Keckkapelle
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The Keckkapelle is a church building of Romanesque origin in Kempten (Allgäu) . It is the oldest church in the city and has undergone several renovations and extensions. The chapel is dedicated to St. Stephen . The full name of the chapel is Leprosenkapelle St. Stephan im Keck .
Location and names
The chapel is located on the eastern Iller high bank above the old town of Kempten. Today it is in close proximity to Kaufbeurer Strasse and the Berliner Platz traffic junction, a large intersection that distributes traffic over the city ring to the A 7 and B 12 . At the time of construction, the chapel stood far outside the medieval old town on a barely built-up area. Archaeological excavations in the area showed that the chapel was built over the large Roman burial ground in the country town of Cambodunum .
The chapel is dedicated to St. Stephen. It is historically mentioned as the Leprosenkapelle St. Stephan , Keck-Kapelle or Keckkapelle , whereby the last two names are most frequently used. The name “Keck” comes from a previous owner who was also the owner and operator of the “Zum Keck” inn in the immediate vicinity.
history
Today's Keckkapelle is based on a Romanesque building from the High Middle Ages . This was shown by the forms of the masonry and the Romanesque arched windows that were exposed during a renovation in the 1930s. In the Gothic period the chapel was rebuilt and expanded with a polygonal choir.
In 1521 the Seelhaus was moved from the city to the Stephanskapelle. In 1665 the Seelhaus and three years later the chapel were renovated at the expense of Johann Auchters. The square roof turret was probably created during this time . In 1769 the estate with the small chapel was acquired by a "certain Keck". The chapel came into the possession of the consul Leonhard Kluftinger in 1898. In the years 1898 and 1940 the chapel was restored. The extensive, Gothic wall paintings in the choir were exposed.
In 2010 and 2011 the regional press reported that there was a risk of the ceiling collapsing. To counteract this, the chapel was restored for around 200,000 euros.
The Keckkapelle is owned by a private foundation and is not open to the public. Protestant services and devotions take place there several times a year.
Building description
The four walls around the chapel originally enclosed the cemetery of the leper house; it can be entered in the south through an entrance with an arched arch and in the north through a rectangular gate. Today 52 wrought iron grave crosses have been erected within the wall that originally stood in various cemeteries in the Allgäu . East of the road cut was the leper house, also known as the Seelhaus, "To the high webs", which was connected with walkways until the 18th century. After it was destroyed by a bomb in 1944, only a few remains of the wall of the Leprosenhaus remained. Not far from the location of the chapel was the two-story “Zum Keck” inn, which was built with a dwelling.
The longitudinal walls, which are said to date from the 13th century at the latest, have one arched windows to the north and two to the south. The foundation walls of a semicircular apse with the altar under the Gothic choir were uncovered in 1940.
After 1451 the choir was enlarged by a yoke with a 5/8 end and ribbed vault . During this time the house for the chaplain, the leper house, was built.
Furnishing
Inside the chapel there are objects from different eras. An altar created in 1908 represents the center of the choir. For many years it was assumed that the altar came from Tyrol . The altar has a modern, supplemented shrine with cracks. The two older wing paintings show Saint Anne and Saint Alexius .
The two kneeling angels from the middle of the 18th century are in the sacristy and are carved from wood.
The frescoes in the choir date from around 1460 and are assigned either to a painter from the Memmingen School or to a lesser-known painter from Kempten.
Of the paintings in Secco technique that were uncovered in 1898 , only the underpainting remained; numerous details were lost during the uncovering. Therefore, the colors appear more matt than they must have been originally. Several restorations interfered with the original substance, some of them difficult. During the cleaning and consolidation by the Mindelheim restorer Toni Mayer in 1976, it turned out that only a third of the original paint was left.
Various saints and church fathers are depicted, as well as the foolish and wise virgins in the choir arch. The Last Supper is painted next to the sacrament house, which is framed with pseudo architecture, between the two keystones Christ on the cross.
A panel in the chapel from 1495 depicts the battle of Saint Magnus von Füssen , who is venerated as the Apostle of the Allgäu, with dragons and vermin.
On the gallery is a cycle of pictures by the Grönenbach artist Ludwig Eberle , the cycle artistically depicts the history of the chapel and its surroundings.
Roman burial ground "On the Keckwiese"
The Roman burial ground "Auf der Keckwiese" southwest of the chapel is the largest known burial ground in the ancient city of Cambodunum . It extended north of the mid-imperial settlement on the Lindenberg on the road to Augsburg ( Augusta Vindelicorum ) . Over 400 burials from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD were found over a length of 290 m. Today the grave field is cut diagonally to Römerstraße by Kaufbeurer Straße. Archaeological excavations have been going on since the 1960s. The eastern part in particular could not be examined due to modern interventions by road construction and slope regulation. In the north, the burial ground is likely to have extended considerably beyond the investigated area. A loose scattering of monumental grave structures could have followed here, one of which was discovered in the artillery barracks on Kaufbeurer Strasse. In late antiquity , the area was used again for burials. In the northern area some of a total of 38 body graves, mostly without additions, were superimposed on the cremation graves of the early and middle imperial period.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Foundation supports St. Stephan zu den hoch Stegen. In: altertuemliches.at, October 18, 2010 (accessed April 16, 2013)
- ↑ a b c d Michael Petzet : City and district of Kempten. (= Bavarian art monuments. Vol. 5), 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1959, DNB 453751636 , p. 22f.
- ↑ Keckkapelle closed - ceiling threatens to collapse. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: all-in.de, June 11, 2011 (accessed April 16, 2013)
- ↑ Donor wanted. In: Allgäuer Zeitung , August 27, 2012, p. 25.
- ↑ Wolfgang Haberl: Keck Chapel Kempten. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 1995, Art Guide No. 2111, pp. 6-14.
- ↑ For the grave field on the Keckwiese see Michael Mackensen : The Roman grave field on the Keckwiese in Kempten. Kallmünz 1984 (= material booklets for Bavarian prehistory 34); Andrea Faber: The Roman burial ground on the Keckwiese in Kempten. Kallmünz 1998 (= material booklets on Bavarian prehistory 75), same: The city, death and garbage - the necropolis. In: Gerhard Weber (Ed.): Cambodunum - Kempten. First capital of the Roman province of Raetia? Special volume Antike Welt, von Zabern, Mainz 2000, ISBN 3-8053-2691-2 ( Zabern's illustrated books on archeology ), pp. 127-133.
literature
- Wolfgang Haberl: Keck Chapel in Kempten (Allgäu). Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995.
- Martin Kellenberger: The Keck Chapel and its building history in the light of a style-critical consideration. Kempten 1934. (OPAC SB Ke)
- Alexander Duke of Württemberg: City of Kempten (= Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation [Hrsg.]: Monuments in Bavaria . Volume VII.85 ). Schnell & Steiner publishing house, Munich / Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-7954-1003-7 , p. 42 .
- Michael Kennerknecht: The altar in the Keck Chapel and its creator Thomas Buscher . In: Allgäuer Geschichtsfreund , Kempten 2004, No. 104, pp. 107-109.
- Alfred Weitnauer : From the life of the Kemptner special smilers: how the Keck chapel came into being. In: The beautiful Allgäu , AVA-Verlag-Allgäu, Kempten 1993, 56th year, issue 8, pp. 55-58.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 43 ′ 58.6 ″ N , 10 ° 19 ′ 25.6 ″ E