Gröningen Monastery

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aerial view of Gröningen Monastery with the Romanesque Church of St. Vitus
inside view

The Gröningen Monastery was a Benedictine monastery in the area of ​​today's city of Gröningen in Saxony-Anhalt. It was founded in 936 by the Corvey Monastery and existed until its dissolution in 1550. Today the monastery is on the Romanesque Road .

On July 1, 1950, the municipality of Gröningen Abbey was incorporated into the city of Gröningen, and Gröningen Abbey has been a district of Gröningen since then .

St. Vitus Monastery Church

The monastery church of St. Vitus , located on a slight hill, was consecrated in 940 by Abbot Volkmar I from Corvey . From the beginning to the middle of the 12th century, today's church was rebuilt as a Romanesque three-nave flat - ceiling basilica in the Hirsau architectural style. After the abolition of the monastery during the Reformation, the monastery church fell into disrepair. As a result, the south aisle and 1606 the two choir aisles were demolished in the years 1566–1570. Between 1819 and 1831 the north aisle was removed, the originally square choir shortened and just closed, whereby the crossing pillars were reinforced. During excavations in 1934, some of the foundations of the foundation building from the Ottonian period were discovered.

The octagonal central tower with coupled arched Abat-son is one of the oldest surviving examples of its kind. At the western end of the nave is a gallery built over a vaulted chapel whose parapet with figurative reliefs in stucco decorated. A copy of the relief is built into the church, which was reworked on the original after remaining findings of the original color. The original of the gallery relief, the most important example of the late period of the strict style around 1170, is in the Bode Museum in Berlin .

Another highlight is the architectural sculpture of the archaic cube capitals in the nave, which shows the change of pillars in Lower Saxony . The ornaments in bas-relief depict stylized animal figures, braided ribbons and leaf friezes, which are influenced by the Quedlinburg collegiate church . The spatial effect is impaired by the lack of the east apses and side aisles, but it is still impressive. The building is related to the church of the Hamersleben monastery , where the full spatial program of a Romanesque monastery church has been preserved.

In addition to the gallery relief, a Romanesque baptismal font , some paintings on the barrel vault of the chapel under the gallery and an angel relief on the north-western crossing pillar from around 1220 have been preserved. A pointed arch tympanum relief with tendrils on the south wall of the choir is influenced by the tympana of the Magdeburg and Halberstadt cathedral . A figural tombstone from 1580 is placed on the north-western wall of the nave.

Monastery building

The monastery buildings were connected to the southern arm of the transept. Of this, a two-aisled room with a round-arched cross vault on square pillars has been preserved in the east wing, which was spoiled by its use as a warehouse. The remains of a Romanesque cellar have been preserved in the south wing. The farm yard of the monastery is used for agriculture.

  • Aerial photograph (2017)

  • Former monastery church of St. Vitus

  • Former monastery church of St. Vitus

  • Copy of the Gröninger gallery in the St. Vitus monastery church

  • Original of the gallery of the monastery church in the Bode Museum Berlin

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony Anhalt I. District of Magdeburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-422-03069-7 , pp. 486–488.
  • E. Heine: From the history of the Gröningen monastery. In: Journal of the Harz Association for History and Antiquity. Volume 42, 1909, pp. 213-229, (online)
  • Petra Marx: The stucco gallery bust from Gröningen Monastery . A Saxon sculpture of the 12th century and its context. Berlin: Lukas-Verlag 2006.

Web links

Commons : Gröningen Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Municipalities 1994 and their changes since January 1st, 1948 in the new federal states , Metzler-Poeschel, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8246-0321-7 , p. 320f.
  2. ^ Christian Antz (ed.): Cultural trips in Saxony-Anhalt. Romanesque Road . Halle (Saale) 2005, ISBN 3-929339-89-7 , p. 76.
  3. ^ Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments. Saxony Anhalt I. District of Magdeburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-422-03069-7 , p. 487.

Coordinates: 51 ° 56 ′ 13.9 ″  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 48.8 ″  E