Palatium (Bremen)

Excerpt from a map by Hogenberg and Braun, created between 1572 and 1618. The palatium can be seen here between the Church of Our Lady, town hall and cathedral

The palatium ( Latin for 'vault') in Bremen was a brick Gothic building that was built in the 13th century as the seat of the Bremen archbishops . Until 1816 it stood northwest of the cathedral between Domshof and Liebfrauenkirche , where the New Town Hall is today.

The St. Mary Magdalene Chapel

On part of the property on which the palatium was built, a chapel in honor of St. Mary Magdalene was probably already standing , which was then incorporated into the palace as a court chapel. The first documentary mention of the capella sancte Marie Magdalene juxta pallatium domini archiepiscopi in civitae Bremensi ('St. Mary Magdalene Chapel next to the palatium in the city of Bremen') comes from the year 1314, i.e. shortly after the palatium was built. However, it was at an oblique angle to the rest of its parts. Its west wall stood on the foundation of the wall around the Domburg, which was erected in the middle of the 11th century and then unfinished .

The palatium

South gable of the palatium between town hall and cathedral around 1695

The palatium as the residence of the Bremen bishops was built to replace the archbishop's castle, which burned down during a riot under Archbishop Giselbert in 1293 . Giselbert then bought a piece of land between the Liebfrauenkirche and the cathedral for 650 marks and had a two-story Gothic brick building with a U-shaped floor plan built here.

building

City map 1796 , prepared in color:
• blue = palatium
• purple = "small palatium"
• red = town hall
• ocher = stock exchange

Wall sections of the palatium on the ground floor of the town house, which was demolished in 1909

The main wing was 39.10 meters long and 14.60 meters wide. He wore a gable roof . The eastern side of the eaves faced the Domshof. On the west side there were two transverse wings with slightly lower ridge heights. The previously existing Maria Magdalena Chapel was integrated into the 16.90 m long southern wing. The north wing was 14.60 meters long and housed stables. Edged between the three parts of the building was a garden.

Both front sides of the main wing were designed as stepped gables . The gable of the southern one was decorated with six circular blind niches , which in the sequence three - two - one filled the triangle completely. The gables of the transverse wings were plain. At the north there was a winch for the granary.

East facade after Ernst Ehrhardt

The main entrances to the palatium were formed by two ogival portals on the gable ends of the main wing, the entire ground floor of which was originally taken up by a large hall. The portals with a width of 4.70 meters and a height of 5.20 meters had a deep reveal . On both sides of the portals there were two narrow windows with a wide pointed arch above them.

On the long side there were two rows of eight windows each, on the ground floor with a pointed arch shape as on the two gable sides, on the upper floor with a rectangular shape. The upper row of windows was framed with sandstone and structured by stone crosses. The window ledges were also connected to one another to form a sandstone band running along the entire east facade.

No remains of a staircase were found when the successor building was demolished. It is therefore assumed that the upper rooms could be reached through attached spiral stairs.

In the later function of the building as the seat of a Swedish governor, the southern part of the east wing was redesigned in the style of the early baroque with a false ceiling .

use

Hidden in the north wall of the town hall : the main entrance to the great hall of the palatium

When the archbishops of Bremen resided mainly in their castle in Bremervörde from the middle of the 14th century due to increasing tensions with the citizens and the Bremen council , the palatium was used as the official seat of the archbishop's mayor . As a result, the Maria Magdalena Chapel was also profaned and used for other purposes.

With the Peace of Westphalia and the secularization of the Archbishopric of Bremen , the building came into Swedish ownership in 1648, as did all of the former archbishop's properties in the city, and it was expanded to become a governor . The southern vestibule and the north wing were made three-story by inserting a beamed ceiling. The southern portal to the market square was given a baroque sandstone border over which the Swedish coat of arms was attached.

In 1720 the palatium fell to the Electorate of Hanover . During the Seven Years' War it served as the residence of the expelled Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Kassel . From 1790 until his death in 1796, Adolph Freiherr Knigge lived here as the Hanoverian captain.

In 1803 the palatium and the other Hanoverian possessions in the city were brought back to Bremen as part of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss .

During the French annexation from 1811 to 1814, the building served as a mairie  - the administrative seat of the city. In 1818/1819 it was largely demolished and the town house was built in its place under the direction of the Bremen dike conductor and later city planning director Nicolaus Blohm . Some parts of the old building remained as foundations and - hidden - in some walls of several floors of the new building until it was also demolished in 1909 to make way for the New Town Hall.

The "Little Palatium"

The "Small Palatium" on Schoppensteel (before the demolition in 1909)

In 1580 a building was erected in the axis of the south wing of the palatium, which was called the "small palatium", it probably served to store the taxes in kind that the taxable peasants had to deliver to the archbishop.

The "Small Palatium" was 16.60 meters long and 13.40 meters wide, had only one main floor, but two attics and a cellar. A flight of stairs led to the portal on the street Schoppensteel , which was placed in the center of the western gable front . Above that there were two gates through which stored goods could be brought to the attics by means of a rope hoist. The two turrets with a Welscher hood were paneled chimneys.

The building lasted until 1909 when it was demolished along with the town hall to make way for the New Town Hall.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Frank Wilschewski: The Carolingian bishopric of the Saxon tribal area until 1200 , Michael Imhof Verlag 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568127-0 , chap. II (pp. 14–29), Bishopric of Bremen
2. ↑ The three floors mentioned in Herbert Schwarzwälder's Große Bremen-Lexikon refer to the renovation of the building under Swedish sovereignty in the middle of the 17th century.
3. ↑ Schoppensteel is the Low German name for the stake on which the condemned was publicly denounced. According to Monika Porsch: Bremer Straßenlexikon, Volume 1 · Old Town . Butterfly publishing house, Bremen 2000, p. 73.

literature

• Ernst Ehrhardt (1855–1944): The Palatium of the Archbishops of Bremen in the City of Bremen in the Yearbook of the Bremen Collections , 3rd year 1910. pp. 73–86. (Digital collection of the State and University Library Bremen)
• Rudolf Stein : Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture in Bremen . Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 1962.
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Wilhelm Lührs : The Domshof. History of a place in Bremen . Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 1987, ISBN 978-3-920699-87-5 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 33.5 ″  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 30 ″  E