Martinskirche (Battenberg)
 Martinskirche Battenberg, around 1200 |
|
| Basic data | |
| Denomination | Protestant |
| place | Battenberg (Pfalz), Germany |
| Building history | |
| start of building | first half of the 13th century |
| Building description | |
| Architectural style | Early Gothic |
| Construction type | Quarry stone hall construction |
| 49 ° 31 '59.7 " N , 8 ° 8' 31" E | |
The Martinskirche in Battenberg is a Gothic church and the oldest building in the Palatinate village of Battenberg .
Building stock
Today's Protestant church is located on a slight elevation, northeast of the town center, hard on the eastern edge of the plateau on which the village is located. It is a uniform building from the early Gothic, around 1200. There are also older, Romanesque components that may come from a previous building.
The church has a slightly recessed choir with a square floor plan and ribbed cross vaults . There is a double pointed arch window in each of the outer walls of the choir . Two-storey buttresses with front gables are attached to the outer, eastern corners . The choir arch to the church nave following to the west is Gothic-pointed arch. The old high altar was still there until 1837, and there were two side altars on both sides of the choir arch until 1862. Since then, there is a pulpit on the north side of the choir arch, which rests on a winding wooden pillar, as well as a wall breakthrough created at a later date for climbing it. The rest of the choir furnishings are modern.
The rectangular ship with a flat ceiling has three window axes. It is a double window of the same type as in the choir. They are all inserted in 1862. A locked original window frame is visible from the outside on the north side of the nave . The original windows of the church were much smaller and laid out in the form of an upper aisle typical of the time . On the south side there is a walled-up door with a Romanesque cross tympanum , to the west of it a later, larger pointed arch portal, which has served as the church entrance up to the present day. A large round arch is visible on the west wall of the nave, which perhaps once served as the main portal before the tower was built. This round portal has been blocked and now has a much smaller pointed arch portal in the middle that leads from the nave to the crypt chapel under the tower. On the west side there is a wooden gallery with a baroque organ and the same prospectus. The instrument was built by Johann Valentin Senn from Seebach around 1730 and acquired from the Catholic Church in Hettenleidelheim in 1826 .
The relatively low tower connects to the west of the ship. In addition to a basement, it has three floors. The basement (crypt chapel) with ribbed cross vaults is only accessible from the nave, on its western outside it has a profiled, Romanesque round arched window and above it a stylized head relief. The tower can be reached via an external staircase on the south side, which leads directly to the first floor, where there is a round arched doorway with the year 1758. There is a tower room, through which you can also reach the church gallery and in which there are remains of an open fireplace. It is said to have served to heat the Grafenstuhl on the gallery. On the top floor of the tower there are ogival sound openings to the east and west; on the east side a double pair with a head relief in between, on the west only one, subsequently extended opening. The face of a clock sits at its upper end. To the north and south, the tower, placed a little lower, also has a smaller window opening each; the southern one is ogival.
The choir, tower and nave have gable roofs, are unplastered on the outside and made of yellow and red sand stone . The corners consist of longer and shorter, machined sandstone blocks.
On the west side of the church area there is a mighty Romanesque arched portal made of alternating yellow and red sandstones. To the west, north and east the church is surrounded by a wall, in the south-east corner of which a stone plaque was placed in 1955 for those who died in both world wars. There are also remains of a former access portal from the valley (from Kleinkarlbach ). The area within this wall used to be used as a cemetery, parts of a stone coffin that had been found were set up there and two gravestones from the 18th century still exist. The new cemetery has been adjoining it to the east since 1888 and is significantly lower because of the sloping terrain.
The Martinskirche has two chalices from the pre-Reformation period from the 14th century and a chased , gilded brass baptismal bowl that belongs to the 15th century. It bears a scene of the Annunciation in the center , surrounded by Gothic minuscules and vine tendrils. The inscription has not been interpreted, does not seem to make any sense and is apparently only used for decoration.
history
The patronage of St. Martin's Church has always been exercised by the Glandern Abbey in Lorraine.
The year 836 is rumored to be the first mention of the Glanderer property in Battenberg. However, this date, whose main source is the Acta Academiae Theodoro-Palatinae of the Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences (Volume 1, 1766, page 248), is based on a document that has meanwhile been exposed as a forgery.
The Glandern Abbey probably only benefited from the Battenberg church rights after King Ludwig the German had confirmed the ownership of a country estate in Grünstadt on November 21, 875 in Metz and they set up a Benedictine provostry here, which eventually also included the Martinskirche in Grünstadt , the Martinskirche in Mertesheim and the Martinskirche in Battenberg belonged. All three churches, like the mother church in Glandern, were consecrated to St. Martin of Tours . The year 875 is considered to be the first documentary mention of the abbey in connection with the Grünstadt estates. The earliest proven landowner in Battenberg was the Benedictine abbey Lorsch in 787 , which had a hatch there. It cannot be ruled out that the rights were transferred from this Benedictine monastery to that in Glandern, especially since King Ludwig the German had a special relationship with Lorsch. The Murbach Abbey in Alsace belonged to the village, which were later to the Leininger Counts fief since at least 873 large portions. It is possible that the church patronage came to Glanders in this way.
The first reliable evidence of the Glanderer possession in Battenberg is a document from Bishop Stephan von Metz from 1121, in which he confirms the Battenberg church patronage of the abbey. From 1209 there is a document from the cathedral provost Ulrich zu Worms, which designates the abbot of Glandern as patron saint of the church and names a local priest named Peregrin . In 1231 Glandern gave the church patronage to the Worms cathedral chapter . Even after 1231 the abbey still seems to have had rights to the church, because in 1324 its abbot gave his consent to the foundation of a measurement pledge on a newly built altar in the Battenberg church. According to the Worms Synodal of 1496, in addition to the main altar of St. Martin, the church also had a side altar which was consecrated to St. Catherine . According to canon law it belonged to the diocese of Worms , Dean Freinsheim .
From 1566, the Martinskirche, as part of the now Lutheran County of Leiningen , was a parish church of this denomination. The Counts of Leiningen now exercised the parish sentence . The Lutheran pastor Georg Edelmann stated in 1580 that much of the old beliefs were still held in Battenberg. On the evening before Palm Sunday , candles would be drawn, on Easter vigil , according to Catholic custom, the baptismal water would be blessed and the fast would be kept as before. A Lutheran visitation report from 1609 tells us that in the Battenberg church it was " with the greatest horror" that "the image of the Virgin Mary was adorned with a ribbon, so undoubtedly from idolatry and superstition " , which is why it was decreed "to prevent nuisance "As soon as possible " abolish. "
Since the Lutheran Reformed Union of 1818, the Martinskirche has belonged to the Protestant regional church of the Palatinate .
Leininger burial place
In 1747, Count Karl Ludwig von Leiningen-Dagsburg-Emichsburg (1704–1747) was buried in a crypt under the church tower. One of his sons, who died early, rests there too. Karl Ludwig had converted to the Catholic faith in 1736 and during his reign the Battenberg Church could be used again for a short time by the Catholics. About his only daughter Katharina Louise (1735-1805), who married a Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim , he is the great-grandfather of Prince Karl Thomas zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1783-1849), who through his mindset over generations the up established this family's ongoing commitment to the Catholic Church today.
The church from the southwest
South side with main portal and tower entrance
Romanesque window and head relief on the tower
Interior shot to the east; Choir with choir arch
Interior shot to the west; Organ gallery, including the entrance to the crypt chapel
Entrance to the crypt chapel
Tower room on the 1st floor, with the remains of an open fireplace
Two chalices from the 14th century
Baptismal bowl, 15th century
Stone coffin in the old cemetery
literature
- Friedel Süntzenich: Protestant parish church St. Martin, Battenberg / Pfalz. Local community Battenberg / Pfalz 2006.
- State Office for Monument Preservation: The Art Monuments of Bavaria. Administrative region Pfalz, VIII. City and administrative district Frankenthal, Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1939, pp. 129–132.
- Michael Frey : Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal. Bayer. Rheinkreises , Volume 2 ( court district of Frankenthal ), Speyer 1838, p. 328 (digital scan) .
Web links
- Official website about the Battenberg Church
- Website of the Bad Dürkheim district administration for the village of Battenberg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Photo of the original bricked up window (top left)
- ↑ Franz Bösken, Hubert Unverricht: Music and musicians on the Middle Rhine: a biographical, local u. regional history reference work , issue 21, page 54, 1981; Text excerpt from Valentin Senn
- ↑ Photo of the baptismal bowl
- ^ Digital scan from the Acta Academiae
- ↑ Regest on the forged document from 836 ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Walter Lampert: 1100 Years of Grünstadt , Grünstadt City Administration, 1975, pp. 34–39 and 317–319
- ↑ PDF document with its own section on the Murbacher fief in Kleinkarlbach and Battenberg
- ↑ Michael Frey : Attempt of a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal. Bayer. Rheinkreises , Volume 2 ( court district of Frankenthal ), Speyer, 1838, page 278; (Digital scan)
- ^ Franz Xaver Glasschröder : Documents on the Palatinate Church History in the Middle Ages , Munich, 1903, page 193, document regist no. 455
- ↑ Regest with a picture of the certificate
- ↑ Georg Biundo: The visitation protocol of the County of Leiningen-Hartenburg, from 1597 , in: Blätter für Pfälzische Kirchengeschichte , Grünstadt, 1937, p. 85
- ^ Theodor Kaul: The introduction of the Reformation in the Grafschaft Leiningen-Hartenburg , Grünstadt, 1942, p. 165
- ^ Johann Georg Lehmann : Documentary history of the castles and mountain palaces in the former districts, counties and lordships of the Bavarian Palatinate , Volume 3, pages 258 and 259, Kaiserslautern, 1863; (Digital scan)
- ^ Ludwig Stamer : Church history of the Palatinate , part 3, page 34, Pilger Verlag, Speyer, 1959; (Detail scan)
- ^ Genealogical page on Count Karl Ludwig von Leiningen
- ^ Genealogical page on the family
