Martinikirche (Hohnstedt)
The St. Martini Church is a Protestant church in the Leine-Solling parish in Hohnstedt near Northeim and one of the oldest churches in the Leinetal .
history
After the first mission successes of the Fulda Monastery in southern Saxony, the Archdiocese of Mainz took over missionary activity in what is now southern Lower Saxony and steered it into regular channels through the planned establishment of twelve Martini churches. The first church building in Hohnstedt was erected before the year 800 near the Borngarten, a pagan-Germanic cult site, with a baptismal font. This original and baptismal church became the "ecclesia matris" (mother church) of all churches in the later Sedal district of Hohnstedt in the archdeaconate of Nörten .
The church tower is the oldest part of today's building and was probably built before 1200. It was hardly built as a church tower, but rather belonged as a defensive tower to the adjoining manor house of those von Hohnstedt (Hoenstide / Honstad / Honstedt), which became extinct in the male line in the late Middle Ages. This noble von Hohnstedt family managed to obtain privileges from the Archbishop of Mainz, which they later bequeathed to the von Hardenberg family. Until 1726 the Hardenbergers owned, among other things, the right of patronage over the church and parish Hohnstedt before they exchanged it for the corresponding right in Geismar . The von Hardenberg family coat of arms has had the well-known boar's head since around 1330. The cause of the change of coat of arms is said to have been the marriage of Hildebrand von Hardenberg with the heiress from the noble family von Hohnstedt. As one of the last representatives of the family, the abbot of the St. Blasien monastery in Northeim Eckbert von Honstadt died in 1350 . The mortal remains of those von Hohnstedt were only erased when the new building of the superintendent parsonage began in 1616, as it was built over the old family grave. Hohnstedt was established as superintendent in 1588; the first superintendent - Magister Hieronymus Lüdeken, previously rector in Göttingen - came to Hohnstedt in 1589. By order of the Hanover regional church office on April 24, 1958, the seat of the "Superintendent of the Hohnstedt-Northeim Supervisory District" was relocated to Northeim with effect from June 1, 1958. The last superintendent in Hohnstedt, Wilhelm Rautenberg, the grandfather of Erardo Cristoforo Rautenberg , remained as a pastor in Hohnstedt until his retirement in 1963.
Building history
Previous buildings
After a first wooden chapel around 800 and a later almost square stone building , the third Martini church was built around 1080. It was also dedicated to the Frankish national saint Martin von Tours . This Romanesque church building was hit by a fire in the 13th century and was completely destroyed by flames.
13th century to 1500
The church tower has an almost square shape, thick walls made of red sandstone and limestone and carefully carved corner blocks made of sandstone. It has a simple barrel vault. The newly built, single-nave and rectangular church with the external dimensions of 18.70 meters in length and 11.40 meters in width, dates back to the 13th century. Exact construction dates, however, as well as the exact time of the church fire are not known. With the construction of the new church building, the time of the free-standing tower ended, as the nave was now brought up to the tower in order to be able to dispense with the construction of a wall in the west of the nave . After incorporating the tower into the new church, the defensive tower could now be changed into a church tower. He received an eight-sided pointed helmet and a bell chamber with three sound openings . This was followed by the purchase of two bells, one of which is still hanging in the tower today. The incorporation of the hidden staircase as access from the top of the tower vault, as well as the collapse of two loopholes in addition to the new single-storey tower entrance from the nave ago, is rich in that time. The original entrance on the first floor, however, lost its purpose as an entrance. Later, after the installation of the first organ, it will ensure the connection between the church tower and the bellows chamber and the organ floor. One of the last witnesses of the new church building is the late Romanesque stone baptismal font, which has been erected in St. John's Church in Katlenburg since 1977 .
As is clearly visible on the construction joint on the northern church building - on the southern side it is covered by the priechen annex - the nave was later given a polygonal choir annex, which extended far to the west in the side walls and the nave by 13.30 meters to 32.00 Meter extended. Since the wall thickness of the older and newer church walls is approximately 1.20 meters throughout and the irregular wall structure was continued, the two phases of construction will hardly be far apart, so that the choir should also be built in the 13th century. The reason for the considerable expansion of the church building was the founding of the Hohnstedter Kaland, a brotherhood of priests, in Sedes Hohnstedt, in order to obtain a suitable meeting room for the clergy's joint services. In any case, no other choir extension is known in the entire former Sedal district that could offer such dimensions.
1500 to 1748
Further construction news was only received from around 1500, when the massive Romanesque arched portals were changed by late Gothic fixtures with bar profiles and covings. The renovation of all church windows in the same style, which was also planned, did not progress well. Only one window on the south side of the choir shows visible late Gothic relics. Apparently the onset of the Reformation turmoil prevented further building projects. Some renovations are also likely to have taken place inside the church. Two traditional inscriptions, "Augusto von Steinberge given anno 1552 on May 16" and "T 1581 RF" are related to the installation of a beam under the arch and the construction of two oriels on the church. However, there is no further information. The inscriptions are not preserved.
Between 1717 and 1748 the church was redesigned through several alterations, only the church tower remained externally untouched. The walls of the nave were raised to compensate for the difference in height between the nave and the choir. Both received a uniform new church roof at the same ridge height. The new roof ridge of the nave now towered over the eastern eaves line of the tower. The position and height of the original church roof still need to be reconstructed on the preserved old plastered edges on the tower as well as on the outer supporting pillars, which have also been raised. The roofs made from Sollingsteinen were replaced by Lautenthaler and later Goslarer slate tiles, which in turn had to give way to red tile pans in 1965.
The late Romanesque window openings were enlarged to allow more light to enter the church. Inside the St. Martini Church, the spatial and optical separation of the nave from the choir was abolished by breaking out the strongly constricting and separating triumphal arch . The church floor was brought to a uniform level, with the chancel in the altar area still being raised by 50 cm in order not to destroy the graves of the clergy and their relatives. Their grave slabs were cleared aside and were carelessly stored in the churchyard until 1913. All but three records were lost.
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The organ was built from scratch between 1717 and 1718 by the organ builder Johann Andreas Graff from Wolfenbüttel and the wood carver Johann Friedrich Käse from Gandersheim, who created the prospectus . Cheese also created the baptismal angel , which, hanging in the choir on a rope, replaced the old baptismal font used since the church was built. The pulpit altar with the risen Christ on the sound cover was made according to a design by superintendent Christian Heinrich Schilling in 1748 by the wood carver and sculptor Johann Caspar Käse from Gandersheim, the painter Gottfried Bratzky from Berlin and the gilder Anthon Thilo from Hanover, who from 1751 to 1755 Partner of Johann Georg Ziesenis the Younger was, created from scratch. The medieval "overgüldete" triptych on the altar with the carved saints St. Martin and St. George and a middle panel with the depiction of the apostles and fold-out wings, which were painted with depictions of the Passion, became superfluous and was removed from the church. Later it was lost, as was the confessional , the lectern for singing, the pulpit with six steps and a lid and the entire seating of the choir and nave. The old sandstone altar table was stored under the organ gallery and is still there today. The ground floor of the tower interior did not remain untouched either. The 19-step staircase, which is hidden on the southern wall, was closed at the top and largely demolished in order to set up a closed archive room in the vault.
Two additions to the nave resulted in further external changes: first by building the Hardenberg patronage on the south side of the choir (1720) and the construction of a sacristy (1741) on the choir in the east.
1892 until today
The church underwent further optical changes when all the church windows were enlarged again in 1892 and the external plaster was removed in 1911. The basic restoration of the interior structure by the Frankenberg brothers in Northeim between 1912 and 1914 brought about further changes: the floors were renewed , a new wall plaster was applied and a new ceiling was pulled under the hanging truss, so that the old white and blue paintings on the boards and beams were no longer visible from the nave, as they disappeared between the new ceiling and the floorboards of the church. This was followed by a complete repainting of the church by the church painter Martin Gotta from Hanover. Colored glasses for the windows were also obtained from the art institute for glass painting Ferdinand Müller from Quedlinburg. Finally the church tower was repaired and the old wooden belfry was replaced by an iron structure, as well as the sound openings in the south and north were considerably enlarged. In addition, the number of bells has been increased from two to three. The oldest of the three bells in the church bears no inscription. From its Gothic form it has been concluded that it was cast around 1330. The second old bell was used to buy two new bells in 1912, but these were given for war purposes on June 5, 1917. A replacement took place in 1932 by purchasing two bronze bells weighing 1910 and 1120 kg and the basic tones of and f. They too fell victim to the war and had to be surrendered in 1942. Between 1958 and 1960 another interior renovation with interior painting by the church painter Heinz Nauwald (Schoningen) and master painter Friedrich Duve from Northeim took place. In 1959, two new bronze bells from the FW Schilling bell foundry in Heidelberg replaced the bells that had been confiscated and delivered for war purposes. Since then, the tower has been ringing a three-way bell in tones e and f sharp of the two new bells and a of the old bell.
In 1963, Rudolf Janke created a new work behind the preserved baroque organ front from 1717/18. The case comes from Johann Andreas Graff from Wolfenbüttel. Janke reconstructed the disposition from 1717 and added a breastwork. The instrument has 20 registers , which are distributed over two manuals and pedals. The playing and register actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
The heating battery from the company Sachse and Co. from Halle, built in 1913, was replaced in 1965 and 1966 by a warm air heater from the company Esch & Co from Mannheim. It had to be renewed in 1997. The restoration of the pulpit altar became necessary in the same year.
Literature (selection)
- Wilhelm Rautenberg: The St. Martinikirche zu Hohnstedt. In: Community letter of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Sixti Congregation Northeim, 5th year, No. 10, October 1965, p. 1 f.
- Hohnstedt town of Northeim, district of Northeim. In: Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments . Bremen Lower Saxony. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , p. 745.
- Jörg F. Girmann: The clergy at St. Martini Church in Hohnstedt since the Middle Ages. In: Northeimer Jahrbuch. 2009, Vol. 74, Northeim 2009, ISSN 0936-8345 , pp. 61-90.
Web links
- Ev.-Luth. St. Martini Church Hohnstedt in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- Website of the parish of Hohnstedt in the parish of Leine-Solling
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gustav Große: The Hohnstedter Superintendentur, Aus der Heimat, Northeimer Latest News, edition of May 28, 1958
- ↑ Church Official Gazette of April 30, 1958, No. 96
- ^ Northeimer Latest News, issues of August 9, 1958 and October 31, 1963.
- ^ E. Neuhaus: The bells of the St. Martini Church in Hohnstedt , p. 9 (PDF).
- ↑ The font
- ↑ Information on the organ , accessed on January 8, 2019.
Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 47.6 " N , 9 ° 57 ′ 34.8" E