Castle Church (Weilburg)

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Old town hall and castle church with tower
Interior of the castle church
On the copper engraving of the cityscape by Matthäus Merian (1655), the previous church can still be recognized.

The protestant castle church of Weilburg is a sacred , in the style of Baroque erbauter hall in the Hessian town of Weilburg . It is part of the overall complex of Weilburg Castle . The Weilburg Castle Church was built from 1707–1713 according to the plans of Julius Ludwig Rothweil and is part of the extensive redesign of the Weilburg castle complex and the old town carried out under Count Johann Ernst von Nassau-Weilburg .

Previous buildings

In 912, King Konrad I founded the Canons' Monastery of St. Walpurgis on imperial property in memory of his father Konrad the Elder , to which a small collegiate church dedicated to St. Mary and St. Walpurgis also belonged. After the Conradines died out , Emperor Otto III. the pen to the diocese of Worms . In the 13th century, the Counts of Laurenburg-Nassau , who had previously been appointed by Worms as bailiffs , acquired the monastery and the village of Wiliniaburg, which later became Weilburg . King Adolf I granted Weilburg city ​​rights in 1295 , which were also confirmed by his rival and successor Albrecht von Habsburg .

In 1397, under Count Philip I, the old collegiate church was demolished and a church dedicated to St. Andrew was built. In 1508 the construction of an annex, the St. Martin's Church, began, but was only completed after the introduction of the Reformation in the Nassau areas in 1538.

Philip III von Nassau-Weilburg had the tower repaired in 1555. A copper elevated water tank with a capacity of around 80 m³ was installed in the roof of the tower, which was used to operate the new water features in the palace gardens .

Creation of today's baroque castle church

In 1707 the old double church was demolished in the course of the redevelopment of the city and the baroque building in the form of a transverse church , which still exists today, was erected in its place until 1713 . The massive tower of the old church has been integrated into the new church tower and extends approximately to the height of the cornice above the belfry. From then on, the castle church served as the town and court church.

The palace church was lavishly painted by the painter Georg Friedrich Christian Seekatz .

The old water tank in the roof of the tower was removed around 1700 and replaced by a new one with a capacity of 26 m 3 . This was expanded again in 1708 due to its small size and replaced by a 68 m 3 boiler. After the reservoir in the Wehrholz forest was expanded in 1776, the pressure vessel in the tower was superfluous and removed without replacement in 1779.

organ

In 1710 the " Domkapitelsche organ maker" Johann Jakob Dahm from Mainz built a new organ for 1900 guilders . The instrument had 23 registers, which were divided into the main work , Rückpositiv and pedal . Wilhelm Sauer replaced the organ in 1902/1903 as Opus 896, built in a swell mechanism and switched the action to pneumatic cone chests . A free-standing console was installed on the gallery below the organ. Only the baroque case and the (now silent) prospect pipes of the principal in the two manual works have been preserved. In 1972 GF Steinmeyer & Co. carried out a reconstruction and expanded to 28 registers. The organ received a new console with a third manual for the later expansion of the Rückpositiv. Since then the disposition has been:

I main work C – f 3
Drone 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Covered 8th'
Gemshorn 8th'
octave 4 ′
Reed flute 4 ′
Fifth 1 2 ⁄ 3  ′
octave 2 ′
Cornett III-IV 4 ′
Mixture IV-V 1 1 ⁄ 2  ′
Trumpet 8th'
II Swell C – f 3
Covered 16 ′
Violin principal 8th'
flute 8th'
Covered 8th'
Gamba 8th'
Fugara 4 ′
Distance flute 4 ′
Piccolo 2 ′
Flageolet 1 ′ + 1 ⁄ 2 ′
Sesquialter 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
Principal bass 16 ′
Violon 16 ′
Sub bass 16 ′
octave 8th'
Covered 8th'
flute 4 ′
trombone 16 ′
  • Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P, super octave coupling I.
  • Playing aids : 2 free combinations, fixed combination, tutti, blind swell with 2 steps, roller

Integration of the town hall

Tower of the castle church from the west. The old town hall borders on the right of the tower

On the side facing the market square, the old Weilburg town hall was integrated into the church building, which today houses a café and conference rooms.

Burial place of the house of Nassau

Below the altar is the princely crypt of the Nassau rulers . Count Johann Ernst was the first ruler to be buried here. The princes buried in the previous church were transferred to the prince's crypt in 1909. In total, over 30 Nassau and Luxembourg rulers were buried in the royal crypt, most recently Adolf I , Duke of Nassau until 1866 and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1890 to 1905 and his son Wilhelm IV , who was Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1905 to 1912.

literature

  • Ellwardt, Kathrin, Ev. Weilburg Castle Church , Regensburg 1999 (Schnell, Kunstführer 2391), ISBN 3795462185

Web links

Commons : Schlosskirche Weilburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathias Döring: Weilburg and its water . German water Historical Society e. V. and the city of Weilburg, Siegburg and Weilburg 2005
  2. ↑ For more details see Kathrin Ellwardt: Church building between evangelical ideals and absolutist rule. The cross churches in the Hessian area from the Reformation century to the Seven Years War . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, ISBN 3-937251-34-0
  3. ^ Franz Bösken: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 7.2 ). tape 2 : The area of ​​the former administrative district of Wiesbaden. Part 2: L-Z . Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1370-6 , p. 802-806 .
  4. ↑ KirchenKlang eV: program booklet Orgelarena 2017 , p. 12 (PDF).

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 5.6 "  N , 8 ° 15 ′ 43.2"  E