Murrhardt Monastery
The former Murrhardt Monastery existed as the Benedictine Abbey of St. Januarius in Murrhardt from 750 to 1556 and from 1635 to 1648. Along with Ellwangen and Hirsau, it is one of the oldest founded monasteries in Württemberg .
history
Murrhardt in the early Middle Ages and first founding of a monastery
The development of the monastery was based on a Roman cohort fort , which had been taken over by the Franks due to its border location with the Alamanni ; after the submission of the Alamanni, this border guard was transformed into a royal homestead. On the instructions of the Australian housekeeper Karlmann , the parish church of St. Maria was founded in 736, probably by St. Pirmin - as the chronicler of the Reichenau monastery , Gallus Öhem, reports. The small wooden church (6 × 4 m) was consecrated to Mary and was located at the site of today's Walterichskirche next to the ruins of a Roman Mithras temple that were still in existence at the time ; Remnants of the church were found in an archaeological excavation in 1963. In the middle of the 8th century, the Franconian aristocratic family of the Waltriche tried to set up a monastery with the help of the possibly related Bishop Megingaud of Würzburg to establish a link between the possessions of the Waltriche in the Rhine-Neckar area and in the western Bavarian area create. The Waltrich succeeded in winning King Pippin the Younger , brother and successor of Karlmann, for this plan and around 750 Pippin founded the original cell of St. Trinity in Murrhardt. Pippin's original foundation deed was lost, but the monk's cell "cellula Murrahart" was mentioned as a small monastery or prior office as early as 788 in a document issued by Pippin's son, Charlemagne , as being in the possession of the bishops of Würzburg. During an excavation in 1973, traces of the foundations and walls of this monk's cell were found in the east choir of today's town church . With the death of King Pippin (768) and Megingaud's abdication as Bishop of Würzburg (769) the development of the monastery came to a standstill; Research generally assumes that at the beginning of the 9th century there was no longer a functioning monastic community.
Walterich reestablishes the monastery
Around the year 814 asked Walterich , former second abbot of the monastery Neustadt of Louis the Pious permission for the construction of a Benedictine monastery in Murrhardt. Walterich was probably connected to the existing Murrhardt monk cell through his descent from the Waltrichen; It is also likely that there is a family relationship with the Carolingians as the illegitimate son of Charlemagne and thus as half-brother of Louis the Pious. In 817, Ludwig finally founded a monastery to which, in addition to Walterich as abbot, twelve selected monks from Reichenau monastery belonged as brothers. The new monastery church was built just a few steps away from its predecessor, which has now been demolished, and was owned by the patronage of St. Mary, the Trinity and St. Januarius . In order to ensure the economic functionality of the abbey, Ludwig the Pious gave the monastery the royal forest between Sulzbach an der Murr and Laufen am Kocher , the parish of Fichtenberg and farms in Oßweil and Erdmannhausen . In 839, the emperor a Gebeinfragment of St. Januarius held personally in the monastery Murrhardt and handed Walterich on this occasion as a relic . Just one year after his visit to Murrhardt, Ludwig the Pious died and, in accordance with his last wish, on September 19, 840, three months after his death, a precious silver vessel with the emperor's mummified heart was solemnly buried in the Januarius altar of the monastery church; It remained there, along with a cenotaph that was created much later and still exists today, until the 16th century, when Duke Ulrich von Württemberg had the silver urn brought to Stuttgart and melted down there along with other church treasures. Abbot Walterich, the new founder of the Murrhardt Monastery, died around 840 on November 29th and was buried on the same day in the parish church of St. Maria.
Takeover by the Diocese of Würzburg and new church building
After Walterich's death, the Waltriche family managed to maintain their decisive influence in the Murrhardt monastery for about a century until the end of the East Frankish Carolingians; Abbot Engelbert, mentioned in a document in 906, is probably the last representative who can be attributed to the Waltrichen. Even if there are no written records of royal intervention in the administration of the monastery heads, the abbey in Murrhardt actually had the status of an imperial direct royal monastery at the end of the 9th century. At the beginning of the 10th century, the Murrhardt Monastery, like many abbeys at the time, went through a period of decline - especially due to the invasions of the Hungarians and the resulting loss of income, the structural substance of the monastery fell into almost complete disrepair. The excavation in 1973 in the Murrhardt town church provided evidence that the monastery church had been largely destroyed by fire - whether this destruction can be attributed to an attack by the Hungarians remains unknown; This is supported by the fact that at that time a watch and reporting tower was built on a mountain spur between the Murrhardt districts of Hausen and Fornsbach , which still bears the name Hunnenburg today. After the transfer of power from the Carolingians, who were also personally connected to Murrhardt by means of the Waltriche, to the non-local Ottonians , the monastery lost its previous royal patrons - the diocese of Würzburg under Bishop Bernward used this circumstance in 993 to take advantage of the Murrhardt monastery by means of forged documents to tear and this process in documents of Emperor Otto III. to be confirmed. Under Bernwards' successor, Heinrich , the Gorzian reform was introduced in the abbey around the year 1000 , the old Carolingian church complex , which had only been in ruins since the fire, was completely demolished and replaced by a new Romanesque Januarius cathedral . Its crypt was created specifically to honor the founding abbot Walterich and thus created a place in the monastery church for the Walterich cult, which is becoming increasingly important among the population. Thanks to imperial donations in 1027, 1054 and 1064, the economic situation recovered and Murrhardt Abbey was even able to gain possessions as far as Schwäbisch Hall and Jagsthausen .
Murrhardt Monastery in the High Middle Ages
As an economically flourishing monastery, the abbey was still under the significant influence of the Würzburg bishops at the turn of the beginning of the 12th century. With the investiture controversy that began in 1076 , Murrhardt came into the focus of the disputes between the Salian emperor Heinrich IV . and Pope Gregory VII , because the Pope- loyal and later canonized Bishop Adalbero was expelled from Würzburg and could only rely on the monasteries in the southwest of the diocese, including the Murrhardt Monastery, for further support of the Pope. Under the influence of Adalbero, the abbey joined the Hirsau Reform and was in close contact with the most important reform monasteries in southern Germany, such as Sankt Blasien , with whose monks the Murrhardt Convent was connected through a prayer fraternity. In line with this reform, the entire monastery was rebuilt around 1130 and parts of it rebuilt; Even today, the two Romanesque towers of the town church built in this period can be found in structures that are only known from the Hirsau building school. At that time, the Murrhardt Monastery already had its own right to mint and minted the so-called Murrhardt Pfennigs . In the second half of the 12th century, the monastery came as a result of frequent Italy trains Emperor Barbarossa and the displacement of Murrhardter penny by Heller in such a precarious financial situation that the liabilities of the abbey only by the sale of own goods as the village church Kirnberg be paid could. In the course of economic consolidation, thanks to a forgery of the deed of foundation, the monastery actually managed to free itself from the rule of the Würzburg bishops; decisive for the power of rule was now the bailiwick , which at that time was in the hands of the Counts of Wolfsölden , whose burial place had been in the monastery for almost 200 years and who were closely connected to the abbey. A relationship of the Hohenstaufen emperor Friedrich II . with Richina von Wolfsölden was probably the reason for the imperial promotion of renewed construction work in the monastery around 1225 - at this time the monastery church was converted into a three-tower complex based on the Komburg model and attached to the north tower , probably by monk Gottfried, the builder of the neighboring Komburg monastery Walterich chapel added, into which, after the beatification and opening of Walterich's grave, the relics of the monastery founder were transferred. These extraordinarily splendid buildings, which are among the highlights of southern German late Romanesque, mark the beginning of the pilgrimage to Walterich's grave, which, despite the intervening Reformation, can still be seen in remnants on Good Friday.
The fortunes of the monastery from the late Middle Ages to the Reformation
The Murrhardt monastery survived the interregnum following the deposition of Friedrich II, with its sometimes fierce battles in the Murrtal, largely unscathed and its abbots were also repeatedly commissioned by the Pope to settle disputes in other monasteries. With the sale of the Grafschaft Löwenstein in its Calw line, which in the meantime held the monastery bailiwick, to King Rudolf I of Habsburg in 1281, the abbey came under the rule of the House of Habsburg at the beginning of the late Middle Ages - with Rudolf's first son, Count, who was born out of wedlock Albrecht I von Löwenstein-Schenkenberg as Vogt, who in 1288 granted Murrhardt town rights . He also received support from his younger half-brother Albrecht I von Habsburg, who was elected Roman-German king in 1298.
Like his predecessors as church bailiffs, Count Albrecht von Löwenstein was buried in 1304 in front of the St. Mary's altar in the monastery church. Around 1325, under his son Count Nikolaus, the east choir was rebuilt as a worthy burial place for his family. His grave slab with the Romanesque inscription "Nicolaus comes de Löwenstein" has been preserved to this day. Under the last of the Löwenstein bailiffs, Albrecht II, the abbey was again in dire economic straits in the middle of the 14th century - the reason for this was, on the one hand, the devastating plague epidemic from 1348, the Black Death , and the accompanying collapse of the medieval economic system as well as the armed conflict between imperial cities and princes, which only ended with the battle of Döffingen . Even the heavily indebted County of Löwenstein was no longer able to meet its obligations to the creditors, and so in 1388 the office of monastery bailiff and rule over the city of Murrhardt passed to Count Eberhard II of Württemberg . From 1424 to 1450, the monastery church was again extensively rebuilt - the Romanesque west tower was demolished and the crossing and the western choir rebuilt. Under the rule of Württemberg, the situation for the Murrhardt monastery deteriorated increasingly; In the military conflict between Count Ulrich V and Elector Friedrich von der Pfalz , the abbey not only had to provide troops and material to the county of Württemberg, but was also obliged to provide part of the ransom for his release after Ulrich was captured in 1462. Although the two Murrhardt abbots Wilhelm Egen and his successor Johannes Schradin , who also had the city and city wall expanded, succeeded in helping the monastery to its last spiritual and cultural bloom at the end of the 15th century, but the convent was in as early as 1508 in complete decline. With the onset of social unrest from the beginning of the 16th century, the rapid decline of the Murrhardt monastery was accelerated again; While the uprising of poor Konrad in 1514 in the nearby Remstal still largely overlooked Murrhardt, the peasant war hit the monastery all the harder. On April 25, 1525, Limpurgian farmers looted the abbey and destroyed the monastic library along with all the books and archival materials that had been kept there since the early Middle Ages. In the turmoil that followed after Duke Ulrich's expulsion of Württemberg, the monastery took the side of the Austrian governor government of the House of Habsburg. Immediately after Ulrich's return from exile, the Reformation was introduced in Württemberg , the convent of the Murrhardt monastery was dissolved by the new Vogt Jakob Hofsess and most of the monks were expelled - only Abbot Martin Mörlin and three monks remained in Murrhardt.
Interim, restitution and the end
The participation of Württemberg in the Schmalkaldic War on the part of the Protestant League led to the occupation of the duchy by the armies of Emperor Charles V ; Spanish occupation troops were billeted in Murrhardt in the summer of 1548 and Abbot Mörlin and his shrunken convent were reinstated. The Augsburg interim lasted in Murrhardt until 1552, when Abbot Thomas Carlin died and the Württemberg Duke Christoph had the son of the Murrhardt monastery bailiff, Otto Leonhard Hofsess , who had recently joined the abbey as a Catholic monk, elected Carlin's successor as abbot. Immediately after his election Otto Leonhard Hofsess converted to Protestantism and became Murrhardt's first Protestant abbot and the monastery was subsequently reformed. From 1556 to 1634 there was an evangelical monastery office. Klostervogt Jakob Hofsess was found guilty of embezzling 7,000 guilders in 1574 and was publicly beheaded in Murrhardt. As a result of the lost battle of Nördlingen in the Thirty Years' War on September 6, 1634, the monastery again became the property of the Benedictines. Under the leadership of Abbot Emmerich Fünkler and his deputy, Prior Adam Adami , they tried to enforce restitution in Murrhardt in the following 13 years , also by force of arms - but without far-reaching success. Prior Adami finally represented the monasteries at the peace talks in Münster from 1644 onwards . On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was signed, also by Adami, who subsequently represented the Catholic cause as auxiliary bishop of Hildesheim . The Convention was finally dissolved after the end of the Thirty Years War; the existence of the Catholic monastery Murrhardt was finally ended. After that, the Protestant monastery office was restored and existed until the secularization in 1806.
Building history
The oldest monastery complex (construction period I)
The original church of the Murrhardt monastery was built as a hall church (14 × 7.5 m); in the east, the building was expanded to include a 3.5 meter wide rectangular choir. On the side of the hall there were two side rooms of different sizes, to which raised altarpieces and the central, three-sided choir screen were attached at the eastern end. The choir screens, with which a 4 × 4 m area was separated, stood on a continuous screed floor throughout the entire complex; only in the east choir was this one step higher. At the western end of the choir was the central cross altar of the church complex. Since Walterich, the founder of the Murrhardt Monastery, was already the second abbot of the monastic community in Neustadt am Main, research assumes that this oldest sacred building was built based on the model of the Neustadt Monastery of St. Peter and Paul, due to the almost identical building plans. Directly at the eastern end of the monastery church, a rectangular and 3 × 4.4 m measuring outer crypt was built as a burial place for the existing monastic community, as the church order in the Carolingian rule prohibited burials in church rooms. The archaeological findings suggest that the outer crypt was designed and built as a barrel vault . In addition, there was a single outdoor burial immediately north of the church, in the corner between the choir and the north side chapel - its preferred location near the chancel suggests that this is a person of higher rank, but not the founder of the monastery and first abbot Walterich, has acted. In the course of the 9th century, a cloister building for the convent was added to the western part of the monastery church .
The 11th and 12th century monastery (construction period II)
During this construction phase, the monastery building was rebuilt according to the model of the Hirsau building school and a three-aisled, double-choir pillar basilica with dimensions of 38 × 11.9 m was built; In contrast to the eastward orientation of the past centuries given by the Carolingian building plans, the liturgical center of the sacred building was now in the west. The western nave crossed a nave with six arcades , in the east the main choir and two side choirs were joined by apses . To the west of the transept was a rectangular choir, including a small hall crypt in the tradition of Ottonian four-pillar crypts. On the basis of ceramic and coin finds that were made in 1973 during the examination of tombs in the church building, the new construction of the basilica can be dated from the beginning to the middle of the 11th century. The most important burial place within the Romanesque basilica can also be seen in direct connection with the redesign of the church building. Due to the central location of the burial site on the central axis of the church, it can be assumed that this is the grave of an important person for the history of the building; here the final resting place of a Murrhardt abbot seems obvious. Based on the chronological order of the construction work on the pillar basilica, the documented abbots Adalof (1027) or Wizo (1064) come into consideration. In front of the altar of the north aisle was the family grave of the first bailiffs of the Murrhardt monastery from the family of the Counts of Wolfsölden . The family vault was used until the mid-1930s; the last burial took place for a man almost thirty who had experienced a very violent death from four sword blows in the forehead. Based on anthropological investigations of the mortal remains and documented involvement of the Hessons in the Calw hereditary feud after the death of Gottfried von Calw in 1131, it can be assumed that the victim was Count Gottfried von Wolfsölden. In the next construction phase in the middle of the 12th century, the two eastern side choirs were replaced by two 19 meter high choir flank towers that still exist today. With this dating, the two towers of the Murrhardt monastery are among the earliest forms of their kind. In addition, a new four-wing enclosure was built around the same time near the southern transverse arm of the basilica.
Construction work in the 13th and 14th centuries (construction periods III and IV)
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The construction of the Walterich Chapel, which dates from 1230 to 1240, is certainly to be regarded as the most important building project of the 13th century in Murrhardt Monastery. In its original purpose, the chapel served the worship of the founding abbot and channeled the upcoming pilgrimage to the monastery of Walterich, who is considered to be miraculous. The long-prevalent assessment of the building as the grave chapel of the monastery founder was refuted by excavations in 1952 and 1963 - in the last year Walterich's grave was finally found during archaeological investigations in the Murrhardt Marienkirche, today Walterichskirche. The Walterich Chapel is therefore to be regarded as a memorial building or oratory dedicated to the memory of Walterich, the founder of the monastery, who was never canonized but was venerated as a saint in Murrhardt. At about the same time during this construction period, the church received a west tower with a height of 20 to 25 meters - this was located directly above the western crypt and changed the appearance of the sacred building into a three-tower church complex based on the model of the not far away church of St. Nicholas on the Comburg at Schwäbisch Hall. Based on the great architectural similarities between the two church buildings, the research assumes that the master builder of the Comburg complex, a monk Gottfried who has been documented several times, was also responsible for the expansion of the Murrhardt monastery church. With the construction period IV, the old east apse was replaced in the early 14th century by the polygonal choir that still exists today. This new building of the east choir is closely related to the takeover of the monastery bailiwick by the Löwenstein family in 1281, since Count Albrecht I von Löwenstein had chosen the Murrhardt monastery church as the burial place for his family and therefore a representative and contemporary building was needed. After his death in 1304, Albrecht I was buried centrally between the two choir flank towers in front of the Marien Altar , in front of our frouwen altar . Further east in the choir, in 1339, his son and successor as Count, Nicolaus von Löwenstein, was added. In a last late Romanesque construction phase from the middle of the 13th century, the still existing cloister buildings of the old abbey, the prince's building and the refectory as well as a new construction of the cloister were built , of which no remains have survived.
Construction activities from the 15th century (construction period V)
At the beginning of the 15th century, the Murrhardt Abbey was redesigned for the last time - a comprehensive new construction of the monastery church began from the west. The Romanesque transept and the striking west tower were replaced by a transept that was only enlarged by wall thickness and a two-year west choir; to the south there was also a Lady Chapel. In a subsequent construction phase, the nave was rebuilt in the form of a three-aisled basilica - the side aisles have three bays, while the central nave has five bays. Since the cloister buildings were badly affected by the fighting of the Schmalkaldic War in the middle of the 16th century, the west wing buildings of the Old Abbey had to be abandoned and demolished in the following period.
List of Abbots of the Murrhardt Monastery
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literature
- Gerhard Fritz: Murrhardt monastery in the early and high Middle Ages: an abbey and the nobility at Murr and Kocher. (= Research from Württembergisch Franconia. Vol. 18). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1982, ISBN 3-7995-7617-7 .
- Gerhard Fritz: City and monastery Murrhardt in the late Middle Ages and in the Reformation period. (= Research from Württembergisch Franconia. Vol. 34). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1990, ISBN 3-7995-7634-7 .
- Rolf Schweizer: St. Walterich and his monastery in Murrhardt - His life and work. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2013, ISBN 978-3-86595-522-7 .
- Ulrike Plate: The former Benedictine monastery of St. Januarius in Murrhardt - archeology and building history. (= Research and reports on the archeology of the Middle Ages in Baden-Württemberg. Vol. 34). Published by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-8062-1230-9 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Gerhard Fritz: The history of the Grafschaft Löwenstein and the Counts Löwenstein-Habsburg , in: Württembergisch Franken 29 (1986) p. 260 f
Web links
- Murrhardt Monastery on the website of the city of Murrhardt
Coordinates: 48 ° 58 ′ 46 ″ N , 9 ° 34 ′ 42 ″ E