Siechhof Eichstätt
The Siechhof of Eichstaett considered the only completely preserved late medieval system of a leprosarium and therefore as a monument classified of national importance.
location
Usually, sick (leproseries) were built outside of cities because of the risk of infection. The Eichstätter Siechhof is still located on the outskirts of the city on the other side of the Altmühl and the federal highway 13 accompanying it at the foot of the southern valley slope on slightly elevated and therefore flood-free terrain.
history
In Siechhof the Prince Bishop's residence of Eichstätt, the "special infirmary" were involved in the incurable disease of leprosy , housed at the "leprosy" patients. The core of the Eichstätter Lepro series goes back to the 14th century . It consists - including all the provided on the gable with windows floor added - a three-storey building with larger Kalkplattendach and an east-facing, now deconsecrated and transformed within, 1705/06 with jewelry gables provided Chapel "St. Lazarus and Magdalena ”with a rectangular east choir . Behind these buildings lies an elongated commercial building, newly built in 1417, partly erected in half-timbered construction and also covered with slate . The irregular rectangle of this complex was completed in the southeast by an angular building that was broken off in 1851.
The Siechhof is mentioned for the first time as "domum leprosorum" (house of the lepers) in a document in 1307 under the Eichstatt Bishop Philipp; he ruled from 1306 to 1322. The founder was a "Brother Heinrich". Anyone with leprosy was isolated here; the expatriation from the city took place during a church ceremony. Relatives and the city itself ensured the economic security of the Siechhof through donations and regular alms , but also through donations and the sale of farms, fields, meadows and forests. Twice a week the Eichstatt lepers were allowed to beg in the city, whereby they had to draw attention to themselves with a rattle so that the healthy would not get too close to them. The infirmary nurses appointed by the magistrate were responsible for the administration , whose names have been passed down from the 14th to the 16th century. The founder was the first keeper; the most famous caretaker in 1536 was probably the Eichstatt sculptor Loy Hering . For religious and disciplinary reasons, the inmates lived together like a brotherhood, but without any religious affiliation.
In the 15th century, the practice of isolation gradually began to have an effect, so that other sick or needy people were now also admitted to the Siechhof, which transformed the facility from an isolation ward into a municipal poor house and old people's home. As far as one had wealth, one could buy in as a benefactor ; their care was better than that of the “poor”. As the number of inmates continued to decline (the number of benefactors was limited to 13 anyway), the main building became the home of an infirmary farmer and later, after a thorough renovation in 1705, the “beneficiary's house” as a clergyman's apartment for the infirmary chapel. In the Baroque period, this was supplemented by a roof turret with an onion hood behind the east gable. Having become inoperable, the turret was demolished in the 19th century.
With the secularization in 1806, the municipal facility was placed under the royal Bavarian foundation administration, the chapel was profaned and divided into a stable and warehouse by installing a false ceiling. Remnants of the painting (including a Last Judgment ) have been preserved; the equipment is lost. In 1812 the property passed into private hands; the owners changed several times until 1861. The commercial buildings and the chapel were used for agriculture until 1955 and have been vacant since then, while the beneficiary's house is divided into rental apartments. In 1999, increasing decay made it necessary to secure the barn by means of a listed building.
literature
- Dagmar Dietrich: The former Siechhof in Eichstätt . In: The Jura House. 11 (2005/06), pp. 43-66.
- Madalena Schick: Within the Pruckh. Beyond the bridge. Settlement and social history of the Spitalvorstadt Eichstätt. Eichstätt 2000, ISBN 3-928689-19-3 , pp. 203-206.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 11 " N , 11 ° 11 ′ 10.9" E