Rosslyn Chapel

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The Rosslyn Chapel

The Rosslyn Chapel (Rosslyn Chapel), originally called the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew , is a 15th century Gothic church in the village of Roslin , Midlothian near Edinburgh in Scotland .

history

Apprentice Pillar (apprentice pillar)

The church was designed by William Sinclair, 3rd Earl of Orkney (* 1410, † 1484), member of the Sinclair clan . Regarding the origin of the clan, it is assumed that its first members originally came from Normandy in France . However, there was no evidence of this. Construction began in 1456, not 1446 as is often assumed. Construction took 40 years. It was interrupted in 1484 after the death of Sinclair, who was buried in the church. Rosslyn Chapel was planned to be the collegiate church of St. Matthew the Evangelist . The walls were built from local sandstone . The knights of the Sinclair family rest in the vaults below the church ( crypt ).

Wiliam was the name of the first and the last knight who was buried here in this way. In 1484, William the founder was buried in the chapel. Research showed that Wiliam the founder had some ancestors transferred to the chapel. A stone on the monument in the north-west corner of the chapel commemorates Sir Wiliam Sinclair from 1297, a Grand Prior of the Knights Templar . Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, who was born in the Robin Hood Tower of Roslin Castle in 1345 , is also located in Rosslyn Chapel.

In 1650 a namesake of the founder, a Wiliam Sinclair, who died in the Battle of Dunbar on September 3, 1650, was also buried in the chapel.

The Sinclair family stayed true to the Catholic faith during the Reformation . They therefore had to move their services from Rosslyn Chapel to their own castle chapel. Around 1650, Rosslyn Chapel served as quarters for Oliver Cromwell's soldiers and horses. The commander of the troops, General Monck , did not set up any permanent barracks in the chapel .

In 1847, Queen Victoria visited Rosslyn Chapel and suggested that the chapel be redeveloped. In 1860 the Grand Master of the Scottish Lodges, James St Clair-Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn, commissioned the architect and Freemason David Bryce with the extensive restoration of the chapel.

Apprentice and the master column

In Rosslyn Chapel there are the apprentice and the master columns, which are associated with the columns Jachin and Boaz and with the Freemasons , as well as the representation of an initiation in stone. There is also a local legend about the pillars, which is similar to the Hiram legend of the Freemasons:

After the completion of several columns, the master stonemason William asked the donor to build another column in the southeast corner. For this pillar he wanted to get knowledge and inspiration through a trip to Rome. William allowed him to travel to Rome. During his absence, the stonemason's apprentice is said to have seen the pillar as a finished structure in a dream. When he awoke, he asked William to be allowed to erect the pillar accordingly. William agreed, as it saved time on construction. When the master stonemason returned from Rome, he was so jealous of the splendor of the apprentice column that he killed the apprentice with one blow on the head. The master stonemason was then sentenced to death. After this bloody act, the chapel was re-consecrated.

The apprentice pillar represents the tree of life . The base of the pillar is surrounded by eight winged dragons or snakes, from whose throats vines grow, which entwine themselves around the pillar without fruit. Legend has it that these fruits represent evil. However, the tree itself can grow in its pure form as the creatures suck out evil from below.

William St. Clair of Roslin, who was related to the builder of the chapel and of the same name, became the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736 and gave up his inheritance rights in favor of elected posts.

Chladnian sound figures

Chladnian sound figures

Part of the rich stone carvings inside the chapel is the sculptural design of the cross ribs and belt arches of the vaults on the east side. These are adorned with cube-shaped pendants, the surfaces of which are geometrically drawn. In the book "Rosslyn Chapel - The Music of the Cubes" by the two authors Stuart and Tommy Mitchell, published in 2006, an attempt was made to interpret these geometric drawings as a notation of a piece of music in Chladnian sound figures. In the general wave of attention after the publication and later filming of Dan Brown's novel “The Da Vinci Code”, this interpretation received a lot of support. The piece of music created on the basis of the theory ("Rosslyn-Motet") was performed several times and to a very large audience in the chapel. The main weak point of the thesis is that the geometrical drawings referred to as chladnian sound figures cannot be assigned to specific tones or their frequencies, as claimed, or depict them. Through building history findings and pictorial representations from the 19th century. it is also verifiable that of the 213 hangings that exist today, a large part of them during the 19th century. After the restoration, they were replaced or newly created, i.e. they do not come from the period of construction and cannot serve as an interpretation basis for the restoration of a composition from the late Middle Ages. (For example, on two drawings by Robert Gibbs made before 1837, 47 missing hangers can be counted.) The above-mentioned publication does not provide a detailed account of the development of the thesis.

Speculation about the crypt

The crypt

There is a crypt below the church. The crypt was accessible via a staircase at the rear of the church. The entrance was sealed. This sparked speculation about what is in the crypt next to the tombs of the knights of the Sinclair family. Speculations range from the claim that the mummified head of Jesus Christ is kept there, that the legendary treasure of the Knights Templar is hidden in the crypt , to the claim that the crypt hides the Scottish crown jewels.

The journalists Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, followed by the novelist Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code , 2003) speculate in their book "The Temple and the Lodge" that some Knights Templar escaped arrest in France in 1307 by fleeing to Scotland , and want to see the Freemasons as successors to the Templars. Johannes and Peter Fiebag suspect in their book “The Eternity Machine” that the Templars' archives were housed in Rosslyn. The publicist Christopher Knight and the natural scientist Robert Lomas go one step further: In their book "Under the Temples of Jerusalem" they take the view that both the Ark of the Covenant and various early Christian texts (scrolls) were hidden in Rosslyn.

Supposedly early depictions of corn plants from North America. On the arch of the second window at the east end of the south nave.

Legend has it that Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, sailed to North America before Christopher Columbus around 1398. Authors Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight believe that some of the decorations on the ceiling are corn plants that Henry Sinclair discovered on his trip to North America. If these images date from the time they were built, this would be an indication of knowledge of the flora of Central or South America before the rediscovery of these countries in 1492 by Christopher Columbus .

However, some scientists interpret these decorations as stylized representations of wheat, strawberries or lilies.

literature

  • Robert LD Cooper: The Rosslyn Hoax? Lewis Masonic 2006, ISBN 978-0-85318-255-9
  • Christopher Knight, Robert Lomas, Unter den Tempeln Jerusalems , Droemer Knaur 2000, ISBN 3-426-77456-9
  • 15th Century: Rosslyn Chapel ( tour guide) printed by The Pen-y-coe Press (7th Bridge Street, Penicuik, Midlothian Scotland)
  • Thomas J. Mitchell: `` Rosslyn Chapel: The Music of the Cubes '', WritersPrintShop, 2006, ISBN 978-0-95546-290-0

Web links

Commons : Rosslyn Chapel  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Coordinates: 55 ° 51 ′ 19.5 "  N , 3 ° 9 ′ 35.4"  W.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthias Eickhoff: '' Travel Guide Scotland '', Lonely Planet o.O. 2011, p. 160 ISBN 978-3-77016-199-7
  2. ↑ Rosslyn Chapel Trust, `` Rosslyn Chapel Souvenir Guide, '' 2014
  3. ↑ George Way: `` Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia '', Collins o. O. 1995, pp. 322–323 ISBN 978-0004705477
  4. ↑ Michael Turnbull: Rosslyn Chapel Revealed Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2007, ISBN 0750944676 , ISBN 9780750944670 .
  5. ^ The St Clair Family . In: rosslynchapel.org.uk . Archived from the original on October 14, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 5, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rosslynchapel.org.uk
  6. ↑ JG Findel (ed.): '' Die Bauhütte: Freemaurer-Magazin ''. Leipzig, June 29, 1867, No. 26, 10th year
  7. ↑ Keith Laidler: The Head of God - The Lost Treasure of the Templars , W&N o. O. 1998 ISBN 978-0297841296 .
  8. ↑ Tim Wallace-Murphy: Rosslyn: Guardian of Secrets of the Holy Grail Thorsons o.O. 2002 ISBN 978-0007133079
  9. ^ Karen Ralls-MacLeod, Ian Robertson: The Quest for the Celtic Key Luath Pr Ltd; 3rd edition o. O. 2005.
  10. ↑ Johannes Fiebag, Peter Fiebag: The Eternity Machine: the Manna Miracle, the Holy Grail, the Templars and the Secret of Oak Island, Langen Müller, o.O. 1998, ISBN 9783784427089
  11. ↑ Christopher Knight, Robert Lomas: `` Among the temples of Jerusalem: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the discovery of the secret writings of Jesus '', Kopp, o.O. 2007, ISBN 9783938516447
  12. ↑ Knight, Christopher; Lomas, Robert. The Hiram Key . Fair Winds Press, 2001 ISBN 1-931412-75-8 .
  13. ↑ Mark Oxbrow, Ian Robertson: Rosslyn and the Grail . Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 2005, ISBN 1-84596-076-9 .