Plague cross

Plague cross from 1635 near Bad Wünnenberg-Leiberg

The plague cross is a special form of the corridor or the grave crosses and became the memory of the victims of the great medieval and modern plague - epidemics built. They can be found in cemeteries , in the mass grave department , their own plague cemeteries , as well as in wide corridors. An identification of medieval stone crosses , where sacred sacred crosses may have been created around older crosses, with plague crosses is probably due to the fact that the contemporary wooden crosses have not been preserved - the crosses of the first epidemics in the history of the plague still fall under the stone cross type.

In southern Germany and Austria, the plague column often took the place of the cross. There are also monuments that remember the plague as plague stones .

An example of a well-preserved stone plague cross can be found on a plague cemetery in the Bürener State Forest near Bad Wünnenberg-Leiberg in North Rhine-Westphalia . The inscription (missing letters in brackets) reads:

ANNO 1635 DEN 25 [AV] GVSTI HAS VNS GOT DIE PESTILENS GESANT, LIKE MAN IS BEKANT, DIED 400 PEOPLE FROM THE VILLAGE OF LEBERG, WHOM GOT ACQUIRED THE SELIKIT. AMEN

Further examples of well-preserved plague crosses are the plague cross from 1669 in Koblenz and the plague cross attached to the cemetery chapel in Trittenheim .

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  Plague Cross from 1598 in front of St. Lorenz (Lübeck)

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  Plague cross from 1669 in Koblenz

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  ... in Herne , from 1635, since then renewed several times

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  ... in Trittenheim from 1654

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  ... at Dedenbach from 1665

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  ... in Trier , built after the "Rinderpest" of 1870

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  Cross group in Völs (Tyrol) from the second third of the 17th century, commemorates the plague of 1637.

literature

• Wolfgang Urban : The Baindter plague cross . In: Otto Beck (Ed.): Baindt. Hortus Floridus. History and works of art of the former Cistercian Empire Abbey . Festschrift for the 750th anniversary of the founding of the monastery, 1240–1990. Munich / Zurich 1990, pp. 117–122.
• Kurt Müller-Veltin: Middle Rhine stone crosses made of basalt lava . Verlag Ges. Für Buchdruckerei, 1980.
• Hermann Bausinger (Ed.): Folklore from the Bavarian-Austrian Alpine region . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1978.

Web links

Commons : Plague Crosses  - Collection of Images

Wiktionary: Pestkreuz  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wiktionary: Peststein  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wiktionary: Plague column  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• WAZ: The Börniger Pestkreuz receives a notice board . (accessed on January 4, 2016)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Palm Comploy, Schmid-Pittl: Cross group at the former plague cemetery. In: Tyrolean art register . Retrieved September 16, 2019 .