologne city ​​wall, probably created in the 10th century . It was first mentioned in the 12th century and came into private hands at the beginning of the 14th century. The Greek gate, which was later built over, was laid down around 1856.

location

The medieval building was a city gate to the imperial city of Cologne for centuries . It was located in the inner-city district of St. Peter , which was surrounded by the collegiate and parish districts of St. Pantaleon in the southwest, St. Apostles in the northwest, St. Maria im Kapitol in the northeast and St. George in the southeast.

history

Origin of name

The historian Adam Wrede described the Greek gate as a small stretch of street opposite the street “Am Weidenbach”, at the beginning of which there was a gate passage, probably created as early as the 10th century, next to a Roman fortified tower of the city wall, which was first called “Greca porta” . In the second half of the 12th century, a courtyard facing the fields was named "curia ante grecam portam" and shortly before the turn of the century, around 1186/96, the gate system was called "Criegporta". This form of name then changed to "iuxta chrichporzin" around 1235, next to the war gate as a probably official name that was still used in 1797. It was not until the French era that people changed back to the “G” at the beginning of the word, so that, as in the era of Emperor Otto and his Greek wife, Princess Theophanu , who was buried in the collegiate church of St. Pantaleon , a historical reference was made to the name of the Greek Gate . However, names of residents of Greek origin cannot be found in the shrine files of the districts of the “Greeks Market Quarter”.

St. Peter district

Greek gate and surroundings at the time of Arnold Mercator

The origin of the St. Peter district, like all other early parishes in the city, lay in the settlements emerging in the vicinity of a church. As a result of urban development, the boundaries of this parish became identical to the boundaries of the communal administrative unit, the district.

It is not clear whether St. Peter was the parish church of the neighboring Cäcilienstift . The first written records come from the middle of the 12th century around the same time as the shrine entries for the districts were made. Archaeological investigations up to the most recent times, however, confirm previous sacred buildings that were dated significantly older. However , the knowledge already gained from the excavations under the direction of Otto Doppelfeld in 1953 and 1956 could not clearly determine the exact beginnings of the construction of St. Peter's Church. Presumably, however, a small three-aisled, Romanesque basilica was built on the site of the largest Roman thermal baths in the city as early as the 10th century .

Boundary course of the district

A densely built-up area, criss-crossed by narrow streets, formed around the church building, the southwestern part of which is known to the Cologne residents as the Greek market up to the present day.

The boundaries of the parish and administrative district of St. Peter ran between Hohe Pforte (opposite Waidmarkt) and Hochstraße (Hohe Straße) in the east, in the west via Kleiner Greeksmarkt and Peterstraße, continuing from this behind Neumarkt to Schildergasse, which forms the northern border as well as along the Roman wall between the high gate and the Greek gate in the south.

Fortifications of the district

The fortified sections to the still unprotected suburbs on the south and west sides, including the facilities of the roundabout and the Greek gate next to it, were under the authority of the district officials until the city was expanded in 1180 . In addition to the communal rights they had received , they also had to assume the duties and burdens of conscription in their sectoral areas. This included the organization of the respective areas, such as the collection of taxes set in 1106 for the expansion of the fortifications, the raising of the guards and their division of duties, as well as the construction and maintenance of the facilities of their sections of the district.

Creation of the gate system

Layout

The preservation of the Roman city fortifications was also taken into account in the early Middle Ages. However, as a result of the urban population development, which was also evident in the emergence of suburban settlements, new passageways were created in addition to the old city gates. A new gate was built on the south-western corner of the Roman wall , which ran along the current Bachstrasse from the bank of the Rhine to lead further north. It was probably also the replacement for the previous Roman gate, the Eifelpforte, which was located at the level of Bobstrasse and Clemensstrasse on Mauritiussteinweg. Immediately in front of this was a Benedictine monastery subordinate to the St. Pantaleon Abbey and now blocked the traditional route (probably the beginning of the "Via Agrippa", Agrippa-Straße Cologne – Trier ) via Huhnsgasse to Weyerstraße as an arterial road to the west. The replacement gate on the street corner "Old Wall on the Bach" and "Small Greek Market" were subsequently called Greek Gate (porta Grecorum).

This was next to a so-called "Rondell" from the Roman period, a round tower that secured the southwest corner of the city wall . The gate had been broken at the time of the Liudolfinger , at a time when the opposite abbey of St. Pantaleon gained importance. The gateway created access to the monastery district and facilitated traffic to the businesses along the streams. The gate was first mentioned in the sources between 1159/80.

An entry in the shrine book for the gate system referred to the location in 1284 as "porta Grecorum in platea Loirgassen" and thus referred to the many tanners ' trades on the brooks who were called "lore, lower and later Löhrer" in the 12th to 15th centuries .

Until 1307 the "Kriechportzen" still belonged to the officials of St. Peter, but had also lost its purpose of serving as a defense due to the fortifications created as part of the 3rd city expansion. The tasks previously assigned to her were now taken over by the Bach Gate and the Weyertor in this area of ​​the city .

A sketch of the Greek gate , a hand drawing that is described as the oldest of a secular building in the city, dates from 1315. It shows a two-story building crowned with battlements and indicates an iron-studded gate on the right side.

In the following decade, in 1328, the gate system was bequeathed to the Cologne chapter lords for the cathedral building by "Hilger von der Greekspforte" (probably a bailiff of St. Peter) . In 1337 the cathedral chapter sold the gate building to "Gobel de Weterge". In 1480 an agreement was reached in the Pützhof shrine (subdistrict of St. Peter) and the owner of the gate, according to which the gate and the street located at the roundabout could keep the right of passage.

End of the Greek gate

Rest of the attachment

Even before the imminent urban expansion, which took place at the end of the 19th century, buildings of the former fortifications were demolished in many densely built-up areas. These included the Johannispforte (1782), the Bachtor (1807/09), the Ehrentor (1838) and the Würfeltor (1872).

Some of the facilities were in a dilapidated condition, but above all the measures were intended to improve the traffic routes. Here the illustration of the Greek Gate from 1856 (from the perspective of the “Small Greek Market”) shows that the medieval gate could no longer cope with the increased volume of traffic. The gate was demolished under the direction of the city architect Julius Carl Raschdorff around 1856/57.

A remnant of the wall at the south-western driveway to the “Viertel” Greeks Market reminds us of the location of the old gate.

literature

  • Hans Vogts, Fritz Witte: The art monuments of the city of Cologne , on behalf of the provincial association of the Rhine province and the city of Cologne. Published by Paul Clemen , Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , Düsseldorf 1930. Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf. Reprint Pedagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1980. ISBN 3-590-32102-4 .
  • Adam Wrede : New Cologne vocabulary . 3 volumes A - Z, Greven Verlag, Cologne, 9th edition 1984, ISBN 3-7743-0155-7 .
  • Hermann Keussen: Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , in 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. ISBN 978-3-7700-7560-7 and ISBN 978-3-7700-7561-4 .
  • Jochen Roessle: Parish Church of St. Peter , in: Colonia Romanica. Yearbook of the Friends of Roman Churches in Cologne. Cologne 2005. ISBN 3-7743-0363-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Vogts, Witte: The art monuments of the city of Cologne , on behalf of the provincial association of the Rhine province and the city of Cologne. (Ed.) Paul Clemen, Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , city fortifications, p. 60 ff
  2. ↑ a b c d Hermann Keussen, The divisions of the urban area , in: Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages , Volume I., pp. 189 ff and the St. Peter shrine district, map and Street register, p. 220 ff
  3. ↑ a b Adam Wrede, Volume II, page 90 ff, 132 f
  4. ↑ Jochen Roessle: Parish Church of St. Peter, in Colonia Romanica. Yearbook of the Friends of Roman Churches in Cologne. Cologne 2005, with reference to: Elisabeth Maria Spiegel, in; Archaeological and architectural studies in St. Peter in: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland. Pages 322–323.
  5. ↑ Hermann Keussen, Volume I, pp. 63 ff, 189
  6. ^ Information from the Roman Germanic Museum Cologne

Web links

Commons : Greek Gate  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 50.8 ″  N , 6 ° 56 ′ 51.7 ″  E