Sacrament house
A sacrament house (also a sacrament house ) is a small architecture within a church building and is used to store the Eucharistic body of Christ .
distribution
In Romanesque churches, the consecrated hosts, which were kept for communion , were kept in a lockable or barred sacrament niche in the north wall of the choir , which should be framed and artistically designed as lavishly as possible. In the High Middle Ages, theology and liturgy strongly emphasized the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy of Holies and the worship of the incarnate Son of God in the form of bread. It was promoted by a high mediaeval piety of the Eucharist determined by the desire to see and brought about the architectural form of the sacrament house. The sacrament house is usually on the Gospel side , i.e. north of east- facing churches, next to the altar . The spread of the sacrament house began towards the end of the 14th century in Germany. Before, it was common practice to keep the holy of holies in a dove of paten (peristerium) hanging over the altar . Later, the tabernacle , the storage place for the Holy of Holies, was first inserted into the altar retable and later placed on the altar table itself. When the Tridentinum (1545–63) made placement in the tabernacle on the altar compulsory, the sacrament house became completely superfluous. Sacrament houses were therefore only built during the German Gothic and Renaissance periods .
The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) allowed the introduction of the free-standing popular altar , which should be freely walkable and in which, in contrast to the high altar , the tabernacle is therefore usually no longer centrally located. Since then, the most holy of holies can be kept “in another, really noble and dignified place in the church”, thus also in existing or newly created sacraments.
Well-known sacraments
Location | Emergence | particularities |
Boniface Church in Arle | Towards the end of the 15th century | Free-standing sacrament house in rich late Gothic forms made of Baumberger sandstone . |
Marienkirche in Gdansk (north side of the main nave) |
1482 | Gothic sacraments made of wood in the form of a multi-storey tower. |
Doberan Minster in Bad Doberan | Before 1368 | Germany’s oldest sacrament tower, 11.6 m high, carved in oak. |
St. Urbanus Church in Dorum | 1524 | Free-standing, tower-like sacrament house in filigree Gothic shapes made of Baumberger limestone. |
Sacrament house (St. Lambertus) in Düsseldorf | 1475/1478 (foundation) | From Duke Wilhelm III. and donated to his wife Elisabeth; triple vertically structured structure. |
Stadtkirche (Friedberg) in Friedberg (Hessen) (north wall of the choir ) |
from the building works of the City Church on June 4, 1482 at the Frankfurt sculptor Hans von Düren commissioned | Height: 14 m; it should cost 250 guilders , plus 20 guilders compensation for the artist. The date of completion is not known, but should be at the end of 1484; spectacular small late Gothic architecture, with numerous interwoven strands carved out of stone on a hexagonal floor plan . |
St. Mary's Cathedral in Fürstenwalde / Spree | 1517 | Created by Franz Maidburg . |
Saint Martins Church (Sint-Maartenskerk) in Kortrijk, Belgium | 1585 | Height: 6.5 m, made by H. Mauris ( Antwerp ). |
St. Nicolai in Lemgo (north side of the north choir) | 1477 | Height about 9.50 m, the original side figures probably destroyed in the Reformation iconoclasm in 1531. Only the consoles and canopies remain, the work presumably from a workshop in Munster or Munsterland. |
Marienkirche in Lübeck (on the north wall of the choir) |
1479 | Height: m 9.5, bronze with 1000, partly gilded items, from Klaus Grude created |
Wall pilgrimage church near Melk (north side) |
1506, as shown by the maker's mark . | Height: about 11 m and petite. The box-shaped sacrament niche with Gothic bars rests on a slender pedestal pillar. There are statues of the Blessed Mother and the Holy. Barbara , Katharina of Alexandria , Benedict , Stephanus and Nikolaus can be seen. |
Ludgeri Church in the north (between two of the northern round pillars of the choir) |
Around 1480 | Made from Baumberger sand-lime brick. |
St. Lorenz in Nuremberg | It is considered a masterpiece by Adam Kraft , which he created between 1493 and 1496. | 20.11 m high tower made of sandstone, which is reminiscent of the braided tendrils of a tree and is supported by three figures. The artist immortalized himself in one of the three figures. In the sacrament house, seven levels can be recognized (from bottom to top: access, host cabinet, communion, passion, crucifixion, resurrection and twisted point). The total cost was 700 guilders (+70 guilders "honorary money" and 20 guilders for cupboard doors). Despite its filigree shape and the severe damage to the Lorenz Church by bombing in the Second World War, the sacrament house was protected from destruction by a plaster covering. |
Salem Minster | 1494 | Height: 16 m. It is a stone turret adorned with Gothic ornaments and originally stood as a monument on the grave of the great abbot Johannes I. Stantenat (1471–1494). Today it stands on the north wall of the transept, where it is partially covered by the gallery. The pinnacles are stone carvings from Salem workshops, probably by the supraregional master craftsman Hans von Safoy . The gilded carved figures were not made for the sacrament shrine, but are probably remnants of the high altar made by Michel Erhart . Since it was moved to its current location in 1751, the shrine has been framed by gilded putti and cloud towers from Josef Anton Feuchtmayer's workshop. |
St. Martin's Church in Tettens (near the altar ) |
1523 to 1525 | Made of Baumberger sandstone; the artist is unknown, but the work is similar to the work of the sculptor Berndt Bunekemann from Münster . |
Ulm Minster in Ulm | between 1467 and 1471 | At 26 m, it is considered the highest in Germany. In contrast to the wooden pulpit cover with a similar structure, it is completely carved from limestone and sandstone. The hollows of the handrail contain strange figures: tigers, tongue extensors, shaggy bearers, monkeys and lizards. |
City Church of St. Peter and Paul in Weil der Stadt (choir) |
1611 | Height over 11 m, created in the late Renaissance style from light sandstone by Georg Miler , donated by the hamlet mayor Junker Franz Marquart von Flade. |
See also
literature
- Rudolf Wesenberg : The Gothic Sacrament House. Development and artistic design illustrated using examples from Hesse and the Middle Rhine region. Gutenberg, Melsungen 1937. (Gießen, University, dissertation, 1935), (full text)
- Wolfgang Lipp : Guide through the Ulm Minster. 10th edition. Vaas, Langenau 1999, ISBN 3-88360-011-3 .
- Beate Wieckowski, Alexander Wieckowski: Sacrament niches in village churches in the north-west of Saxony . In: Michael Beyer, Martin Teubner, Alexander Wieckowski (eds.): There is more to the church than a crucifix. Studies on the history of the Church and piety in Central Germany. Ceremony for Gerhard Graf on his 65th birthday. (= Christian hostels. Special volume 13). Evangelische Verlagsanstalt , Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-374-02632-6 , pp. 251-264.
- Achim Timmermann: Real Presence: Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ, c. 1270-1600. Brepols Publishers NV, Turnhout (Belgium) 2009, ISBN 978-2-503-53012-3 .
- Kinga German: Sacrament niches and sacraments in Transylvania. The worship of the Corpus Christi. Michael Imhof Verlag , Petersberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7319-0000-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Bernhard Meyer : Eucharist. History, theology, pastoral care ; Church service. Handbook of Liturgical Studies, Part 4; Regensburg 1989; ISBN 3-7917-1200-4 ; Pp. 580-583.
- ^ Rudolf Huber (Ed.): Church implements, crosses and reliquaries of the Christian churches. (= Glossarium Artis. Volume 2). 3. Edition. KG Saur Verlag, Munich / London / New York / Paris 1991, ISBN 3-598-11079-0 , p. 95.
- ↑ Brockhaus Encyclopedia . 19th edition. Volume 19, Verlag Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus AG, Mannheim 1992, ISBN 3-7653-1119-7 , p. 86.
- ↑ Sacra Congregatio Rituum : Instructions for the proper implementation of the constitution on the sacred liturgy " Inter Oecumenici ". September 26, 1964, No. 95.
- ↑ Pictures of the Dorum Sacrament House , accessed on February 19, 2014.
- ↑ Achim Timmermann: Hans von Düren's sacrament house (1482–1484) and the artistic meditation of eucharistic real presence. In: Norbert Nussbaum (Ed.): The used church. Symposium and lecture series on the occasion of the high altar consecration of the town church of Our Lady in Friedberg (Hesse) 1306–2006. = Stadtkirche Friedberg 700 years 1306–2006 (= workbooks of the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse. Vol. 15). Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2371-2 , pp. 75-82.
- ↑ The Tettens Sacrament House , accessed on February 19, 2014.