Maidbronn Monastery
The Maidbronn Monastery is a former Cistercian monastery in the eponymous district of Rimpar in Bavaria in the Diocese of Würzburg .
history
The Cistercian convent Fons Virginis Sanctae Mariae , founded in 1232, was moved to Ezelenhusen in 1235. The monastery was abolished in 1581 (Maidbronn Monastery). Remnants of the monastery have been preserved: The church serves as a place of worship for the curate community, it consists of the choir (designed as a rectangular choir, therefore dating to 1260/70), the lay church and parts of the elevated nuns' gallery . The church and the curate house were divided to create access to the fountain of the former monastery and in 1885 the remains of the nuns church were converted into the curate house while maintaining the surrounding walls. This curate house is opposite the church and contains the remains of the nuns church and the associated lower church / crypt church. The frame of the Gothic pointed arch window has been preserved on the west gable.
The west wing of the convent building , which is used as a private residence, is attached to the former nuns' choir . It still shows traces of the former cloister . The east wing has fallen into disrepair, only the remains of the outer wall are preserved, some of them still with the original window frames. From the height of the windows you can then estimate the ground level at that time. On the basis of comparable Cistercian churches with partially preserved separation of the nuns' choir, such as the Himmelspforten in Würzburg, one gains an idea of the church design at that time.
The monastery was donated by Hermann I von Lobdeburg. Formal incorporation into the Cistercian order was not yet the rule at that time, the monastery had always been subordinate to the Bishop of Würzburg. Numerous possessions and rights of the Maidbronn Monastery could be proven, e.g. Obereisenheim, Herlheim, Frohnlach and Ebersdorf. There was a “Maidbronner Hof” in the city of Würzburg.
The abbot of Ebrach, later the abbot of Langheim, acted as sage and visitor. The monastery of Fons Virginis Sanctae Mariae had prominent advocates, such as a number of popes (Gregory IX. 1233, Niklaus V 1331, Innocent VI. 1356 and Gregory XI. 1377) and kings (Wenzel 1397 and Rupprecht von der Pfalz 1401) Monastery confirmed in his rights.
Despite this support, the monastery fell more and more out of history over the years. In 1513, Langheim monks took over the duties of the monastery provost. A tombstone from this period is still in the church on the right. During this time only four nuns remained in the monastery. After the devastation of the Peasants' War in 1525, the monastery was operated under the Langheim provosts until 1543, fell to the knight Wilhelm von Grumbach for a few months by a contract in the run-up to the Grumbachian Handel in 1552 and was ultimately overturned in 1581 under Bishop Julius Echter. This is how the history of the monastery ended after 349 years of existence.
Riemenschneider Altar: The Lamentation in Maidbronn
In the church, a single-nave building with a straight choir, there is a large relief made of gray sandstone on the high altar, in the middle of a baroque structure and frame that was added later. It depicts a lamentation, the mother's lament for the dead son. Max Hermann von Freeden wrote in 1947: “This lamentation in the silent church in Maidbronn is by its very nature a really last work, not only by the master Tilman Riemenschneider , but also of the time. It is animated by an inwardness and magnitude of feeling that have not been regained before and after. "
The altar was created around 1519-1522. Justus Bier dates the altar to this time of origin according to a stonemason's mark on the grave monument Loren von Bibra. Apart from the invoice from Maidbronn Monastery, no documents are known. Alfons Arnold speculated that the altar would have fit in the knight's chapel and deduces from this that the altar was probably not originally intended for Maidbronn, but for the knight's chapel in Rimpar . This fits the speculation that a payment from Maidbronn Monastery in 1526 of eleven guilders “to Meyster Dyln for a beautiful stone figure” could refer to another order, but not known. Nor is it explained how an impoverished monastery could afford such a prominent artist for two works of art in such a short time.
Here the local legend helps, who know to report that Master Till created this work of art out of gratitude for a shelter granted during this time. There are also numerous other legends surrounding the work of art: In the literature, the reference was made that one of the mourning women shows the widow of Florian Geyer , who was murdered in the nearby Gramschatzer Forest .
According to the continuation of this speculation, the relief of the predella below the "Lamentation" then supposedly hardly belongs to the altar panel, even if it is often represented that way. However, it is also not explained why a predella with this inscription should have been created at the same time during the Peasants' War for a purpose other than the one explained / described. The inscription summarizes the politically turbulent years of the German Peasants' War: “In the year of the Lord in 1525, the farmers of Eastern Franconia, alienated from the true faith, devastated this place ... worse than enemies with robbery, murder and fire. After they were finally defeated by force of arms and the storm was stilled, this altar was erected in honor of the most glorious Theotokos and Saint Kilian and his companions in the following year. ”The predella thus belongs to a monument to the victory over the peasants, but after this one Speculation from a different context. The inscription does not refer to a lamentation either, but to an altar of the Madonna with Saint Kilian and his companions - these are not shown here at all. That reference is hereby made to a possible patronage has unfortunately not been mentioned so far.
In the 17th century the Maidbronn retable was built into a baroque stone altarpiece and the two side figures of Peter and Paul were added.
After the confusion of the Peasants' War, Maidbronn and the monastery fell into a deep slumber. The visitor reports about this in 1613:
“On the high altar, there is a portatile, carved into a large stone table, sepultura christi without painted. De patronis templi et altarium nihil explorare potui. On the other two altariums there are old, dilapidated unsuitable tables. "
The described condition of the Maidbronn Church rules out recent changes. From the church and altar patrons (the visitor in 1613) could not / could not research / learn anything. This uncertainty regarding the patronage suggests prolonged neglect, which is not surprising after the devastation of the Peasants' War in 1525 and the abolition of the monastery in 1581.
While churches elsewhere were extensively renovated in the course of the Renaissance, Maidbronn and its citizens, in the words of the former mayor Felix Brand, "held on to their meager property, which offered them more than just a place to stay."
Later, as a result of the liturgical reform after the Second Vatican Council , the altar area was redesigned by the sculptor Heinrich Gerhard Bücker together with Bishop Paul-Werner Scheele . The opening to the world was thus also tangible in the church, and yet the effect of the Riemenschneider altar remained.
The lamentation group in Maidbronn is accorded a high rank in research as a representative of a new pictorial thinking that is usually sought in Italy. If you combine a modern understanding of images with the Renaissance, then the Maidbronn reredos, according to art historian Holger Simon, is not Riemenschneider's last purely Gothic work, but rather it marks the beginning of modern art production north of the Alps.
literature
- Iris Kalden-Rosenfeld: Tilman Riemenschneider and his workshop: with a catalog of the works generally accepted as works by Riemenschneider and his workshop . 4th, updated and exp. Edition. Langewiesche, Königstein im Taunus 2011, ISBN 978-3-7845-3225-7 .
- Georg Dehio (greeted) Tilmann Breuer (edit.): Franconia: the administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia . (= Handbook of German Art Monuments, Bavaria. 1). German Kunstverlag, Munich et al. 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max H. von Freeden: Tilman Riemenschneider: The Lamentation in Maidbronn. An introduction . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1947, reprint: Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1956, p. 18
- ^ Würzburg, in the Ordinariatsarchiv: "Invoice des closter Meidbronn uff das XXV jar", fol. 7 r.
- ↑ Kalden-Rosenfeld, 2011, pp. 115, 164.
Web links
- Maidbronn Monastery , basic data and history: Maidbronn - Cistercian bloom of the 13th century in the database of Monasteries in Bavaria in the House of Bavarian History
Coordinates: 49 ° 50 ′ 52.1 ″ N , 9 ° 58 ′ 32.5 ″ E