Palatine Chapel

The sacred building belonging to a palatinate , which was intended for use by the ruling family and the accompanying courtiers , is called the Palatine Chapel . From this, the later court chapels and churches at the princely, royal and imperial palaces and residences developed in a broader sense . A palace consisted at least of the palace , a palace chapel and an estate .

A well-known example of a palatine chapel that is still preserved today is the octagon that functions as the central building of Aachen Cathedral , which was built between 796 and 805 AD as a chapel of the Aachen imperial palace under Charlemagne . Its construction goes back to similar rulership chapels in the Byzantine cultural area - above all Justinian buildings like San Vitale in Ravenna or Hagios Sergios and Bacchos in Constantinople .

Almost all medieval palaces had such chapels. But not only secular rulers, even religious dignitaries were these built, such as in the case of on behalf of the Archbishop of Mainz Adalbert I. of Saarbrücken built Gotthard Chapel at Mainz Cathedral . Most of these rulers' chapels were so-called double chapels , i.e. two-storey buildings with a connecting opening between the upper and lower chapels .

history

In the palatine chapels belonging to the royal palaces of the early and high Middle Ages (500–1300 AD), the coat of the Frankish imperial saint Martin von Tours († 397) was kept as a relic during the king's stay . The coat belonged to the crown treasure as an imperial jewel and was carried on the journeys of the kings. The custodians and protectors of this relic were the capella sancti Martini and were called capellani (from Latin cappa 'coat', diminutive capella ; from this also chapel is derived); from this the later term Kaplan developed . These clergymen also celebrated the services in the Palatine Chapel and were also entrusted with courtly and diplomatic tasks. The royal monastery of St. Denis near Paris , in which a local head of the chancellery had already been appointed, is considered to be the first significant palatine chapel . St. Denis is the place of origin of the laudes regiae , a coronation liturgy that was held in the respective palatine chapels in honor of the king.

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  Saint-Denis cathedral near Paris

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  Saint Remi basilica in Reims

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  Saint Martin Basilica in Tours

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  Octagon of Aachen Cathedral

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  Palatine Chapel St. Ulrich in Goslar

Importance of some palatine chapels

Initially, the palatine chapels did not have a different rank, as they were part of all palatinates of equal rank. In the course of the royal revaluations, some palatine chapels acquired special significance, including:

• Today's Cathedral of Saint-Denis , a former abbey church in the city of Saint-Denis north of Paris.
• The former royal abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims : For centuries the holy oil used to anoint the French kings was kept here.
• The basilica and former abbey of Saint-Martin in Tours was, as the burial place of Saint Martin of Tours, one of the most important Christian pilgrimage sites for more than a millennium .
• The Palatine Chapel of St. Ulrich was part of the imperial palace of Goslar , which was praised as the “most famous residence of the empire”.

Other Palatine chapels (selection)

• The Palatine Chapel in Wimpfen is part of the largest Hohenstaufen palace complex in Germany.
• The Chapelle Impériale (Ajaccio) in Ajaccio ( Corsica ) was the imperial chapel of Emperor Napoleon III.
• The Old Nikolaikirche belonged to the royal palace of Frankfurt as a court and palatine chapel.
• The Bartholomäuskapelle in Paderborn was a palatine chapel as part of the new building of the old Ottonian royal palace.
• The Church of St. Johann Evangelist in Cologne was built on the cathedral courtyard as a two-storey palatine chapel.
• The Michaelskirche in Salzburg first served the Agilolfingers as a palatine chapel, it was built next to the Bavarian Palatinate.

literature

• Mathias Haenchen: The medieval building history of the Goslar Palatine Chapel St. Ulrich. Diss. TU Braunschweig 1998, Braunschweig 1998.
• Oscar Schürer: Romanesque double chapels. A type-historical investigation . In: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft , 5th volume, 1929, pp. 99–192.
• Richard Stemp, Churches & Cathedrals . RM Book and Media Distribution , 2011.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chapel. In: Duden online. Retrieved May 8, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Lexicon of the Saints (St. Martin of Tours), Weltbild Publishing Group, Augsburg, 2005, ISBN 3-8289-4980-0