Liebfrauenkirche (Witzenhausen)

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Liebfrauenkirche (Witzenhausen, north side with extension after 1479)

The Liebfrauenkirche is the Protestant town church in the small town of Witzenhausen in northern Hesse .

history

The church is located in the center of the planned town founded by the Thuringian landgraves with a regular urban plan. In 1266 it is mentioned as a parish church (parochialis ecclesia S.Marie). The patron saints were initially the sovereign princes, the Hessian landgraves . This they ceded to the Kassel Martinsstift in 1368, up to the Reformation .

construction

The construction of the church began around 1220 as a late Romanesque basilica . Some findings indicate that a change of plan to the gallery church was intended during the construction phase . Remains of the Romanesque building are preserved in the basement of the transverse rectangular west tower, which has Romanesque pilaster strips . The eastern yoke of the south aisle also partly dates from this period. It is unclear whether the construction was completed as planned; After the destruction of the city in 1232 during the war with the Archbishops of Mainz, work was initially suspended. A two-bay choir with ribbed vaults on round services, with a polygonal east end (five sides of an octagon), with high two-lane lancet windows, was then added to the late Romanesque building in Gothic form . A choir consecration has been handed down for 1404. The nave was then rebuilt as a late Gothic relay hall in three bays up to the west tower. After the town fire in 1479, which the church withstood well compared to the rest of the town, the north aisle was widened to repair the damage. During the renovation, the previously existing vaults of the south aisle were also removed. It is unclear whether the rest of the building was also vaulted; vaulting approaches have been preserved in the north aisle.

The current building is a three-aisled relay hall with wide arcades. The square supports carry circular services at the corners, and at the top they are closed off by a surrounding capital frieze with leaf decoration. The central nave is vaulted by a wooden plank barrel, which in its current state goes back to a renovation in 1931. The flat wooden ceilings of the aisles were restored in 1879.

The high west tower was raised in early and high Gothic forms in the 13th and 14th centuries, the slated gallery and lantern hood date from 1747/48, the weather vane is dated 1748. In 1725 the roof structure was renewed and all three naves were combined under one roof . Today's west portal was pulled in in 1725. On the south side there is a portal with a small, square vestibule from 1400, with a half-timbered upper floor from the first half of the 18th century.

  • Liebfrauenkirche - towering over the old town

  • Choir, consecrated in 1404

  • North aisle with organ

  • Grave of the von Bodenhausen family

Furnishing

The eastern yokes of the south aisle have figurative and ornamental painting from the 16th century. The pulpit with representations of Christ, the Evangelists and of St. Paul comes from 1575. The organ has a baroque brochure with acanthus carvings, it was built around 1730 and in 1963 moved to the north aisle.

A tomb of the von Bodenhausen family dates from 1575, life-size intercessory figures kneel in front of a representation of the resurrection. Various stone grave slabs and epitaphs have also been preserved. Inside the tower hall there is a medieval disc cross.

Others

The church on the Werratal cycle path has been called the “cycle path church” since 2015. It is open to visitors from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

literature

  • Georg Dehio (continued by Ernst Gall): Handbook of German Art Monuments: Hessen. 2nd revised edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin, 1982. ISBN 3-422-00380-0 .
  • Peer Zietz: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Werra-Meißner-Kreis III: Altkreis Witzenhausen , published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse, Vieweg Verlag, Braunschweig-Wiesbaden 1995. ISBN 3-528-06228-2 . Page 538-539.
  • Günther E.Th. Bezzenberger, Beatus Fischer: Worth seeing churches in the church areas of Hesse and Nassau and Kurhessen-Waldeck, including the Rhine-Hessian church districts of Wetzlar and Braunfels. Evangelical Press Association Kassel and Frankfurt, 1987. ISBN 3-88352-020-9 .

Web links

Commons : Liebfrauenkirche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Witzenhausen, Werra-Meißner district". Historical local dictionary for Hessen. (As of October 10, 2016). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ Friederike Steensen: Liebfrauenkirche in Witzenhausen becomes a cycle path church. HNA Hessisch-Niedersächsische Allgemeine online

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 29.6 ″  N , 9 ° 51 ′ 25.5 ″  E