Margaret Shrine

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The Margaret shrine in the collegiate church in Aschaffenburg

The Margaret Shrine is a gilded wooden coffin with viewing windows that contains the relics of several saints. It was probably commissioned by Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg and is listed in his list of relics, the Hallescher Heiltum .

description

There are three window openings on each side of the gilded wooden coffin. One of the wooden gilded locking boards with a lion's head has been preserved on one side. In the coffin is a carved corpse , which has recesses for the individual bones of the saint. An inscription says that they are relics of Saint Margaret, a virgin, martyr and companion of Ursula of Cologne . At that time, there were 11 and 11,000 companions, respectively, of Ursula. Hallesches Heilum records that they are not only relics of Margaret, but also relics of Juliane and another unknown virgin. Both belonged to Ursula's entourage. In addition, it contained reliequies of two other saints, the Aldegundis and Anastasia.

The Margaret shrine on the canopy by Hans Vischer

The figure is not a skeleton, but a staging made of wood , a " Transi representation" of the decaying corpse known in the late Middle Ages , with inserts for pieces of bones. With considerable effort, carvers and painters have tried to create the impression of a half-decayed corpse with partially exposed bones. The worship of relics was given the most realistic possible basis.

That the remains are different people shows the presence of two skulls and double inserted bones.

In the open chest there are carefully labeled, sealed reliquary packages from the 17th to 20th centuries. Underneath is a bag with remains of the abbess Adelgundis, acquired from Cardinal Albrecht. On August 5, 1677 this shrine was opened and the following relics were found: “The body of St. Margaretha, the body of St. Luziana and the body of St. Adelgundis, all from the St. Ursula. Furthermore relics of St. Virgin and Martyr Regina. ”The Margareth shrine, which was still extremely well preserved around 1910, was badly damaged not even 50 years later during a monument protection campaign. Relocated during the Second World War, the work of art was only taken out of a storage room after a decade. As part of the celebration of “1000 years of the Abbey and City of Aschaffenburg” in 1957, the shrine was restored in the State Office for Monument Preservation. Today's experts refer to this restoration with the predicate “loveless”. The reports complained about the poor state of preservation, but the restoration itself led to considerably more serious interventions. The existing glass panes (partly still original) were replaced by new ones. Parts of the lid were not supplemented and framed according to the original with its incised tendril ornaments, but without a pattern according to ideas from the 1950s. The plates for closing the glass windows, adorned with lion heads in the middle, were still in place in 1920. Today there is only one of these records left. Bones that could not be assigned disappeared, others were assigned incorrectly.

history

Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg had a considerable collection of 20,000 relics in Halle . This also included the Margaret Shrine, which was related to his favorite saint Ursula of Cologne. However, Martin Luther claimed that the corpse would be the deceased lover Rüdingerin, whom he would now venerate as a saint. Nicolaus Vogt writes that after Albrecht's death the body would have been replaced by another saint in order to prevent further discussion.

When Albrecht went into exile in Aschaffenburg in 1541 , he took the shrine with him. Since then it has been in the collegiate church of St. Peter and Alexander . Today it stands on the canopy of Albrecht von Brandenburg's grave memorial, created by Hans Vischer in the north aisle .

swell

  1. ↑ Kerstin Merkel, Saint Margaret in Catholic Exile - A New Pilgrimage for Aschaffenburg , in "Ich armer sundiger Mensch": Cult of saints and relics at the transition to the denominational age , Wallstein Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3892449929
  2. ^ Felix Mader The Art Monuments of the Kingdom of Bavaria Lower Franconia XIX City of Aschaffenburg , Munich 1918
  3. ↑ Main-Echo from January 17, 2007
  4. ^ Niklas Vogt, Rhenish stories and sagas , fourth and last volume, pp. 34–36
  5. ↑ Kerstin Merkel, Albrecht and Ursula, Wandering through literature and the creation of legends , in We want to give space to love: concubinates of ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500. Wallstein Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3835300520
  6. ↑ Kerstin Merkel, The saint in a glass coffin - The Margaret's coffin in Aschaffenburg Cranach in exile Aschaffenburg around 1540 - Refuge - Treasure Chamber - Residenz, Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2007 ISBN 978-3-7954-1948-6

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