List of places of pilgrimage in the district of Kitzingen

The altar of grace in Dettelbach		The Madonna of Mercy in Stadtschwarzach

The list of pilgrimage sites in the district of Kitzingen (also the list of pilgrimage churches in the district of Kitzingen ) contains Christian pilgrimage sites in the Lower Franconian district of Kitzingen . Today there are still two pilgrimage sites that are regularly visited, but other pilgrimages from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period are documented and still have an important cultural significance for the respective places.

Historical background

Origin and flowering

The miraculous Pietà on the Volkacher Kirchberg

So-called pilgrimages have their origins in habitual visits to a church or a holy place (Latin locus sancta). You are mostly in groups and try to keep to certain times. The word "wallen" was first associated with these visits in the late Middle Ages and originally meant simply walking back and forth. This is how the so-called pilgrimage week around the Ascension of Christ came about , which is celebrated by corridor processions and which is not a pilgrimage. Pilgrimage traditions are a classic part of popular Catholic religion.

In Franconia , the so-called Whitsun trips to Würzburg to the grave of St. Kilian and his companions formed the starting point for the development of pilgrimages. In 1344, the cathedral monastery expanded the celebration of Kilianitag to include a healing show ; earlier the city fair had already been moved to Kilianitag. The two major events increased the influx of people outside the city, so they were initially not planned major events with a purely religious background.

The pilgrimage movement was spread across the country through so-called miracle sites that flourished throughout Franconia in the 15th and 16th centuries. From 1504, a miraculous wayside shrine was identified near Dettelbach , which could heal sick people. In Volkach, on the other hand, the pilgrimage to the painful Mother of God on the Kirchberg , which can be documented as early as 1370, developed from a corridor procession in the former parish .

At the beginning of the 16th century, the abbot of the Schottenkloster, Johannes Trithemius , began to record the already existing pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary in the diocese of Würzburg and to promote them with descriptions of miracles . However, he did not work historically correct in the modern sense, so that incorrect projections were made. Trithemius moved the origin of the pilgrimage to Dimbach to the 11th century, although only at the end of the Middle Ages there was a regional inflow from places of the Münsterschwarzach monastery .

Decline and revival

Local pilgrimage traditions were only recorded in the rarest of cases, so that today all former pilgrimage sites can never be clearly identified. The Reformation also contributed to this , in whose doctrine the pilgrimage was fought as "the devil". In the period that followed, pilgrimages began in areas that had become Lutheran . The local traditions in Hohenfeld for the Bergkirche, in Gnodstadt and the Capuchin Church in Kitzingen disappeared after 1517.

In the 17th century, pilgrimages to the places of so-called crime legends also experienced an upswing in Kitzinger Land. With the Thirty Years' War old certainties had been destroyed and the population often blamed the Jews for these changes. It took concrete events, however, to turn the reservations into hatred. The murder of Michael Estenfelder in Euerfeld initially triggered a locally limited persecution of Jews , which the local pastor marketed as a pilgrimage to the alleged martyr. The church authorities took action against these excesses.

The pilgrimages experienced a further decline in the 18th century, when attempts were made to push back the supposedly unenlightened people in the Catholic official church . The Catholic Enlightenment was the death sentence for the pilgrimage to Dimbach. In Effeldorf, when the Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773, the pilgrimage to the "casa sancta" created by the Jesuits, which was modeled on the holy house in Loreto, disappeared .

In the 19th century, pilgrimages appeared to be a step in the development of the medieval church that was believed to have been overcome . It was not until the second half of the century that local traditions began to be revived. The decline in church attendance in the second half of the 20th century only applies to a lesser extent to the numbers of pilgrimages, which are now enjoying great popularity again. In 1989, a pilgrimage chapel of the Catholic rural youth movement was built in Euerfeld .

The most important Marian pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg is in Dettelbach today and is visited by people from all over Franconia. In addition, a more local tradition has been preserved in the Maria im Weingarten church in Volkach. By making the church on the mountain a museum, a kind of "art pilgrimage" was created, which has a completely different character than its counterpart in Dettelbach. With the Franconian Marienweg , a tourist pilgrimage route was created in 2002, which leads pilgrims to Effeldorf, Dettelbach, Dimbach and Volkach.

List of places of pilgrimage

The list is based on the standard work on pilgrimage in the diocese of Würzburg, which was published by Wolfgang Brückner and Wolfgang Schneider in the 1990s. Further pilgrimages were taken up, which are referred to as such in the relevant literature on the subject. The place refers to the district in which the church can be found. The church is the destination of the pilgrimage, because sacred objects such as the wayside shrine in Dettelbach or Gaibach were surrounded by a place of worship after the pilgrimage was established.

The cult phenomenon gives clues about the respective manifestation of the pilgrimage. For what reasons do people make or make pilgrimages here. This includes miraculous images of grace (especially depictions of the Pietà ), iniquity legends and other reasons. The Period column shows the years during which the pilgrimage existed. The history brief describes the establishment, promotion and decline of the respective pilgrimage.

place	Church (location)	Cult phenomenon	Period	Demolition story	image
Birklingen	Monastery church ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	around 1455-1546	Origin: Miraculous image appears in the Birklingen Forest or Pietà works miracles. Funding: 1457 Indulgence Foundation of the Würzburg Prince-Bishop Johann III. von Grumbach , 1459 establishment of a branch of the Augustinian canons Decline: Destruction of the monastery courtyards in the German Peasants' War , 1542 entry of the monastery property.
Dettelbach	Maria in the sand ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	1504 – today	Origin: Nikolaus Lemmerer from Melkendorf is healed by a vision on the image of grace in Dettelbach. Funding: First construction of a chapel around Pietà devotional image in 1506, Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn begins construction of today's church in 1611. Most important Marian pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg. Decline: existing.
Dimbach	St. Maria de Rosario ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	17th century	Origin: wolf legend, image of Mary saves kidnapped child. Funding: Münsterschwarzach Abbey allows monastery sites to go on pilgrimage here, brief revival of house pilgrimages in the 17th century. Only local character. Decline: through the Enlightenment in the 18th century.
Effeldorf	St. James the Elder ( ⊙ )	sacred place	1652 – after 1773	Origin: construction of a casa santa modeled on the house of Loreto . Funding: Planned pilgrimage by the Jesuits. Decline: Dissolution of the Jesuit Order in 1773, Enlightenment.
Your field	St. Michael ( ⊙ )	Crime legend	1692 – around 1827	Origin: murder of Michael Estenfelder, ritual murder legend against the Jews of Schernau . Funding: Pastor Johann Martin Förtsch preaches for pilgrimage, the diocese of Würzburg does not prevent him. Decline: through the Enlightenment in the 18th century.
Your field	Brother Klaus Chapel ( ⊙ )	Private initiative	from 1989	Origin: 500th anniversary of Brother Klaus death . Funding: Catholic rural youth movement brings relic of the saint. Decline: only single supplicants, consisting of a hail procession.
Gaibach	Holy Cross Chapel ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	before 1697 – after 1705	Origin: Fiber-Cäpelein as a holy house with medicinal use. Funding: Lothar Franz von Schönborn praises funding after an accident on the Danube . Decline: no real establishment.
Gnodstadt	St. Peter and Paul ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	before 1528	Origin: unclear, no sources on the pilgrimage, only information. Funding: unclear. Decline: probably due to the Reformation, 19th and 20th century destruction of the outer pulpit , sale of the miraculous image.
Hohenfeld	St. Margaret ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	before 1600	Origin: unclear, no sources on the pilgrimage, similarities between the choir and Dettelbach. Funding: probably by Johann II von Brunn and the settlement of beguines . Decline: probably due to the Reformation, 1883 image of grace still present.
Iphofen	Holy Blood ( ⊙ )	Crime legend	1298-20. century	Origin: alleged host crime of the local Jewish community . Funding: local worship of the host, later five-wound worship of Christ. Decline: probably through the Enlightenment in the 18th century, revival through National Socialism .
Kitzingen	Mary Help ( ⊙ )	miraculous painting	after 1600	Origin: Copy of Maria-Hilf von Passau in the Capuchin monastery in Kitzingen. Promotion: Worship by local Capuchins. Decline: unclear.
Stadtschwarzach	Holy Cross Church ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	1465 – after 1525	Origin: Several relics were healed and at the same time pilgrimage to the Marian miraculous image after the miracle of candles. Funding: only local character, Seelhaus Foundation for pilgrims . Decline: 1525 robbery of the relics, subsequent period of the Marian pilgrimage.
Vogelsburg	Vogelsburg Abbey ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	around 1500 – before 1797	Origin: unclear, miraculous image of Our Lady. Funding: unclear. Decline: in the 18th century miraculous image to Würzburg, recorded pilgrimage here in 1797 .
Volkach	Maria in the vineyard ( ⊙ )	miraculous image of grace	after 1370 – today	Origin: before the Reformation, petitions to the old parish church. Promotion: 17th century real pilgrimage to holy image, livestock pilgrimages, Umritte , Papstablässe. Decline: existing, art pilgrimage, museum character.

literature

overview

• Klaus Arnold: Deviations in Faith - Persecution of Jews - People's Movements . In: Peter Kolb, Ernst-Günther Krenig (ed.): Unterfränkische Geschichte. Volume 2. From the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the denominational age . Würzburg 1992. pp. 337-356.
• Wolfgang Brückner: Popular piety before 1517 . In: Peter Kolb, Ernst-Günther Krenig (ed.): Unterfränkische Geschichte. Volume 2. From the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the denominational age . Würzburg 1992. pp. 301-336.
• Wolfgang Brückner, Wolfgang Schneider: Catalog of places of grace, places of worship and worship in the diocese of Würzburg . In: Wolfgang Brückner, Wolfgang Schneider (ed.): Pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg. Places of grace, places of worship and worship in Lower Franconia (= Church, Art and Culture in Franconia, Vol. 3) . Würzburg 1996. pp. 55-269.
• Josef Dünninger, Karl Treutwein: wayside shrines in Franconia . Constance 1960.
• Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck: Pilgrimage . In: Wolfgang Brückner, Wolfgang Schneider (ed.): Pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg. Places of grace, places of worship and worship in Lower Franconia (= Church, Art and Culture in Franconia, Vol. 3) . Würzburg 1996. pp. 14-24.
• Reinhard Worschech: Pilgrims roam the Franconian countryside . In: Wolfgang Brückner, Wolfgang Schneider (ed.): Pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg. Places of grace, places of worship and worship in Lower Franconia (= Church, Art and Culture in Franconia, Vol. 3) . Würzburg 1996. pp. 9-13.

Individual pilgrimages

• Hans Bauer: The beautiful Madonna of Gnodstadt . In: Yearbook for the district of Kitzingen 2011. Under the spell of the Schwanberg . Dettelbach 2011. pp. 167-174.
• Wolfgang Brückner: miraculous image and legend. Cult change in Dimbach (= country and people) . Wuerzburg 1978.
• Gerhard Egert: "We roll to the mother of pain" . In: Ute Feuerbach (ed.): Volkach. 906-2006 . Volkach 2006. pp. 256-260.
• Josef Endres: Holy Blood in Iphofen. With an edition of the Miracle Book (= publications of the Society for Franconian History, Vol. 49) . Wuerzburg 2007.
• Helmut Flachenecker: The Carmelite Monastery on the Vogelsburg. Local processions and a miraculous picture of the Madonna . In: Ute Feuerbach (ed.): Our Main Loop. 2008-2017 . Volkach 2018. pp. 229–241.
• Theobald Freudenberger: Sources on the history of the pilgrimage and the Augustinian canons Birklingen near Iphofen (Mfr.) 1457–1546 . Wuerzburg 1937.
• Anke Ruppert, Karl Heinrich Brückner: Pilgrimage to Dettelbach today - an inventory . In: Karl Heinrich Brückner, Peter Ruderich, Anke Ruppert, Reinhard Worschech: Maria help, it's time. From the story of the pilgrimage to “Maria im Sand” Dettelbach . Dettelbach 2005. pp. 31-167.
• Reinhard Worschech: Maria help, it's time. From the story of the pilgrimage to “Mary in the Sand” . In: Karl Heinrich Brückner, Peter Ruderich, Anke Ruppert, Reinhard Worschech: Maria help, it's time. From the story of the pilgrimage to “Maria im Sand” Dettelbach . Dettelbach 2005. pp. 7-22.

Web links

Commons : List of pilgrimage sites in the district of Kitzingen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kriss-Rettenbeck, Lenz: Pilgrimage . P. 15.
2. ^ Brückner, Wolfgang: Popular piety before 1517 . P. 319.
3. ^ Brückner, Wolfgang (et al., Ed.): Pilgrimage in the Diocese of Würzburg . P. 25 f.
4. ↑ Worschech, Reinhard: Pilgrims move through the Franconian country . P. 10.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Brückner, Wolfgang (among others): Catalog of places of grace, places of worship and worship in the diocese of Würzburg . Pp. 55-269.
6. ↑ Endres, Josef: Holy Blood in Iphofen .

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