Roman West Gate (Cologne)

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Cross-section of a reconstructed part of the Roman wall near St. Aposteln
West city during the Carolingian era
Remnants of the "Via publica" (1st century) FO. Cologne, Apostle Monastery 13–15

The west gate of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in the Roman city ​​fortifications was between the southwest gate and the northernmost gate of the western wall, the Roman honor gate at the western end of today's Breite Straße. In the 11th century, the new building of St. Aposteln blocked the Roman gate in front of it, so that the previous street layout had to be changed and new openings were made in the Roman wall at some distance from the church, in front of and behind it.

history

The Roman state road "via publica", known today as Via Belgica , which led from Cologne to Boulogne-sur-Mer , was the continuation of a street that ran straight through Colonia . Since the beginning of the 4th century, the route over the Roman bridge has also reached the fortification of the Roman city on the right bank of the Rhine, the “Divitia” fort . The creation of the “West Gate”, like that of the street, dates back to the oldest period of Roman rule on the Rhine. The importance of gate and road was equally great for the military and trade, and the gate probably had the same rank in the Decumanus maximus east-west axis. how it took a city exit of the Cardo maximus as a north-south axis.

Remains of Roman times

The gate of this street was probably still used in the 10th to 11th centuries, but then disappeared without a trace. Only remnants of the inner-city Roman access road, but also remnants of road sections from ancient times, which were directly behind the gate (Apostle monastery), were exposed. In the post-Roman period, the importance of the country roads for trade decreased, and trade on the waterway, the Rhine, was preferred. Accordingly, the settlement of the city was concentrated on the Rhine suburb , so that the western edge, formerly part of the Franconian commons , remained almost unpopulated for the time being.

As early as the last quarter of the 19th century, 13 to 15 parts of the Heerstraße leading to the west were exposed in a very good state of preservation on the grounds of the Apostle Monastery, which reached a width of 6.5 m. The layers of their material were not put together arbitrarily and consisted of a trachyte pack layer in the substructure and a mixture of gravel and - since the usefulness of cement was not unknown to them - a brick concrete layer in the superstructure . The old excavation site was inevitably exposed again during renovations in 2009, when the archive of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation , which now resides at the Apostle Monastery, was expanded. A loan from the Roman-Germanic Museum of the City of Cologne shows visitors to the house a cross-section through the embankment of the great Roman state road "via publica", which is made of the material from the remains of the road found at this point and is presented on a display board. The layers of gravel in the reconstruction indicate that the road surface was renewed in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD.

Last mention of the gate

In a text passage from the Ottonian “Vita Brunonis” Ruotger (author of the life story of St. Bruno of Cologne ) mentions for the first time a small and modest, St. Cologne church consecrated to apostles (at that time probably one of the small hall churches with little floor space), when he reported on the funeral procession of Archbishop Brun, who died in Reims in 965, to Cologne.

The funeral procession that arrived in the Rhineland later came via the medieval Roman road (now Aachener Straße) , which Mercator called “Antorffer Straße” ( Antwerp ), to what was then the Cologne suburb. There, at a gate and mentioned by Ruotger Church, a rest is inserted and the body in the small church laid . Then, after some preparations at the place of burial and the destination of the trip, they moved into the nearby collegiate church of St. Pantaleon to solemnly bury the body. From these events it was concluded that the western gate of the Roman city there was still in use in the 10th century. With this, all traces of the Roman west gate end abruptly. Research assumes that the reasons for the disappearance of the ancient gate can be seen in the founding of the apostle monastery and the construction of the mighty collegiate church of St. Aposteln around 1020/30 . The construction of a churchyard, the construction of cloister buildings and the appropriation or acquisition of a site as a newly created immunity district changed the entire topography of the quarter.

literature

  • Hans Vogts , Fritz Witte: The art monuments of the city of Cologne. On behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province and the City of Cologne. Published by Paul Clemen , Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne. Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1930. (Reprint: Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1980, ISBN 3-590-32102-4 )
  • Hermann Keussen : Topography of the city of Cologne in the Middle Ages. in 2 volumes. Cologne 1910. Reprint: Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-7560-9 and ISBN 3-7700-7561-7 .
  • Johannes Krudewig (sources), in: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province. Volume VI, Section I. Sources, and Section II. Joseph Klinkenberg , Das Römische Köln . In connection with Otto von Falke, Eduard Firmenich-Richartz, Joseph Klinkenberg, Johannes Krudewig, Hugo Rahtgens and Edmund Renard. Edited by Paul Clemen . Druck und Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1906. Reprint Pedagogical Verlag Schwann, 1980. ISBN 3-590-32108-3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Keussen, Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages. Here first volume, The Remains of Roman Times in the Middle Ages p. 6 * f
  2. ↑ a b Joseph Klinkenberg, in Johannes Krudewig (sources), in: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province. Here Volume II, The Roman Cologne . P. 133 ff
  3. ^ Hermann Keussen, Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages. Here first volume, Die Kölner Allmende p. 12 ff
  4. ^ Wilhelm Ewald and Hugo Rahtgens, in: Paul Clemen, sixth volume, IV department: The art monuments of the city of Cologne. 1916. First Volume IV Dept .: The Church Monuments of the City of Cologne , here: St. Aposteln, p. 102 ff

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 20.3 "  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 2.1"  E