Wafer mill

Master of the Host Mill Retable: The Host Mill, Ulm, around 1470, mixed media on wood, Ulmer Museum

The host mill (also mystical mill , mill allegory ) is a symbolized representation of transubstantiation in Christian iconography . The grain that is put into the mill is symbolic of the word of God. The mill grinds it into hosts , the Eucharistic figure of the body of Christ. The host mill is driven by the apostles or by water, which is related to the four rivers of paradise ( Gen 2.10  EU , Rev 22.1  EU ) and thus represents a symbol of baptism .

Representations

Depiction of the Host Mill in Bad Doberan

In the Doberaner Munster there is a depiction of a wafer mill, which dates from the 15th century. Here the symbols of the evangelists pour quotes on banners into the mill that is moved by the twelve apostles. At the foot of the wafer mill, the four great Church Fathers of the West, Ambrosius , Hieronymus , Augustine and Gregory the Great , catch the word from Joh 1,14  EU , Et verbum caro factum est. Et habitavit in nobis (“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us”) in a cup . A closely related representation can be found on the main altar of the Cistercian monastery church of the Holy Cross in Rostock .

The depiction of the wafer mill on a capital of the Ste. Marie-Madeleine in Vézelay in Burgundy is considered to be a major work of Romanesque architectural sculpture in France

Further depictions of host mills can be found in the St. Veit church in Deufringen , in the hospital chapel in Bad Sooden-Allendorf , in the Holy Cross Church in Loffenau , in the parish church of Our Lady in Eriskirch , in the cemetery church of St. Kilian in Mundelsheim , in the Thomaskirche in Tribsees and in the village church Retschow .

Host mill Allschwil

In Allschwil near Basel there has been a flour mill that has been known as the "Host Mill" since 1624. The name indicated the processing of church-owned grain.

literature

• Wibke Michler, Ingeborg Krueger: The Host Mill . In: Elmar L. Kuhn , Raimund Rau, Bernhard Vesenmayer (eds.): The parish church Eriskirch. Late Gothic on Lake Constance . Verlag Robert Gessler, Friedrichshafen 1986, ISBN 3-922137-37-7 , pp. 38-40.
• Harald Rye-Clausen: The wafer mill pictures in the light of medieval piety . Christiana, Stein am Rhein 1981, ISBN 3-7171-0794-1 .
• Alois Thomas : The mystical mill . In: Die christliche Kunst , vol. 31 (1934/1935), pp. 129-139.

Web links

Commons : Hostienmühle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• “Mill” in the “Allegories” seminar at ETH Zurich
• Image of the Tribseer mill altar

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ http://www.beyars.com/kunstlexikon/lexikon_4174.html
3. ↑ http://www.loffenau.de/images/stories/Fresken.pdf
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.