Neustädter Church (Hofgeismar)
The Neustadt Church is the church built by Hofgeismar in the “Neustadt” from the 14th century .
architecture
The Neustädter Church was built as a three-aisled hall church and has numerous interesting construction details. Up to six side altars were removed from the former Catholic church after the Reformation . The massive west tower of the church with 1.50 m thick ashlar walls was given an upper floor in 1460. The tower is now adorned with a baroque onion dome from the 18th century.
history
The settlement "Hove Geismari" received city rights in 1223 by Archbishop Sigfried II of Mainz , after it had already developed into the center of a church district. The area between Diemel and the Upper Weser also belonged to the secular sphere of influence of the Archdiocese of Mainz . The archdeacon's seat existed with a collegiate pen at the old town church , the Liebfrauenkirche.
After the city charter was granted, the population of Hofgeismar grew rapidly. The old city area was expanded by the new town in the 13th century. Construction of the Neustadt church began on May 22, 1341, as evidenced by an inscription on the west entrance of the church. The church, like the Old Town Church, was consecrated to Mary , the Mother of God .
As early as the 16th century, the church was transformed into a Protestant church . Under the rule of Landgrave Philip I , Hofgeismar - now a town in the Landgraviate of Hesse - became Protestant. Along with Saxony and Württemberg, Hesse was one of the pioneers of the Reformation in the German Empire .
French religious refugees in Hofgeismar
In the second half of the 17th century, Landgrave Carl von Hessen also settled French religious refugees ( Huguenots ) in the city of Hofgeismar , who had lost their home after the Edict of Fontainebleau and the abolition of religious freedom in France in 1685. Huguenots and Waldensian refugees also found a new home here, who had been expelled in 1698 on the orders of Louis XIV . After 1698, after Waldensians had been driven out (from French territory (e.g. Orpierre ) and from Piedmont ), Waldensian communities also formed in other areas of Germany.
On February 22nd, 1686, a French Reformed community was founded in Hofgeismar. Since 1686 the church services of the German Reformed community as well as the French Reformed Christians have been held in the Hofgeismarer Neustädter Church. The first pastor of the French parish, David Clément , died on January 29, 1725 in Hofgeismar, a memorial plaque on the Neustädter Church and a statue erected not far from the church. His entries in the parish register from 1686 to 1725 provide information about official acts in the French Reformed parish in Hofgeismar, but later also in Carlsdorf , Kelze and Schöneberg . After the second wave of French religious refugees immigrated to Hessen-Kassel in 1699, a second pastorate was established in 1704 for the newly created villages in Carlsdorf and Schöneberg.
literature
- District Hofgeismar, Handbook of the Heimatbund for Kurhessen, Waldeck and Oberhessen III, Marburg / Lahn 1966, p. 124 ff.
- Jochen Desel , The Neustädter Church in Hofgeismar, Melsungen 1986, ISBN 3-87280-038-8
- Jochen Desel, French Villages - German Immigrants 1669 - 1779: 300 Years of Kelze and Schöneberg, Volume II, Hofgeismar 1999
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 35.5 ″ N , 9 ° 22 ′ 55.6 ″ E