Aura Monastery
| Aura Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Exterior view of the monastery |
|
| location |
 Germany
|
| Lies in the diocese | Wurzburg |
| Coordinates: | 50 ° 10 '1.7 " N , 10 ° 0' 27.5" E |
| founding year | 1108 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1564 |
| Mother monastery | Hirsau Monastery |
The Aura Monastery is a former Benedictine abbey in Aura an der Saale in the Diocese of Würzburg . It is one of the local monuments and is registered under the number D-6-72-111-1 in the Bavarian Monument List .
history
The monastery consecrated to St. Laurentius and St. Georg was founded in 1108 at the behest of Bishop Otto I of Bamberg ; it was founded to strengthen the Bamberg rule on the Franconian Saale.
A confidante of the bishop, the historian Ekkehard von Aura , was the first abbot (for an overview of the abbots see the list of abbots of the Aura monastery ).
The first monks came from Hirsau Abbey , a reform monastery in the Black Forest, which attached great importance to the solemn liturgy and which advocated independence of the monasteries from secular and clerical masters. The patronage of Aura Monastery was transferred to the Counts of Henneberg in 1167. Bishop Otto I of Bamberg obtained papal protection and confirmation documents for the monastery.
In the 14th century Aura left the Bamberg diocese association and has been part of the Würzburg monastery ever since. In 1469 the abbey joined the Bursfeld reform movement . Around 1500 the Aura monastery had the bailiffs of Aura, Wittershausen and Garitz , interest courts in Euerdorf , Kleinbrach , Sulzthal and Wirmsthal and feudal courts in Hausen , Ramsthal , Zahlbach and Waldfenster . The tithe at Wittershausen, Garitz and Kleinbrach belonged to the monastery alone.
The decline of the Benedictine Abbey of Aura in 1525 happened with the German Peasants' War and the Reformation. In 1552/53 the monastery and monastery villages suffered severe damage from the Second Margrave War .
In 1564, Bishop Friedrich von Wirsberg abolished the monastery as a spiritual institution in favor of the highly canonical chamber of the Würzburg monastery . The former monastery property was assigned to the Trimberg office in Würzburg .
Monastery complex
The cloister , the paving of which is only partially in front of the east wing, was previously enclosed by three wings. In 1874 it was put together again. The north wing was demolished, the east and west wings were completely changed. In the east wing are the chapter house and the apostle hall , which are used today as a mortuary and for exhibitions. There is a Renaissance portal on the northwest side of the west wing . The southern gatehouse probably dates from the 13th century. It was changed a lot. The northern archway collapsed in 1956.
St. Laurentius Monastery Church
The Roman Catholic monastery church of St. Laurentius on the hillside above the Franconian Saale is one of the two village churches of Aura. Like the monastery, it is one of the local monuments and is registered in the Bavarian list of monuments under number D-6-72-111-1 .
The second village church in the middle of the village, like the monastery church, belongs to the parish of Aura. This in turn is united with the parishes of Ramsthal, Sulzthal and Euerdorf with a branch in Wirmsthal to form the parish community of Saalethal in the dean's office in Bad Kissingen, diocese of Würzburg.
History of the parish
In 1668, Aura and the Wittershausen branch were elevated to a parish and part of the former monastery income was provided. The pastor initially lived in Euerdorf. In 1695 the rectory was ready for occupancy and the seat of the parish changed to Aura. The monastery church served as a parish church. On June 29, 1971, she was replaced in this function by the new building in the center of town. On September 1, 1989, Wittershausen was repared from Aura to Oberthulba. With the incorporation of the place into the parish community of Saalethal on September 1, 2001, the independence of Aura also ended.
Building history
The church was consecrated in 1113 after five years of construction. The current church tower was built around 1600. In 1669 the church is described as dilapidated. Conversions and demolitions in the years 1687 to 1697 followed. Further structural changes took place in the years 1742 to 1745. From 1975 to 1981 the church was renovated inside and in 2007 outside. Before the new bells were installed in 2013, the church tower had to be repaired.
description
Not all of the parts of the church have been preserved. It is a Romanesque basilica with a central nave and two side aisles . It had two towers with a tent roof in the east . The three apses between them formed the monk choir . In the west there was an approximately 16 m × 5 large transverse building with a round arched entrance . A 4.50 m high staircase led to the 5.45 m wide triumphal arch of the central nave. Without the transverse structure, the church was approx. 45 m long and approx. 16 m wide. The interior nave was 6.40 m wide and 11.90 m high, the side aisles 3.16 m (north aisle) and 3.25 m (south aisle) and 5.83 m high. The pillars of the central nave originally corresponded to the Saxon pillar change - two columns on one pillar. The specifications of the Hirsauer Building School , which Abbot Ekkehard brought with him, have therefore not been fully observed.
The three naves have been preserved to this day. In contrast, the monks' choir with the two towers and the transverse structure have disappeared. This reduced the length to around 30.80 m. The floor has been raised. The arched windows have been replaced by oval and straight lintel windows. As a result, the church now has a baroque appearance. The stucco of the flat ceilings also contributes to this. Today's three-story tower on the north side is post-Gothic. Its height to the hood roof with knob is approx. 36 meters. It has ogival sound windows and oval windows on the floor below.
Furnishing
The altars are works of the 18th century. The high altar with the painting of the Assumption and figures of Saints Aquiline , Burkard , Kilian and Laurentius was created in 1730. The small side altars are somewhat older and date from 1720. The pulpit was made in the 17th century and later reworked in the Rococo style . There is also a late Gothic figure of St. Urban on one of the pillars. The organ is more recent in a baroque case. Since 2013 the church has had four new bronze bells from the Perner company in Passau with the tones f sharp '- g sharp' - a '- h'. These bells replaced a ringing made of four steel bells, which was cast in 1923 and expanded in 1949 through purchase. The purchase had become necessary because the Marienglocke cast in 1538 with the sound fis' was damaged and returned from delivery in 1942.
Church ruin
The ruins of Aura - to be distinguished from the Aura monastery - are the remains of an attempt to establish a new building in the 17th century. The construction remained unfinished in 1622. After the death of the founder, Prince-Bishop Johann Gottfried I von Aschhausen in 1622 and due to the Thirty Years War , the work was stopped and not resumed.
It is an early baroque complex and the first pilaster church in Franconia. Two towers were planned in the west, a single-nave nave , a narrow transept and a semicircular apse in the east. Today the building is in serious disrepair. It was used as a quarry by the people of the surrounding villages.
See also
literature
- Walter Mahr: On the history of the former Benedictine abbey Aura, Saale. In: Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kunst. Ed. Friends of Mainfränkischer Kunst und Geschichte eV, Issue 13, 1961, pp. 55–62.
- Werner Eberth : Ekkehard von Aura , Bad Kissingen 2005.
- Monika Schaupp: Aura an der Saale 1108-2008 , Aura 2008, pp. 12-27, 40-41, 63-73.
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments: Bavaria I: Franconia: The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia , Deutscher Kunstverlag Berlin / Munich 1999, second, revised edition, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , pp. 64-65.
- Robert Kümmert : The bells of the Hammelburg district , Würzburg 1955, p. 11.
- Felix Mader (ed.): Die Kunstdenkmäler von Bayern: 14. District Office Hammelburg , unaltered reprint from 1915, Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-50468-1 , pp. 14-32.
- Hanswernfried Muth: The Romanesque art of the Salier period: The "Hirsauer Bauschule" . In: Heinrich Pleticha: German history in 12 volumes: Volume 2: From the Salians to the Staufers, Bertelsmann Publishing Group, Gütersloh 1982, pp. 120-121
Web links
-
Aura monastery , basic data and history:
Erich Schneider: Aura - proud Benedictine abbey of the Middle Ages in the database of monasteries in Bavaria in the House of Bavarian History
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Schröcker (editor): Statistics of the Hochstift Würzburg around 1700, ISBN 3-8771-7031-5 , p. 49.
- ↑ The new bells ring in aura . In: Saale-Zeitung , June 9, 2014, accessed on December 5, 2017.