Hofkirche (Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate)
The Court Church of Our Lady as a Catholic castle church, together with the Palatine Castle and the Reitstadel, form the castle district in Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate . It belongs to the Neumarkt deanery in the Eichstätt diocese .
Location and description
The Hofkirche is located in the eastern old town on Residenzplatz, directly opposite the Reitstadel.
The church building extends from west to east and is 41.3 meters long and 22.8 meters wide. The back of it borders directly on the city wall and is otherwise bounded by Residenzplatz and Klostergasse.
history
Early history
The beginnings of the Hofkirche cannot be explained perfectly. A small Marienkapelle is said to have been built on the site as early as 962, around 200 years before the city of Neumarkt was founded. From around 1200, the Marienkapelle is also mentioned in connection with the previous buildings of the castle. Its original location is close to the city wall, i.e. at the location of the current chancel.
Expansion to the castle church
In 1410 Neumarkt became the Palatinate residence. The Wittelsbacher Johann moved his seat of government to Neumarkt and immediately began to expand the city. The Marienkapelle was enlarged from 1418 in the late Gothic style to the large castle church. The lateral arrangement of the tower, the broad front of the main nave and the two wide side aisles suggest that a building with two towers was originally planned. However, initially only one foundation was implemented. The two coats of arms on the triumphal arch and above all the tomb of Otto II von Neumarkt , which is executed as a marble tumba in the right side wing, still testify to its function as a place of worship for the princely family . There are numerous small coats of arms in the vault of the sanctuary. The gallery that houses the organ today was initially planned as a princely gallery, which explains its dimensions. The expansion proceeded only slowly, so that when Otto II died in 1499 the main nave was still not completed after 80 years of construction.
Extensions and changes
In the course of time the court church was changed again and again. Frederick II finally had the tower, which had not been completed until then, erected in 1523, allegedly as compensation because his wedding to Dorothea of Denmark did not take place in Neumarkt, but in Heidelberg . This legend is unsustainable, however, since Dorothea was only three years old in 1523 and it can be proven that the wedding did not take place until 1532. In addition, he drove the final expansion to the castle church and thus the completion of the work started by Count Palatine Johann 100 years ago. However, the court church only served as a palace church for a few years: when Friedrich II gained electoral dignity in 1544 , he moved his seat of government back to Heidelberg. At the same time, the Count Palatinate, who became increasingly committed to the teachings of Martin Luther , also initiated the Reformation in Neumarkt and the Upper Palatinate.
The next 100 years were marked by a constant change in religious teachings, depending on whether the Count Palatine was a Lutheran or a Calvinist . During this time, all Catholic art objects had to be removed from the church and destroyed.
Only when Maximilian of Bavaria received the electoral dignity in 1623 and the Upper Palatinate went to Bavaria , the Catholic doctrine prevailed again in Neumarkt, if only briefly. Neumarkt became Protestant again in 1633 when Swedish troops occupied the city during the Thirty Years' War and only withdrew in 1635. The same thing was repeated again from 1646 to 1649. After that, Neumarkt finally remained in Bavarian ownership and thus also Catholic.
The Capuchins , who were called to Neumarkt, took over pastoral care in 1620 and founded the Corpus Christi Brotherhood , which still exists today, in 1628 , whose spiritual direction they retained until secularization in Bavaria . Around 1700 the choir was enlarged and raised by eight meters. Several columns were built in, the side aisles were changed and the main nave was provided with skylight windows. On January 1, 1947, the court chapel officially became the parish church "To Our Lady". In 2002 the entire interior underwent a comprehensive renovation. The choir stalls were renewed, the walls repainted and a modern heating system installed.
inner space
Choir room
The main altar, which was designed by Egino Weinert in 1968, is in a visually dominating position at the entrance to the choir . Its base is adorned in enamel work with the Eucharistic symbol “Christ as the Treadmill”, which is surrounded by New Testament images. The broad edge of the altar plate is decorated with winding vine tendrils, between which scenes of salvation history appear in the bronze relief.
Main and side aisles
The main visual accent in the nave is the magnificent coffered ceiling with 7 by 11 fields decorated with small rosettes, created by Erhard Wirsching. The choir arch is flanked on the left by a statue of the Virgin and on the right by a portrait of the risen Christ, surrounded by a structure made of ornate white stone slabs. A stone plinth serves as a resting place for the valuable figures. The Madonna was created in 1480 and dragged through the city and desecrated by the Calvinists in 1620. The few Catholics took it back to the court church after the Thirty Years' War and put a golden crown on it. This is where the current name of the court parish comes from, “Parish of Our Lady”. The church's most important work of art, the marble tumba of Otto II von Neumarkt († 1499), is located in the right aisle . The Way of the Cross can be traced in enamel on the walls of both aisles.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 16 ′ 51 ″ N , 11 ° 27 ′ 40 ″ E