Medieval synagogue Cologne

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Overview of the excavations in front of Cologne City Hall (2014)
Excavation find: floor tiles, presumably from the synagogue
View into the mikveh (2011)
Model of the Gothic bima
The former synagogue used as the chapel of St. Mary in Jerusalem (between 1873 and 1876)

The medieval synagogue in Cologne was located in the vicinity of today's Cologne City Hall . It served the city's Jews as the center of their community until they were expelled in 1424. It was then rebuilt and used as the Christian council chapel of St. Mary in Jerusalem until it was destroyed in the Second World War. During excavations between 2007 and 2015 in the Cologne Archaeological Zone , remains of the synagogue were uncovered.

history

When exactly the medieval synagogue in Cologne was built is unclear: the written evidence of the beginnings of the medieval Jewish community point to the 11th century. In the regests of the Archbishops of Cologne from 1426, for example, one reads that the Archbishop of Cologne Heribert had granted the Jews of Cologne the right to build a synagogue 414 years earlier, i.e. in 1012. However, this information was provided with brackets and a question mark by the publisher of the volumes at the time. In the late medieval Cologne yearbooks of 1426 it is said that the building was already 14 jair 400 jair , according to a second manuscript ane 14 jair 400 jair [...] in the Joeden hant , which depending on the reading, was either 1012 or 1040 can indicate. The synagogue is mentioned in the Vita Annonis Minor (around 1180) when the Cologne Jews mourned the death of Archbishop Anno , under whose protection they were protected, on December 4, 1075, a Sabbath .

The Jewish quarter in the area of ​​today's Cologne City Hall was around 1.35 hectares, less than one percent of the total area of ​​the city at that time. 700 to 800 Jews lived there, which in the middle of the 14th century made up around two percent of Cologne's population of 40,000. The quarter, which was separated from the Christian properties by fences or bars, is documented between 1056 and 1075. The Cologne mikvah , the ritual bath, was first mentioned in writing in 1270, but its first construction phase can be archaeologically dated back to the 11th century.

The community center covered around 2400 square meters, which corresponded to about one sixth of the Jewish quarter of the time, and housed facilities for the general public such as the synagogue, a bakery, a hospital, the mikveh and a community hall for celebrations such as weddings. The plan of the two-story synagogue itself measured 9 by 15 meters, and it was roughly in the middle of the quarter. It served as a place of prayer and study as well as a meeting place for the rabbinical court . A cellar was built under the synagogue, where valuable objects, documents and cult objects that had become unusable were presumably kept. The synagogue also had an extension for the women, which was connected to the men's prayer room by narrow listening slits made of red sandstone . Since the women only saw little of the men's worship service, learned women soon began to function as prayer leaders. The Talmudic Pura and her sisters Jenta and Vromut are known by name. Around 1140 there was evidence of a dispute about the installation of windows with depictions of animals. Furnishings made of Roman water pipe marble were also found. The architectural ornamentation points to the workshop that made the grave of the plectrudis in St. Maria in the Capitol and probably redesigned the grave of Archbishop Bruno in St. Pantaleon . The walls were simply whitewashed, and monumental stone inscriptions were inserted under the beamed ceiling.

In the second half of the 13th century, the community had the synagogue restored in Gothic style. The lectern in the middle of the room - the Bima - has been redesigned and provided with a canopy . The high quality of this sacred work of art suggests that it was made by employees of the Cologne cathedral builder. In the course of the latest excavations, the Bima was reconstructed from around 3,000 fragments. The Amsterdam Machsor , a precious manuscript with the specific Cologne rite of prayers and liturgical poems, was probably made around 1250 for use in this synagogue.

In a pogrom in 1096 around 300 Jewish people were murdered, in another massacre in 1349 the entire Jewish population of Cologne - an estimated around 800 men, women and children - were killed and the synagogue was destroyed again. In 1372, some Jewish families were taken in again in Cologne, and the synagogue was rebuilt, albeit in a smaller version for a smaller community. The end of the medieval Jewish community was sealed on August 16, 1423, when the City Council of Cologne decided not to renew the residence contract that expired in October 1424. Some Jewish families from Cologne then settled across the Rhine into Deutz in the Bergisch region .

After this expulsion of the Jews, the synagogue building was renamed “St. Maria in Jerusalem "rededicated to the Christian council chapel. The chapel was completely destroyed in a bombing raid during World War II and was never rebuilt.

Dating

A letter from Emperor Constantine to the Cologne city representatives from the year 321 refers to Jews in Cologne and allows the broad interpretation that there was already a Jewish community in Cologne at this time and therefore could have been a synagogue. In 1956 the archaeologist Otto Doppelfeld uncovered the medieval synagogue and the mikveh after the discovery of the Roman praetorium . He took the view that the oldest construction phase of the synagogue was perhaps a 9th century building. However, after six months of excavation, he had to fill up the pit again due to pending construction work; the praetorium and the mikveh remained open to the public. The excavations from 2007 to 2015 in the Archaeological Zone in Cologne in front of the Cologne City Hall could not substantiate Doppelfeld's assumption and also did not provide archaeological evidence of the existence of a late ancient synagogue at this point.

literature

  • Barbara Becker-Jákli with the assistance of Nicola Wenge: The Jewish Cologne. Past and present . Emons, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-89705-873-6 .
  • Otto Doppelfeld : The excavations in Cologne's Jewish quarter, in: Zvi Asaria (Hrsg.): The Jews in Cologne from the oldest times to the present. Cologne 1959, pp. 71-145.
  • Wilhelm Janssen : The Regests of the Archbishops of Cologne in the Middle Ages, Bonn / Cologne 1973.
  • Katja Kliemann: New insights into the medieval synagogue and its environment . In: Jürgen Tronow / Markus Trier (Hrsg.): Archeology in the Rhineland . 2014, p. 166-168 .
  • Katja Kliemann / Sebastian Ristow : Cologne and early Judaism north of the Alps . In: Communications of the DGAMN: Archeology of Faith - Upheavals and Conflicts . tape 31 , 2018, p. 9-20 .
  • Matthias Schmandt: Judei, cives et incole: Studies on the Jewish history of Cologne in the Middle Ages (= Alfred Haverkamp et.al. [Hrsg.]: Research on the history of the Jews . A, 11). tape 1 . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-7752-5620-2 .
  • Sven Schütte / Marianne Gechter: Cologne: Archaeological Zone / Jewish Museum. From excavation to museum - Cologne archeology between town hall and praetorium. Results and materials 2006–2012. 2nd edition 2012 ISBN 978-3-9812541-0-5 .

Web links

Commons : Medieval Synagogue Cologne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schmandt, Judei, cives et incole , p.1.
  2. ↑ Kliemann / Ristow, Cologne and early Judaism , p. 13.
  3. ↑ Kliemann, The Medieval Jewish Quarter , p. 169.
  4. ↑ Kliemann / Ristow, Cologne and early Judaism , p. 13.
  5. ^ Mikveh - Jewish ritual bath. In: museenkoeln.de. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b Schütte / Gechter, Cologne: Archäologische Zone , p. 105.
  7. ↑ a b Becker-Jákli, Das Jewish Köln , p. 33.
  8. ↑ Schütte / Gechter, Cologne: Archäologische Zone , p. 106.
  9. ↑ Schütte / Gechter, Cologne: Archäologische Zone , p. 112.
  10. ↑ Becker-Jákli, Das Jewish Köln , p. 32.
  11. ↑ Basement under the bimah. In: museenkoeln.de. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Medieval Hebrew manuscript returns to Cologne. In: juedische-allgemeine.de. September 10, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 .
  13. ↑ About the manuscript. In: amsterdammahzor.org. Retrieved October 10, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Becker-Jákli, Das Jewish Köln , p. 21.
  15. ↑ Becker-Jákli, Das Jewish Köln , p. 246.
  16. ↑ Kliemann / Ristow, Cologne and early Judaism , pp. 18-19.
  17. ↑ Kliemann / Ristow, Cologne and early Judaism , pp. 18-19.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 16.4 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 30.7"  E