Mechtern

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In the Middle Ages, Mechtern was a small settlement in the north-west of Cologne in what is now Cologne-Ehrenfeld within the urban ban mile .

prehistory

According to a legend , St. Gereon of Cologne , officer of the Theban Legion , was martyred here with 318 warriors and 50 Moors ( mauri ) at this point . He fell victim to the fury of the Roman emperor Maximian (286–305) who persecuted this legion of Christians. When she had adopted the Christian religion, she was persecuted and murdered by soldiers of the emperor.

Parish church and monastery

The parish church of St. Bartholomew with the nickname “to the Martyrs” (from Latin “ad martyres”) was built at the alleged battle site. The incorrect pronunciation of this Latin name resulted in “Mechtern” (or “Meichtern”). It is said to have stood on an underground vault that is said to have served as a secret meeting place for Christians during the Roman rule. On behalf of the Archbishop of Cologne Philipp I von Heinsberg , a monastery courtyard was built in their place in 1180 for regular canons. It was a branch of the original Gereon parish , as evidenced by a document from 1256. The Koelhoffsche Chronik reports that during a meal with the Overstolzen in Cologne on January 10, 1268 , the Count of Jülich escaped an attack by the wise men by fleeing “and he stayed with Mechtern at the Jungfrauenkloster”, where he set up camp. Reported is a wax seal on a deed of Augustinian canons of June 1273. The Augustinian canons remained in St. Bartholomew to 1276, because in 1277 sparked Archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg the monastery due to "indiscipline and waste" and transformed it into a Cistercian convent to . The daughters of rich Cologne citizens often entered the convent; one of them was Fia von Falkenstein.

The Cologne patrician Bruno Hardevust owned 4 Rhine mills, one of which he donated to the Mechtern monastery around 1258. After he had the dilapidated monastery renewed at his own expense in 1277, 13 Cistercian women and an abbess from the Benden monastery moved into the rebuilt monastery on April 9, 1277 . Hardevust was buried in the monastery after his death on March 21, 1278.

In 1356 a place of execution was first mentioned at the Junkernkirchhof near Mechtern. There Adam von Nurrenberg, Tilmann Obenkirchen and Eberhard Hundt were beheaded on January 31, 1513. According to reports, there was prostitution in the vicinity of the monastery in 1387. Since August 15, 1392, the monastery has belonged to the Andreasstift . Dietrich Hurtey the Younger had damaged the monastery in 1395 and was therefore captured on February 19, 1395. In July 1474 the city council decided, among other things, to destroy the Weiher (Weyer) and Mechtern women's monasteries in front of the city gates , so as not to give the enemy any backing as a military advantage during the Cologne collegiate feud . Both were weak points in the city fortifications. After the destruction in 1474, the foundation stone for a new nunnery was laid on April 21, 1477 near St. Apern . After the end of the war, the nuns had a large farmyard built on the former site of the monastery . It was one of the scattered farms in the area and belonged to the St. Apern nunnery. In a document dated August 13, 1483, the village is referred to as "Meichteren". Hermann von Weinberg mentioned 1553 Mechtern nor as inhabited place, "because vur account deficits the gonfern-cloister hatt confessed." But already the Cologne Cityscape of 1570 of Arnold Mercator contains from Friesentor edge of the image extending to the northwest, unnamed road (today Venloerstraße ), which was surrounded by pastureland and fields. On April 28, 1583, the former pastor of Mechtern applied for damages from the Cologne council for the destruction of the monastery and the church of Mechtern.

Mechterner sermons

Protestant sermons in Catholic Cologne outside the Cologne city ​​walls had already caused tension in Cologne-Rodenkirchen . On June 26, 1567, the bandweaver Dietrich von Mülheim was interrogated because he had attended the sermon of the Calvinist Jacobus von Bacharach in Rodenkirchen on March 16, 1567 .

The Dutch governor Adolf von Neuenahr organized several sermons on July 8, 1582 in the already abandoned Mechtern monastery in the Cologne suburb of Mechtern, which historians know as "Mechterner sermons". The count, accompanied by a troop corps, received the Cologne Protestants very warmly on Saturday, July 7th, 1582 and invited the Protestants living in Cologne to a sermon on the following Sunday. On Sunday, July 8th, 1582, the Cologne city council had the city gates closed and announced that no citizen was allowed to leave the city without justification and had to prove his non-participation in the service, and that by hearing the sermon, the loss of civil rights and the Exile from the city threatens. The originator of the sermon was Johann von Otzenrath (Johannes Christianus), the preacher was Zacharias Ursinus (actually Zacharias Baer or Beer) from Breslau . The count had the church surrounded by 4 soldiers for protection. Between 400 and 500 Cologne citizens heard the sermon. There was a second sermon on July 15, 1582; the Cologne council had also prohibited this. The city wanted to prevent a third sermon on July 22, 1582 and had its soldiers open fire. A bullet struck the church roof, abruptly interrupting the sermon; the preacher concluded his sermon and "the congregation was dismissed." The bullet struck in the immediate vicinity of the count, who took it as evidence. As a result of the provocative events, the town clerk announced on August 8, 1582 that all Protestant foreigners who had come to the city of Cologne after 1566 had to leave the city within four weeks. When Archbishop Gebhard I von Waldburg announced his conversion to the Evangelical Confession on December 19, 1582 , he triggered the Cologne War .

The Koelhoff Chronicle of 1499 reports in its second edition 1582 about the three sermons on page 261: “But Mechtern a village not far from the statute, because on three consecutive Sundays one predicant from Silesia and the protection of the gray von Neuwenar Adolffenn, heretical sermons have been held. "

Development of Mechtern in the early days

  • Abraham Hogenberg - Schweidkarte (1609)

  • Joan Blaeu - Cologne sweat card (1663)

  • Covens & Mortier - Cologne sweat map (1735)

  • St. Mechtern - groundbreaking ceremony (September 1907)

  • St. Mechtern - full view (November 2011)

  • St. Mechtern - basement tower (November 2011)

  • St. Mechtern - memorial stone

The Cologne Schweidkarte from 1609 by Abraham Hogenberg still shows "Martiren" as located in the "Ehrenporzer Burgbann", the map by Joan Blaeu from 1663 still mentions "Martiren"; Covens & Mortier mention this place as late as 1735. The lands belonged to the Prince of Wagram during the French era . Architect Vincenz Statz acquired the farm after the secularization in 1802 and had it demolished in 1819/1820. Around 1836 the remaining Meierhof belonged to WI Tyllmann, who had acquired it from HP Wahlen.

The surrounding Ehrenfeld had a steadily increasing population from 1845, which was accompanied by strong industrialization. The only reminder of Mechtern was a new church, St. Mechtern, for which the first groundbreaking took place in September 1907. Its architect Eduard Endler built it in 1909 on the site of the former collegiate church. Excavations there brought up remains of Roman and Franconian walls in 1934. The church was destroyed in the Second World War on October 30, 1944, only remains of the tower and painting remained. St. Mechtern's church, built in November 1954, is the sixth at this point and was designed by Rudolf Schwarz , while the frescoes were created by Peter Hecker (1956). Finds from 1996 at today's St. Mechtern Church show a Roman villa rustica that stood there in the first to third centuries. Today the Mechternstrasse in Ehrenfeld still reminds of the prehistory; the church is numbered 4–8.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gotthelf Huyssen, On Christian antiquity in their Vrehaltniß zur Heidnischen , 1840, p. 154.
  2. ^ H. Böhlaus Nacht, Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History: Canonical Department , Volume 36, 1915, p. 135
  3. ↑ Ludwig Ettmüller , from the "Cronica der hilliger stat van Cöllen" , 1847, p. 62.
  4. ^ The Koelhoff Chronicle appeared in 1499; only at that time was it a nunnery
  5. ^ Leonard Ennen, Sources for the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 3, 1867, p. 124.
  6. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 1, 1991, p. 227.
  7. ↑ Peter Johanek, The City and its Edge , 2008, p. 58.
  8. ^ Leonard Ennen, Sources for the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 3, 1867, p. 677.
  9. ↑ Heinrich Rösger, Ehrenfeld, suburb of Cologne , 1868, p. 10
  10. ↑ Gisela Meyer, The Palant Family in the Middle Ages , 2004, p. 121.
  11. ↑ Heinrich Rösger, Ehrenfeld, suburb of Cologne , 1868, p. 7
  12. ^ Hermann von Weinsberg, Book Weinsberg , Volume 2, 1553, Leipzig 1887, p. 24
  13. ↑ where the virgin monastery stood before times
  14. ↑ Ludwig Röhrscheid, Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , Volume 16, 1865, p. 232.
  15. ↑ Hildegard Thierfelder / Friedrich Gerhard Venderbosch (among others), Reformatio , 1965, p. 65.
  16. ^ Johann Heinrich Hennes, The fight for the archbishopric Cologne , 1878, p. 8 ff.
  17. ↑ Carl Anton Werres, Der Landkreis Köln around 1825 , 2007, p. 104.
  18. ↑ Kölnischer Geschichtsverein, annual volume , volume 76, 2006, p. 36
  19. ^ Eva-Maria Schnurr, Religious Conflict and Public , 2009, p. 75.
  20. ↑ Religious history of the Cölnische Kirche, Volume 1, 1764, p. 285
  21. ↑ In the village of Mechtern, not far from the city, where a Silesian preacher gave heretical sermons under the protection of Count Adolf von Neuenahr on three consecutive Sundays
  22. ↑ Friedrich Everhard von Mering / Ernst Weyden, history of castles, manors, abbeys and monasteries in the Rhineland and the provinces of Jülich, Cleve, Berg and Westphalen , Volume 3, 1836, p. 139.
  23. ↑ Hiltrud Kier, Cologne: Kunstführer , 1980, p. 147.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 42.8 "  N , 6 ° 55 ′ 15"  E