Johanneskirche (Worms)
The church of St. Johannes in Worms stood directly south of the cathedral . The church patron was John the Baptist . The church building with late Romanesque and early Gothic elements was first mentioned in a document in 1200. Comparative studies of images and preserved fragments suggest that it was built at the same time as the west choir of Worms Cathedral in the last third of the 12th century. In the course of secularization , the church was sold and demolished after 1807. Today there is a lawn with trees at the former location, which forms the southern forecourt to the cathedral.
Location
The church stood south of the cathedral almost in line with the transept and was only separated from it by a narrow path. In art and architecture studies it is therefore discussed whether there was at least a temporary connection to the cathedral. To the west of the Johanneskirche was a square, on the opposite side of which was the chapter house of the cathedral and then the cloister.
history
According to its stylistic classification, the church is dated to the last third of the 12th century. In the first construction phase around 1170, the outer gallery was built, ten years later the central building followed. The building was soon used by the municipal parish. In later times the lower church was used as an ossuary for the spatially very limited Johannes cemetery in front of the church.
When Worms was destroyed in the Palatinate War of Succession by the troops of King Louis XIV in 1689, the church seems to have been only slightly damaged. From 1701 to 1705 Carl Desiderius de Royer († 1707) officiated as pastor of St. Johannes. From 1705 to 1711, Johann Anton Wallreuther (1673–1734), who later became Auxiliary Bishop of Worms, worked here as a parish administrator and was buried there on January 18, 1734.
In 1792 the left bank of the Rhine was occupied by French revolutionary troops, shortly afterwards annexed by France . In 1796/97 the French troops used the church as a warehouse; In 1801 the church furnishings and on January 26, 1807 the building were auctioned for demolition. The Worms master mason Philipp Jakob Blattner and the carpenter Bertrand bought it for 4958 francs , broke it down before 1812 and sold the stones as building material.
Around 90 spoils from the building are now in the Museum of the City of Worms . Further fragments are preserved in the Liebieghaus municipal gallery in Frankfurt am Main , in the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg , in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum in Mainz and in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg .
The building
reconstruction
Peter Hamman , cathedral and Johanneskirche (left) from the east, 1690
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Architectural historian Julian Hanschke succeeded in largely reconstructing the building structure on the basis of existing drawings. These include, among others
- an interior and an exterior view of the church, which the painter Johannes Ruland made at the end of the 18th century and
- a “building survey” that the demolition contractor Philipp Jakob Blattner drew as a development of the walls - possibly in order to better calculate the stone mass and thus the possible proceeds from it.
- There is also the city view by Peter Hamman and his son Johann Friedrich Hamman around 1690, which shows the Johanneskirche.
All images contain inaccuracies or obvious errors and vary in their presentation. Nevertheless, the appearance of the church could be reconstructed in a computer simulation by superimposing the various representations.
An archaeological excavation would provide more information about the shape of the church , especially since the square south of the cathedral, on which the St. John's Church once stood, is to be redesigned.
Appearance
The building was a decagonal central structure with an upper and a lower church and an axis shifted from the usual east-west direction to east-east-south / west-west-north. At its western end was the original main entrance, at its eastern end the middle of three choirs set flat against the decagon . There was also one entrance from the north, directly opposite an entrance to the cathedral, and one from the south. The latter is only handed down in the form of its Gothic design. It is not known whether there was originally access here. The church could be reached here via a small staircase.
None of the representations obtained is so precise that details, e.g. B. a figural decoration of the facade, on it would be recognizable. However, a large number of fragments have been preserved that allow conclusions to be drawn about the appearance and the architectural decorations. Columns 1.70 m in length suggest a huge dwarf gallery ; Lion figures and beasts, comparable to those in the east choir of the cathedral, are now in the Mainz Cathedral and Diocesan Museum . They once formed the bases and capitals of the columns and were probably painted in color. Based on stylistic comparisons, a master who immigrated from Strasbourg is presumed to be the architect who was responsible for the west choir at the cathedral. This west choir master was probably also active in the east choir of the former collegiate church of St. Paul . The late Romanesque Strasbourg or Worms capitals common to all these buildings are characterized by a two-zone ornamental structure. According to the art historian Josef Hubert van Endert (1834–1885), who cites an eyewitness who was still a minister in the Johanneskirche himself , the ashlar stones of the building were brown in color. It was so-called Kapuzinerstein , a brown sandstone that was also used at Worms Cathedral and comes from the nearby ice valley .
The tower, which was partly placed on the belt arch of the southern choir, was obviously smaller than it appears in some representations.
The central rooms of both the upper and the lower church were each enclosed by a corridor. Two thirds of the lower church lay in the ground and was lit through shaft-like windows. The exterior of the upper church ended with a circumferential dwarf gallery and a gable roof sitting on it.
The central room dominated the walkway considerably and had an ogival window on each of the ten sides. It also ended with a dwarf gallery, above it a tent roof with a crowning cross. Dealing had its own gable roof covered.
From the outside, the building appeared predominantly Romanesque: round-arched windows, wall structure with corner and central bars , arched frieze and dwarf gallery. Inside, however, there are already Gothic forms: pointed arches, clapboard windows , Gothic ribs and bud capitals.
In the south transept of Worms Cathedral is an older model of the cathedral and its immediate surroundings, which gives an approximate picture of how the complex was presented in the Middle Ages. The reproduction of the Johanneskirche there does not correspond to the current state of research.
Furnishing
Epitaph of Auxiliary Bishop Johann Anton Wallreuther , today Church of Our Lady
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Not much can be said about the equipment. Up to eight altars are mentioned. The lower church was also furnished with a number of altars. They have been described as stone, "ancient" and provided with hook and poke holes. During construction work at the beginning of the 20th century, the remains of the stone substructure of an altar were found in the crypt and several colored floor tiles with incised drawings.
At least temporarily, the Worms tablets were in the church. The most famous former piece of furniture is the Gothic lion font , which is now in the St. Nicholas Chapel of the cathedral. On the front side he bears the portrait of the church patron, John the Baptist.
The large baptismal font stood in the inner gallery and the wall surrounding the church was not circular, but had a kind of bend here and there .
The artistic portrait epitaph of the auxiliary bishop Johann Anton Wallreuther was moved to the Church of Our Lady before the Johanneskirche was demolished . The same thing happened with the baroque epitaphs of the Worms citizen and merchant Franz Joseph Brentano († 1747) and Anna Gertrud Litzler († 1740) hanging in the cathedral today. There have been numerous other epitaphs that have not been preserved.
Theories
Founder myth
A Gothic bishop figure on the outer wall of the Nikolauskapelle with an - albeit octagonal - central building was related to St. Johannis. It was supposed to represent Burchard or one of his successors as the alleged founder.
Baptistery
Due to the decagonal, almost round shape, a baptistery was assumed in the Johanneskirche . The patronage , John the Baptist, could also speak for it. However, it is not known whether this patronage existed from the beginning.
Some sources speak of a baptistery, which was started at the beginning of the 11th century parallel to the new construction of the cathedral by Bishop Burchard and completed in 1110 under Bishop Ebbo. Its location is completely unclear. It cannot have been about the later St. John's Church, since it is more than half a century younger.
During construction work on the newly planned house at the cathedral in 2015, various foundations and the floor of a large, walk-in baptismal font were found on the site of the former chapter house. First assumptions are based on a Merovingian baptistery with an early medieval baptismal piscina . Further investigations are still pending. The find was integrated into the new building. (As of May 2017)
These alternatives rather speak against the fact that the Johanneskirche had the function of a baptistery. The fully developed lower church would also be very unusual for a baptistery. The church was not called a baptistery until the beginning of the 18th century. Before they called the sources exclusively as a parish church.
mausoleum
The Johanneskirche was built during the reign of Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa . During this time, the city of Worms was an important base of his travel kingdom . The fully developed lower church equipped with altars may have been planned as the burial place for the emperor. Frederick I drowned under unexplained circumstances on June 10, 1190 in the Saleph River (today: Göksu near Silifke ) in what is now southeastern Turkey . The corpse was dismantled, the remains of which were buried in different places: the entrails possibly in Tarsus and the meat in Antioch . The whereabouts of the bones, however, is unclear. Friedrich I Barbarossa is the only ruler of the Middle Ages whose burial place is unknown. There was nothing left for a funeral that might be planned in Worms. The Johanneskirche had lost its originally intended function and was used differently in the following time - as a parish church.
Templum Salomonis
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In terms of construction, the Johanneskirche is rated as an architectural quotation from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem . In the contemporary occident this was considered the temple of Solomon . The orientation of the building from west-west-north to east-east-south could also target Jerusalem. The Palatine Chapel in Aachen , also a central building, was designed as a quote from this “Temple of Solomon”. And Frederick I, in turn, referred explicitly to Charlemagne as a ruler model.
Art historical importance
From an art historical point of view, the demolition of the Johanneskirche represents a great loss, because:
“ St. Johannes in Worms was one of the outstanding religious buildings of the Rhenish Romanesque. "
The building was in the tradition of Romanesque central structures, such as the Aachen palace chapel (octagon) or the Wimpfen collegiate church (hexagon). The Belgian Jesuit and Bollandist Daniel Papebroch (1628–1714) noted in his travel notes about St. John's Church in 1660:
“ According to local custom, the parish church is adjacent to the main church; it has an octagon shape [!] and is spacious. In keeping with this shape, the seating is arranged concentrically, both in the central part of the church, in the center of which is a baptismal font, and around the outside. A modest choir protrudes from such a plan. "
Johann Hermann Dielhelm reported in his "Rheinischen Antiquarius" in 1744 that the Johanneskirche had been preserved after the city was destroyed in 1689 and continues to write:
“ Thought St. John's Church, as hard as it stands on the cathedral, is an old, strong and remarkable building, in which it is built from sheer thick ashlar stones, and has walls more than 12 shoe thick and very narrow windows. It is said to be an imitation of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem in the promised land. It consists of three special temples, one of which stands under the earth, in the other, if the times are needed, one walks straight in from the earth, but the third is on top of a special building, in the middle of the roof of the others stands, and has a kind of architecture of many columns and corridors from the outside around. "
Clemens Brentano suspected a Roman origin of the church and describes it in a letter to his friend Achim von Arnim :
“ The only beautiful, splendid, perhaps nowhere so intact monument of that time will be sold in a few weeks as a domaine for 800 livres for demolition, a temple from Drusus times perhaps earlier, intact as it came from the master's hands ... It is an octagon and has three halls one above the other, the lower half underground is filled with bones and skulls and would be a wonderful kitchen for gall , roof and the small broad-based pyramid of the tower are, like the whole thing, made of pure blocks ... but I give me the order The whole thing is signed and then send you a copy ... it made an unforgettable impression on me. "
literature
- Andrea Arens: The beasts of St. Johannes in Worms. Research contribution on Worms building fragments in the cathedral and diocesan museum Mainz . Regensburg 2014.
- Fritz Arens , Otto Böcher : Studies on architectural sculpture and art history of the Johanneskirche in Worms . In: Der Wormsgau 5 (1961/1962), pp. 85-107.
- Josef Hubert van Endert : Two three-vaulted buildings in Worms . In: Organ for Christian Art , born in 1873 (Digitalscan)
- Julian Hanschke: The Worms Johanneskirche. A templum of Salomonis from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa . In: Der Wormsgau 33/2017 (2018), pp. 39–58.
- Julian Hanschke: The Worms Johanneskirche - a decagonal central building from the era of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa . In: INSITU 2018/1. Pp. 7-24.
- Eugen Kranzbühler: Disappeared Worms Buildings . Worms, 1905 , pp. 16-53.
- Karl Woermann : History of Art . 3rd volume. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig, 2nd edition: 1926.
Web links
- Epitaph inscriptions from the Johanneskirche, Thesaurus Palatinus, Volume 2, pp. 76–82
- Website with photos of beast figures of the Johanneskirche, in the cathedral museum Mainz
- Website for a no longer existing epitaph from the Johanneskirche
- Website on the no longer existing epitaph of Johann Melchior Staudt († 1591) in the Johanneskirche
Remarks
- ↑ She was the mother of the Andreasstift dean Florian Litzler (Mitteilungsblatt des Altertumsverein Worms, 1933, p. 56; (detail scan ) ).
- ↑ The meat was removed from the bones by boiling according to the “ Mos teutonicus ” procedure .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 55.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 55.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 40; Arens, Böcher: Studies on building sculpture .
- ↑ Arens.
- ↑ See bibliography.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , pp. 41–47.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 44.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 58.
- ↑ On this in particular: Andrea Arens.
- ↑ Frank Matthias Kammel : Romanesque columns from Worms - Unknown components of the St. Johanneskirche , in "Kulturgut - From the research of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum" , 2006.
- ↑ Endert, p. 117.
- ^ Walter Hotz: Der Dom zu Worms , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981, p. 43, ISBN 3534074122 ; (Detail scan of the Kapuzinerstein at Worms Cathedral)
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 55.
- ↑ Eugen Kranzbühler: Disappeared Worms Buildings. Worms 1905.
- ↑ Endert, p. 116f.
- ^ Hermann Schmitt : "Johann Anton Wallreuther from Kiedrich im Rheingau, Auxiliary Bishop of Worms (1731-34)" , Archive for Middle Rhine Church History Volume 14 (1962), page 145
- ^ Photo of the epitaph in the German Digital Library
- ^ Johann Franz Capellini von Wickenburg : Thesaurus Palatinus , Volume 2, lists numerous epitaphs from the church that have since been lost. One of them is that of the cathedral scholar Johann Lothar von der Hauben (1655–1723).
- ↑ Article no longer accessible ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 49.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 56.
- ^ Knut Görich: Friedrich Barbarossa - from redeemed emperor to emperor as a national redeemer figure . In: Johannes Fried and Olaf B. Rader (eds.): The world of the Middle Ages. Places of remembrance from a millennium. Munich 2011, pp. 195-208 (195).
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 53.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 53.
- ↑ Hanschke in Der Wormsgau , p. 39.
- ↑ K. Woermann: History of Art. Third volume, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1926, 2nd edition.
- ^ Udo Kindermann : Art monuments between Antwerp and Trento: Descriptions and evaluations by the Jesuit Daniel Papebroch from 1660. First edition, translation and commentary . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-412-16701-0 , p. 91
- ↑ (digital scan)
- ↑ (digital scan)
Coordinates: 49 ° 37 '46.7 " N , 8 ° 21' 35.1" E