Martinskirche (Meimsheim)
The Martinskirche is a Protestant church in Meimsheim , a district of Brackenheim in northern Baden-Württemberg . The church, built on the foundations of a Roman estate, is one of the oldest church buildings in the Heilbronn district .
history
The Martinskirche was probably built at the time of the Franconian conquest in the 7th or 8th century on the remains of a Roman estate north of the Franconian court settlement from which today's Meimsheim developed. Since the church was outside the settlement, they were referred to for a long time as a rural church . The church is dedicated to Martin von Tours , the national saint of the Franks.
The church was first mentioned in the late 12th century, when the Tübingen Count Palatine Rudolf gave the church to the diocese of Speyer in the course of an exchange of goods and received goods for the establishment of the Bebenhausen monastery in return . The exchange was recorded in 1188 and confirmed in 1193. The church in Meimsheim is considered the mother church of the surrounding churches, its branches included the Katharinenkapelle in Neipperg , the parishes in Hausen an der Zaber , Dürrenzimmern , Botenheim and Cleebronn .
The patronage right of the church lay with feudal people of the Tübingen count palatine , the Herter von Herteneck, who gave it to Count Eberhard the illustrious of Württemberg in 1323 . The church was reformed by the dukes of Württemberg until 1555 .
The presumably Romanesque first church building was replaced by a late Gothic building around 1460 . From 1455 to 1461 the choir , the tower and the old sacristy were built in their present form. A new nave may not have been completed until 1477 as the main door dates from that year. In 1515 a new sacristy was added. After working on the choir in 1676 and erecting a new belfry, the nave was demolished and rebuilt in 1741, giving the church essentially its current shape.
The church was renovated in 1912, 1953, 1963/64. During the renovation in 1953, an organ gallery that was in front of the choir was removed and a new organ was placed on the west gallery. During a renewed renovation in 1976, the stalls as well as the sandstone and wooden floors were renewed, electrical heating was installed, the galleries with their historical picture panels were restored, natural stones were exposed and weatherproof doors were installed. Another renovation took place after an arson attack in 1995, in which a wooden pillar from the 18th century and two rows of seats were damaged.
description
The Martinskirche is located north of the center of Meimsheim on a slight hill on the site of a former Roman estate. The church is surrounded by a cemetery, which has been converted into a park in the southwest area and is only occupied north of the church. To the south of the church were the 500- and 1000-year-old linden trees, presumably old court linden trees , which, however, had to be felled in 1980 and 1994, respectively. Before 1557, the first rectory in the village was right next to the church.
The church tower has a height of 33.50 meters, its floor plan changes from a square over flat, covered edges into an octagon. The tower roof has the shape of a pyramid and closes with a tower button and tower cross. In the base area of the tower is the choir facing east, which has five large windows facing east and a ribbed cross vault on the ceiling. The keystones show the Lamb of God and bulbous leaves . The crucifix above the altar dates from the late Renaissance period . The pulpit on the choir arch was moved there in 1954 after the old organ gallery was removed.
The old sacristy was built in the same period and style as the choir and may have been its own chapel. A very old Romanesque capital formerly located there was given to the Museum of Antiquities in Stuttgart in 1912. The larger new sacristy from 1515 has reticulated vaults and two Gothic pointed arch windows as well as a window from more recent times. However, the new sacristy also hides the largest of the five Gothic windows in the choir.
To the west of the tower is the simple nave . Due to the different furnishings at different epochs, the church offered more than 500 seats at times, since the renovation in 1976 there have been 370. In the west and north there is a gallery with panels from the 18th century, on the west gallery there is the modern church organ. The two-manual instrument with 15 registers was built in 1955 by the Walcker company .
Around the church there are four historical monuments, including three tombs of the Amos family and the striking by its detailed inscription Tomb Rachel the wife of the local vicar Daniel Renz of 1753. In Meimsheimer parish garden also is still a very old Romanesque baptismal font , the 1912 by today's baptismal font of Martinskirche had been replaced.
Bells
Four bronze bells from 1919, 1949 and 1965 hang in the bell cage of the tower, which was newly erected in 1676. Historical bells can be traced back to the 18th century, the oldest known bell in the church was cast by Peter Becker in Stuttgart in 1772. During the First and Second World Wars, two of the three bells each had to be handed in. The oldest of today's bells dates from 1919. It was cast in the Bachert bell foundry in Kochendorf , has a c sharp sound, a diameter of 69 cm and a weight of 196 kg. Two more bells from 1949 were also cast by Bachert, now in Heilbronn: the Christ bell with a striking sound f sharp ', a diameter of 112 cm and a weight of 815 kg, and another bell with striking sound a sharp', a diameter of 85.5 cm and a weight of 475 kg. The fourth of today's bells, the prayer bell , was cast by Bachert in Heilbronn in 1965 and is based on a private donation. It has the strike note dis', a diameter of 132.2 cm and a weight of 1347 kg.
Individual evidence
- ^ Norbert Jung: hilf got vnd maria, contributions to the history of bells in the city and district of Heilbronn , Heilbronn 2008, pp. 35–37.
literature
- Oskar Paret : Guide to local history of Württemberg , Stuttgart 1922, p. 3.
- Willi Haisch: The Church . In: Life in Meimsheim. From the story of a village in Zabergäu . City of Brackenheim, Brackenheim 1988, ISBN 3-9806667-1-9
- Julius Fekete : Art and cultural monuments in the city and district of Heilbronn . 2nd Edition. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1662-2 , pp. 127/28.
- Heinz Rall : Historic churches in Zabergäu and the surrounding area . Forum-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8091-1088-4 , pp. 60/61.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 4 '8.8 " N , 9 ° 5' 15.6" E