Marienkirche (Mühlhausen)
The Marienkirche in the Thuringian city of Mühlhausen is - after the Erfurt Cathedral - the second largest church building in the Free State. It was built mainly during the 14th century in the Gothic style . Its 86.7 meter high central tower is the highest in the state and significantly shapes the city skyline. The Marienkirche was an event site of the Peasants' War around 1525, as the revolutionary leader Thomas Müntzer worked here as a pastor.
Building
The church is a five-aisled Gothic hall church that was built from local travertine . The central nave is twice as wide as the side aisles. At its western end there are two smaller, about 42 meter high side towers and the 86.7 meter high central tower. The towers have a square floor plan and substructure, on which an octagonal superstructure is placed. On the east side there are three choir rooms , a large one in the middle and two small ones on either side. The central choir appears tall and slim, which is typical of the Gothic. The northern side choir was a Nikolaikapelle and was used for baptisms . The sacristy of the church is located under the southern side choir . The interior of the hall church is divided into four rows of five slim, high columns each into 30 rectangles. In the Middle Ages, as was common in large churches at that time, a library was housed on the gallery . The transept of the church is just as wide as the central nave and at its ends does not protrude from the overall width of the church.
The south portal of the transept, which serves as the main entrance to the church, is considered a Gothic masterpiece. It is richly structured and decorated. Two side pillars make the portal stand out optically and appear wider, although it is aligned with the side wall of the church. On the bill altan in the middle of the portal there are four figures looking down on the square in front of the church. They depict Emperor Charles IV , his wife Elisabeth of Pomerania , as well as two of his children, perhaps also a lady-in-waiting and a courtier. Today's colorless figures were painted in the past. A picture of Jesus Christ as judge of the world is located above the false hall . There are numerous sculptures at the church gate. They were destroyed in the Peasants' War in 1525 and only restored around 1900.
The fact that the south portal serves as the main entrance is often explained with the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, which was started around the same time, as a model, in which the south portal had to serve as the entrance because the nave and west facade were not finished until centuries later. Churches with a south-facing main entrance have existed since the early 13th century at the latest, for example the Paderborn Cathedral and the Herford Minster , which were among the first large hall churches in Germany.
Furnishing
Altars
The high altar of the church dates from after 1525. It is consecrated to the Virgin Mary , who is also the patroness of the church. The predecessor of today's high altar was destroyed in the iconoclasm in 1525 . The current one is the third high altar in the church, as a first was sold in 1391 alongside the one that was destroyed in 1525. The altar shows late Gothic styles. During construction in 1608 was Renaissance - canopy attached. A coronation of Mary is shown , which is framed by John the Baptist and the Evangelist John . Further saints are depicted in two rows on the side panels, for example James the Elder , Bishop Valentin , the Apostle Bartholomew , Laurentius of Rome , Nicholas of Myra and Saint Sebastian on the left . On the right panel you can see Paul of Tarsus , the Apostle Andrew , Boniface and the Apostle Thomas .
From the Nicholas altar, which is no longer completely preserved, there are two panels on the north wall of the choir, on which twelve scenes from the life of the saint are depicted. The altar dates from around 1485. Its predecessor is no longer preserved.
Another altar for the Coronation of the Virgin Mary from around 1530 comes from the pilgrimage church Eichen, which was closed in 1570. A pilgrimage chapel was built here at the Thomasteich at the western gates of the city after the miraculous, bloody host find of 1401. This village has been deserted since 1582. Like the high altar, the middle section shows a coronation of Mary. The four apostles Judas Thaddäus , Simon Petrus , Andreas and Bartholomäus can be seen on the side wings .
inventory
There are two crucifixes in the church . The small lecture cross is made of linden wood and hangs in the choir. It is depicted as the tree of life in the shape of a vine and dates from the late 15th century. The second is the large cross on the east wall of the south transept. It is a classic depiction of the crucifixion from 1520. During the Seven Years' War it was damaged by French soldiers in 1761 and was not restored until 1773.
The seated Madonna from 1430 is one of the most important sculptures in the church. It was also destroyed in 1761 and restored in 1772, although the head and one leg of the baby Jesus are still missing. The pillar figures in the east transept are the three wise men and Mary with the baby Jesus from around 1530.
The baptismal font of the church is neo-Gothic and dates from the 19th century. The pulpit from 1891 in neo -renaissance style still contains the old figures from 1610, which were reinserted. The choir stalls date from around 1900.
There are three large bells hanging in the bell-room of the central tower. The Maria from 1490 is the largest bell with a weight of 5½ tons and a diameter of two meters. The middle one, the Sunday bell , dates from 1701, has a diameter of 1.70 meters and weighs around 3 tons. The smallest bell is the municipal Thomas Müntzer bell from 1989.
In the church there are some historical gravestones that covered the floor until around 1890 and were only erected afterwards. The oldest shows the Swikker couple from knightly status and dates from 1341. The tombstone from 1382 of the master builder of the Marienkirche, Heinrich von Sambach of the Teutonic Knights Order, is also preserved. A particularly large tombstone (2.70 × 1.80 meters) of Heinrich von Homberg and his children Katharina and Conrad was dated to 1405. The tombstone from 1621 of the mayor Gregorius Fleischhauer, who was involved in the refurbishment of the church at the time, is very filigree.
Of the church's 29 large Gothic pointed arched windows, 14 contain colored paintings. Most of them date from between 1886 and 1903. It is assumed that all the windows in the church were originally colored, but were lost over the centuries. Today only the two east windows of the choir, the Mary and Christ windows, are preserved in their original state. A third was put together around 1900 from the Gothic remains of various other windows and is now also in the east choir. The three older windows were sealed in 1975 because the increasing corrosion threatened to destroy them. In 1886 they were in such a bad condition that a foundation was set up to collect money from Mühlhausen citizens. In this way, ten new, colored windows could be manufactured and installed by 1903.
organ
The first organ was built by the organ builder Justus Pape between 1561 and 1564 in the Renaissance style on the west gallery of the church. The instrument, which was large at the time, had a Rückpositiv , i.e. a separate organ body in the back of the console. It was financed through donations and through the sale of precious vestments from the Church's Roman Catholic times. The organ was destroyed by fire in 1720 after a lightning strike. A second, smaller organ had been added to the south pore earlier. She had previously been in the Jakobikirche . In 1703 it was removed again.
In 1722 Johann Friedrich Wender received the order for a new building with 43 voices on 3 manuals and pedal . However, the construction was still not completed in 1735 when Johann Sebastian Bach visited it. When Wender died in 1729 and his son Christian Friedrich did not have the same talent as an organ builder, Zacharias Hildebrandt , master organ builder from Leipzig , was to be commissioned to complete the organ at Wender's expense. However, after repeated postponements, Christian Friedrich Wender succeeded in completing the building by 1741, albeit not in the perfection originally intended by his father. The first manual was assigned to the Rückpositiv, the second manual to the main work and the third manual to the upper work. There were also nine side trains, including couplers, tremulants, a Zimbelstern and a chamber coupler, with which you could transpose the entire instrument. Ivory and ebony were used as the material for the keys . Some registers have been preserved from the old organ, including all registers of the Rückpositiv. The organ consecration and examination was on June 12, 1738 by the organist Graf from Wolfenbüttel and Hetzehenn, organist at Divi Blasii zu Mühlhausen. This organ was renovated within two years from 1821 by Johann Friedrich Schulze . Although the improvements were unsatisfactory, the organ was used in this condition for another fifty years.
As part of the extensive repairs to the church at the turn of the century, Wilhelm Sauer created a new organ in the symphonic style in 1891. This instrument, which is still in use today, was specially designed for romantic music; it has 61 registers and a swell .
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- Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
history
As early as 1180, documents reported about a St. Mary's Church at this location. In 1243 it was transferred to the Teutonic Order by the Roman-German King Konrad IV and destroyed in the city fire of 1315. Only the 42 meter high north tower and the slightly higher early Gothic south tower from around 1250 have been preserved from this Romanesque church.
The current church was started in 1317 in the Gothic style. This is evidenced by a letter of indulgence from Archbishop Peter von Mainz . The church was in what was then the Neustadt of Mühlhausen. At that time the city was the second largest in Thuringia after Erfurt with around 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. In the 13th and 14th centuries it flourished mainly through the woad trade , so that an imposing church was wanted to be built on a par with Erfurt Cathedral . In the middle of the 14th century construction work came to a standstill because the Mühlhausen citizens and the Teutonic Knights had fallen out. Only in the 1360s could work be resumed. They were probably not finished until the early 15th century.
The proportions between the mighty nave and the two small towers were felt to be unfavorable from the beginning, which is why the construction of a mighty central tower began in 1512, of which only the substructure was completed, since the Reformation began after 1517 . The church was consecrated as a Catholic until the Reformation , after which it was converted into an Evangelical Lutheran Church . Mühlhausen was a center of the peasant war in the 16th century ; Thomas Müntzer also spoke to the rebellious farmers in the church.
After the Peasants' War, the construction work continued and initially a provisional lattice tower was placed on the substructure of the central tower. This fell victim to the city fire of 1689. From 1690 to 1694 a massive tower superstructure with a Spanish hood was built. It lasted for the next 200 years, but still looked quite small compared to the nave. It was demolished and replaced from 1898–1903 by today's neo-Gothic tower, 86.7 meters high. It shapes the cityscape of Mühlhausen like no other building and, although it is over 500 years younger than the church, fits in well with the overall image of the church.
From 1846 a renovation program for the church began under the direction of the Prussian court architect Friedrich August Stüler , the son of a pastor of the Marienkirche. However, his concept could only be implemented from 1884 and was completed in 1903 with the completion of the central tower.
Thomas Müntzer's place of work
At the time of the German Peasant War, the Marienkirche was a place of activity of the revolutionary Thomas Müntzer . In 1523 Mühlhausen was the second largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt with almost 10,000 inhabitants. A citizens' movement formed, which on July 3, 1523, decided for the first time to open an uprising against the city council. A year earlier, Pastor Mattheus Hisolidus had preached against the authorities. In August 1524 Thomas Müntzer entered the revolutionary events in the city for the first time. He was on the run and came to the city from Allstedt near Sangerhausen . In an iconoclasm on Epiphany in 1525, the altar and portal figures were destroyed and the church inventory damaged. Shortly afterwards, in February 1525, Thomas Müntzer became pastor of the Marienkirche. His first goal was the introduction of the German-language church service.
The revolutionary situation worsened after Müntzer founded the Eternal Council in the church on March 17, 1525 and further insurgents began to rally around. When enough peasants had gathered and one felt prepared for a battle against the princes, Müntzer and his peasant army moved to Frankenhausen , where the battle broke out on May 15, 1525 , which ended with the peasants' defeat. This was also the end of the Peasants' War and Thomas Müntzers, who was executed on May 27 not far from Mühlhausen. However, this did not stop the Reformation and was enforced in St. Mary's Church in 1557.
The Marienkirche has been a Müntzer memorial since 1975. The city of Mühlhausen was officially named Mühlhausen Thomas-Müntzer-Stadt between 1975 and 1991 . In the GDR , Müntzer was revered as an early bourgeois reformer who, together with the peasants, rose up against the authorities and fought for free farming. After 1990, the admiration of Thomas Müntzer and with it the interest in his life and work decreased.
Todays use
The Marienkirche has not been a parish church since 1975, but is used as a museum of the Mühlhausen Museums Association and as a church service for the Evangelical Parish Mühlhausen. The right to the pulpit is held by the evangelical pastor of the inner city parishes Divi-Blasii and St. Marien. Protestant church services take place regularly on Easter Sunday, Whit Monday, during the city fair, on Reformation Day and Christmas Eve. Concerts are also performed in the church. From 1985 to 2001 it was the preferred venue for the international concert series.
Others
- The Marienkirche is adorned with a commemorative coin of the GDR from 1989, which was issued as a 5-mark piece for Thomas Müntzer's 500th birthday. It was minted in an edition of 500,000, of which, however, 100,000 were melted down again after the monetary union in 1990.
- Portals
West portal
North portal
South portal
See also
literature
- Jakob Altersberger: Investigations into the church history of Mühlhausen in the Middle Ages . Thesis. University of Vienna, 2013, Parish Church St. Marien, p. 68–70 ( full text [PDF; 21.8 MB ; accessed on June 25, 2018]).
- Rolf Aulepp: News from old Mühlhausen. Graves and finds in the Marienkirche. The rilled fish on St. Mary's Church, two symbols of faith? In: Mühlhausen museums (ed.): Mühlhäuser contributions . Special issue 9. Mühlhäuser Druckhaus, Mühlhausen / Thuringia 1993, p. 52-59 .
- Ernst Badstübner : The old Mühlhausen. Art history of a medieval city . Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig 1989, ISBN 3-7338-0055-9 , pp. 205 .
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments Thuringia . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-422-03095-6 .
- Museumsverband Thüringen (Ed.): Museums in Thuringia . Edition Leipzig, 2006, ISBN 3-361-00612-0 , pp. 120 .
- Christa Richter: The Marienkirche in Mühlhausen . In: Mühlhauser contributions . Special issue 7. Mühlhäuser Druckhaus, Mühlhausen / Thuringia 1990.
Web links
- Marienkirche - Müntzer memorial. In: muehlhausen.de. City of Mühlhausen, 2012.
- St. Mary's Museum. Zweckverband Mühlhausen museums
Individual evidence
- ↑ Claus Peter: The bells of the city of Mühlhausen / Thuringia . In: Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation (Hrsg.): Workbook of the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation . New episode 10. Erfurt 2002.
- ^ District archive Mühlhausen (ed.): Holdings of the city of Mühlhausen . Mühlhausen January 30, 2000, p. 235 .
- ↑ Evangelical Church District Mühlhausen (Ed.): 84th Bach Festival of the New Bach Society . Mühlhausen 2009, p. 25 u. 82 .
- ^ The organ of the Marienkirche Mühlhausen. In: www.orgel-information.de. Daniel Kunert, accessed on June 25, 2018 (information on disposition).
Coordinates: 51 ° 12 ′ 37 ″ N , 10 ° 27 ′ 18 ″ E