King's Cross
The King's Cross is a Gothic sandstone crucifix in Göllheim , which was erected to commemorate the death of King Adolf von Nassau († 1298) and built over with a chapel in the 19th century. It is considered to be the oldest field cross in the Palatinate .
history
When the German King Rudolf von Habsburg died in 1291, the electors did not choose his son Albrecht of Austria as his successor, but rather the rather insignificant Count Adolf von Nassau. They did not want a strong king with great household power , but rather one with few possessions. As king, Adolf von Nassau tried to build his own household power, which in turn turned the electors against him. In league with Albrecht of Austria they deposed King Adolf and elected him as his successor. Adolf von Nassau vehemently defended his royal rights. The battle between the two parties took place on July 2, 1298 on the Hasenbühl near Göllheim , and the Nassauer lost his crown and life.
The winner, Albrecht of Austria, refused to bury the dead king in Speyer Cathedral, which is why Adolf von Nassau was temporarily buried in the nearby Rosenthal monastery. A niche grave in the church ruin is now regarded as his former burial place. Adolf's widow, Queen Imagina of Isenburg-Limburg , retired to Klarenthal Abbey near Wiesbaden , where she died in 1318.
In 1309, after the death of Albrecht of Austria, her husband Adolf von Nassau was finally transferred to the Speyer Cathedral. In addition to the mother, the son Gerlach I of Nassau was particularly committed to this. It was probably also he who in this context had the King's Cross erected at the place of his father's death near Göllheim at the same time. According to popular tradition, however, Queen Imagina was the founder of the monument around 1299, but this is unlikely due to the political circumstances. The crucifix had the eagle coat of arms of the German king on top and the Nassau family coat of arms on the bottom. An inscription plaque that has since disappeared, but was attested to in the middle of the 19th century, had the text: "ADOLPHUS A NASSAW ROMANORUM REX INTERFICITUR AD GELLINHEIM, PER MANUS AUSTRANI PROCESSI ET MARTINIANI" (Adolph von Nassau, Roman King, was killed near Göllheim, by the Hands of the Austrian, on the feast Processus and Martinianus ).
The cross must have been damaged around 1600, because a stone tablet has survived, according to which Count Ludwig II of Nassau-Weilburg , who was interested in family history and to whose rule Göllheim belonged at the time, had it restored in 1611.
At the time of the Revolutionary Wars, at the end of the 18th century, the two noble coats of arms were smashed on the ends of the cross, as well as the arms and legs of the body. The Christ face also shows traces of abuse. The arms were later repaired.
By the 18th century at the latest, the cross had been set into a thick wall for support, of which it is not known exactly when it was created; possibly during the restoration of 1611. Due to the dilapidation of this wall and the effects of the weather, the King's Cross threatened to crumble. Therefore, in the spring of 1828 Joseph von Stichaner , the historically committed district president of the Bavarian Rhine District, turned to both King Ludwig I and the community of Göllheim and asked for help in maintaining the monument. As a result, the wall was repaired by Josef Grimm from Kaiserslautern in the following months and the cross was placed in a newly created niche, which, however, could only be a provisional solution. In 1833 the government of the Bavarian Rhine District banned any planned development of the surrounding area. The Historical Association of the Palatinate in Speyer agreed on May 9, 1834, by publishing the booklet "The Battle of Hasenbühl and the King's Cross at Göllheim" , to raise the necessary funds to better secure the King's Cross and to build a protective field chapel. The author was the Speyer cathedral capitular Johann Jakob von Geissel , later cardinal- archbishop of Cologne . The book was published in 1835, and in the summer of 1836 the stone carver Carl Ihle von Kerzenheim , the master mason Valentin Ruppers and the carpenter Albrecht Michel, both from Göllheim, began building the field chapel. The district civil engineer August von Voit designed it in the neo-Gothic style, and the royal cross was to be embedded in its inner rear wall. At the end of 1840, the construction was largely completed. Smaller works, such as lockable gate, cast iron coats of arms and stone memorial plaques, dragged on until 1853. Hereditary Grand Duke William IV of Luxembourg had the coat of arms on the head and shaft of the cross renewed in 1898. An inscription plaque in the chapel reminds of this.
Cross and chapel
It is a red sandstone cross 275 cm high and 163 cm wide; the body is 150 cm high. This was once of a special quality, even if it can only be guessed at because of the severe damage to the loincloth, legs and face. The emaciated body, with the ribs protruding strongly, the legs cramped in agony and the head sunk on the chest correspond to the perception of time around 1300. At the upper and lower end there is the Reich coat of arms or the Nassau family coat of arms, renewed in 1898 in the original place.
The cross is embedded in the inner south wall of a square, cross-vaulted, neo-Gothic chapel, which was built to protect it from 1836 to 1840 according to plans by August von Voit . At the lower end of the cross is the already mentioned renovation memorial plaque from 1611. On the left of the cross a sandstone plaque shows why the monument was erected, on the right a similar one from 1898 hangs, commemorating the renewal of the cross coat of arms by the Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg. On the inner west wall there is a large stone plaque to commemorate the start of construction of the chapel under King Ludwig I of Bavaria , the completion under his son Maximilian II and the financial support from Duke Adolf von Nassau . A barred arched portal takes up almost the entire north wall of the chapel. So you can look in from outside, but not enter. On the outer wall, above the portal, sits a large cast iron coat of arms of King Adolph of Nassau, with an imperial eagle, above and next to it the coats of arms of his main allies: Rudolf I of the Palatinate (above), Otto III. von Niederbayern (left) and Boemund I. von Warsberg , Elector of Trier (right). All the cast coats of arms and the gate of the portal were made by the Gienanth company in Eisenberg around 1853 . The chapel has ornamental buttresses on the outside and a crenellated turret, around it there is a green area with signs indicating the battle and the monument. The cross stands on the battlefield from 1298, but the original location was slightly northeast, closer to the Heerstraße (Dreisener Straße), which ran close by, which stretched from Oppenheim via Kaiserslautern to Lorraine . The front of the monument originally faced west, not north as it is today.
The Göllheimer Ortsstraße, which leads past the chapel in the direction of Göllheimer Häuschen , is called Königskreuzstraße . There is also the Königskreuz pharmacy in the village .
gallery
Chapel from the northwest
Cast iron coat of arms of the Duke of Lower Bavaria
Cast iron coat of arms of the Elector of Trier
Memorial plaque for the building of the chapel
Commemorative plaque commemorating the renewal of the coat of arms by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, 1898
Board of the local government
Board on the history of the monument (in the green area)
The King's Cross in the Thesaurus Palatinus by Johann Franz Capellini von Wickenburg , 1747
literature
- Johann Jakob Geissel : The Battle of Hasenbühl and the King's Cross near Göllheim , Speyer, 1835; (Digital output)
- Die Kunstdenkmäler der Pfalz , Volume VII, Kirchheimbolanden District Office, Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1938, pp. 104-106
- Berthold Schnabel: The King's Cross in Göllheim , in Donnersberg-Jahrbuch 1980 , Heimatbuch der Kreisverwaltung Kirchheimbolanden, pp. 145–154
Web links
- Illustrated website for the Göllheimer Königskreuz
- Website about the Battle of Göllheim and the King's Cross
- Poem Das Königskreuz , by Franz Weiß, Kaiserslautern, (19th century)
Coordinates: 49 ° 35 '33.3 " N , 8 ° 2' 40.2" E