Hospital Church of the Holy Spirit (Dinkelsbühl)
The Spitalkirche Hl. Geist was part of the Heilig-Geist-Spital in the large district town of Dinkelsbühl , district of Ansbach . After the secularization of 1802/03 it remained the only Evangelical Lutheran parish church until the new St. Paul's Church replaced it as the main Protestant church in 1843 . Like many other buildings in the hospital's urban district, it is a protected monument (monument number: D-5-71-136-96). It is a hall building with a strongly drawn-in, just closing choir, attached sacristy and slender facade tower, 1280/1456. Modifications and installations took place in the 17th / 18th. Century; the church furnishings are also under monument protection. Only the tower from 1456 is visible from the street.
history
The Spitalkirche Hl. Geist is part of the hospital complex located at the Rothenburg Gate and forms a structural unit with the former beneficiary's house or the former hospital ward. The location, building history and appearance are related to the hospital, the Reformation and the religious relationships in the biconfessional imperial city after the Thirty Years' War .
Until the Reformation
The origin was probably a Marienkapelle, which was on the pilgrimage route from northern Germany to Rome mentioned in 1236 in front of the gate of the Hohenstaufen city wall. Around 1280, the hospital order built a hospital church hall "Holy Virgin Mary and Holy Spirit" there for the sick, the poor and pilgrims. It was enlarged as early as 1310. The secular area was relocated to an adjoining beneficiary's house with a hospital ward. The church “Virgin Mary” received a three-aisled church space and a choir space for the religious clergy. Later the sacristy was added to it.
The Heilig-Geist-Spital was the largest landowner in the city republic and owned goods in 94 localities around 1350. In 1383 three more altars could be consecrated among others for all the apostles, Saint Nicholas, Katharina, Maria Magdalena, Cosmas and Damian as well as in the sickroom for Elisabeth and Ottilia. Around 1445 the church interior was expanded on both long sides and on the street side. In addition, the church and beneficiary's house (hospital ward) were given a common facade. To raise the interior of the church, a flat wooden ceiling supported by four hexagonal wooden columns was built into the roof. In 1456 the bell tower was placed on the corner of the dividing wall between the church and the beneficiary's house.
Reformation and after
During the Reformation the imperial city became Lutheran, the Holy Communion altar was added to the “Spitalkirche” in 1537, and a Protestant state church was established. After a counter-Reformation intervention by Emperor Charles V, the imperial city was ruled by Catholic councils, and the few Catholics received the parish church of St. George for their cult. The Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555 also had no effect; the Protestants could no longer hold services in the hospital church. It was not until 1566 that a Protestant congregation was formed under the leadership of twelve church carers, who were independent from the Catholic magistrate, and a year later the hospital church was re-assigned to the Protestants.
Since it did not offer enough space for the roughly 3,500 souls, galleries were built in in 1608/09 at the main entrance and on the southern, almost windowless long side, which anticipated a Protestant preaching hall church. When a larger organ was purchased in 1642, an organ gallery was placed over the choir arch.
In the peace treaty of the Thirty Years' War, a parity, denominational equal council government was negotiated for the imperial city of Dinkelsbühl, whereby the church ownership was valid from 1624 and the parish church remained Catholic. In the execution recession of 1649 the Protestants were able to agree on permission to build a larger church at their own expense. Because afterwards the hospital church was supposed to be open to both denominations, the Catholic part of the council resisted any renovations. There was also a dispute between the Protestant church clerks and the Protestant council, which believed that they could decide on building measures. Nevertheless, in 1771/74 the interior was redesigned into a late Rococo church with a classicist influence. Among other things, the upper galleries and the vaulted ceiling were also built in and frescoed and dormer windows added. For the new, three times larger organ, the choir was increased in 1789 because of the bellows chamber. The “Spitalkirche” was renamed “Heiliggeistkirche” in 1924 and renovated in 1967/68 and 2009/2010.
Exterior construction
The one-storey main facade of the church forms a unit with the hospital building and is hardly recognizable as a medieval church on Dr.-Martin-Luther-Straße. In the middle of the building and at the same time on the south-west corner of the church, the late Gothic, six-sided bell tower from 1456 stands flush with the eaves. Sitting on a three-sided substructure, it shows pointed arch friezes and three-pass tracery on three floors, but a constricted baroque hood. The church facade is mundane with two classical portals, four arched windows and a Renaissance double window from 1608/09, as well as two dormers in the roof. The upper galleries and the ceiling fresco receive their light through them and the side dormers from 1774.
A gate leads to the former hospital cemetery on the north side. Here an outside staircase leads to the lower gallery. This is followed by the rectangular sacristy extension with a pent roof. The retracted, just closed choir with buttresses, around 1310, is made of sandstone (early Gothic stonemason mark) and had a gable roof. The half-timbering with hipped roof, which was raised in 1789, differs significantly from this. The eastern choir window was enlarged around 1383, the southern ones are from 1310. The oldest building, the hospital church hall around 1280, includes the east wall of the nave made of irregular ashlar with two added, early Gothic windows on the first and upper floors and a piece of the south wall.
inner space
In the vestibule there are tombstones of the former nave paving from the 17th and 18th centuries. The painted rosette, cross with hand of blessing, comes from the church consecration after 1445. The church space reaching into the roof is surprising with its height. Despite some older furnishings, it represents itself with the two-story galleries, the organ, the dominant ceiling fresco and the pulpit as a Protestant preaching hall church in the classicist Rococo. The three-aisled nave, jutting out on the south side (towards the hospital building), has a hollow barrel vault in the central nave, supported by four pillars, under the plaster of which are hexagonal pillars painted in 1680 with grapes, roses and tendrils.
The flat back sides are covered on two sides by deep double galleries. In 1771/74 the galleries were renewed or added with blind balustrades and stand on almost four sides on Tuscan wooden columns: Above the Gothic choir arch the organ gallery built between; the lower gallery on the hospital side (south), above the main entrance (west) and a piece to the outer staircase (north); This is followed by the classicist arched windows, enlarged in 1774, here the lower gallery was not continued due to the required light and free space and the upper gallery was painted as an illusion gallery, which gives the nave a sense of unity. Executed in 1774 by Josef Albert Honigens, Dinkelsbühl, the Protestant part of the council had it secretly over white in the power struggle with the Protestant church administration, because it was "a thing that is not at all appropriate in a church".
Choir
The altar of Mary, already mentioned as a choir altar in 1321, is part of a convertible altar around 1490 by the so-called master of the Dinkelsbühler Marienleben. The saints Dorothea and Nikolaus can be seen on the inactive wings, the convertible shrine wings are in museums and showed the apostles' farewell on weekdays and the life of Mary in four scenes on the festive days. On the left of the predella Mary as the Mother of Sorrows and Christ as the Man of Sorrows are shown, on the right again Dorothea and Nikolaus, above angels with gestures of interpretation and cross nails or rosary in hands. The Madonna and Child in a ray mandorla on a crescent moon and kneeling angels, around 1500, comes from another altar.
organ
The early classicist, baroque-influenced prospectus of the organ, 1790, decoration by Johann Michael Mayer, Kirchberg, painting by Josef Albert Honigens, Dinkelsbühl, harmoniously complements the ceiling fresco and the galleries. The organ work was made by organ maker Johann Georg Schultes from Ellenberg in 1792. It has 26 stops on two manuals and a pedal . The instrument was changed several times shortly after its completion and over time. In the 1960s a profound renovation followed. The company Deininger & Renner from Wassertrüdingen restored the instrument in 1984. At least half of the original pipe material is still preserved. The disposition is as follows:
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P
Stalls, pulpit, font
The renewed stalls still have the cheeks (rosettes and palmettes over fruiting) and parapets (garlands) from 1699.
The wooden pulpit, 1802, protruding high into the room, light gray with violet-tinted plaster of paris marble, is a work by Dinkelsbühl, the angel with the gospel on the cover from Würzburg.
The baptismal font, an eight-sided stone in the early Baroque era, a foundation inscription from 1662 in the tin basin, shows the baptism of Jesus in a carved group on the lid.
Side altar
Of the 14 side altars, an altar shrine (cartilage, late 17th century) with the wooden statue of St. Elisabeth, around 1490, presumably the Riemenschneiderschule, has been preserved. During the restoration in 1972, the name St. Histelhiedis (probably Hadelhidis, Adelheid) came to light. Carved and painted in high artistic quality (press brocade on the undergarment), she holds an open book in her hands, a boy and a girl kneel at her feet and pray.
Choir frescoes
The bay-like sacrament niche, around 1450, has a tracery frieze above and below, and figure consoles on the side. The choir frescoes, probably in 1383, were discovered in 1967/68. The tendril patterns on the window frames are best preserved in terms of color, as are the clever and foolish virgins in the choir arch.
On the inside below presumably the cartridge of healing art, on the left St. Damian, on the right with the crosier of St. Cosmas. Spread over the two yokes of the choir, in the ribbed vault, you can see the winged four evangelists: Matthew (human), Mark (lion), Luke (bull), Johannes (eagle). In the middle vaulted areas towards the altar are depicted lamb with cross flag (hospital coat of arms), swan (Passion of Christ), lamb with cross flag (resurrection of Christ), dove (Holy Spirit, namesake of the hospital).
The picture cycle of the walls shows on the window side (south) to the left of the window a pelican (symbol for the sacrificial death of Christ), other hardly recognizable; in the upper choir arch a worship of Our Lady; on the sacristy wall on the left the Lord's Supper, on the right Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane; in the case of the sacrament niche the painting has been destroyed, thematically presumably the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus; behind the altar the resurrection, Jesus sitting on the sarcophagus with a gesture of blessing, next to it the women at the grave; to the right of the window the Last Judgment, Christ as the judge of the world sitting on the rainbow with raised hands, blessed and damned to the side.
The twelve consecration crosses were painted on the occasion of the church consecration.
Epitaphs
Of the once eleven wood-framed epitaphs of the hospital church can be seen to the left of the sacrament altar:
- In memory of Mayor Johann Oberzeller, died 1662; altar-like structure; Painting "Preaching John the Baptist", including the kneeling family.
- Next to it the epitaph of the oldest mayor AC (= Augsburg Confession = Protestant) Friedrich Mumbach, died 1679, built by his brother-in-law, the mayor of Nördlingen, Frickinger; Painting “Jacob's dream of the ladder to heaven”, portrait of the deceased, in the architrave frieze motto.
- On the window side is the representative, richly carved epitaph with the coats of arms of the Ströhlin and Link families, before 1650; Painting "Jacob's fight with the angel".
- Next to it an epitaph, framed by columns and architraves with gender coats of arms in the four corners, the unknown donor couple in the base; Painting "Descent from the Cross".
Fresco St. Christopher
Two fragments of the late medieval fresco St. Christophorus, after 1445, have been preserved on the window wall of the gallery. Above a hermit with a lantern in front of his chapel, below the rod end of the wall-sized saint crossing a river (crab depicted close to nature, feet whitewashed). He was the patron of the hospital fraternities and a helper in the event of illness and death, which is why he was brought up comfortably across from the (relocated) door to the hospital ward.
Last Supper Altar
The Last Supper altar from 1537, originally a rare text and image altar, is significant in terms of art history as an early Protestant altar architecture. In place of the carved shell segment, the altar had an image of the Last Supper as a fixed altar leaf, followed by the shell gable. A second such altar stood in the parish church of St. George.
Behind the food grid, which is used for the orderly consumption of the Lord's Supper, rests on a sandstone canteen a three-paneled predella with the basic texts of the Old and New Testaments. On the side panels the Ten Commandments (next to the date 1537 the restoration coats of arms of the Protestant mayors Georg Kaiser and Johannes Klott):
“The toe commandment / 1. You should not / have other gods / 2. You should not use the name of your god / 3. You should sanctify the holiday / 4. You should your father / and yours Honor mother / 5. You shouldn't kill. - 6. you shouldn't break / 7. you shouldn't stela / 8. you shouldn't show wrong / speak against your neighbors / 9. you shouldn't be smaller / your nest house / 10. you shouldn't be smaller / yours nehesten women. "
In the middle field the exquisitely carved and gilded words of institution of the Lord's Supper in both forms: "The Lord Jesus was betrayed on the night that he was betrayed, nam he the bread dancket and prachs and g / abs his disciple and spoke ne / mpt to un (d) eat that is my body d '/ for eich given (n) host such does to / my Gedechtnus. The same / same (n) nam he also the chalice after the evening ml un (d) dancket un (d) / gave in and said Trincket all from it this is my blood of the new testament which for you un (d) / shed for vil for the forgiveness of the sins. Such things do so often irs drink to my memory. "
The large wooden crucifix, around 1460, has a baroque frame.
The image of the Last Supper on a wooden panel, 1537, was renovated by city senator Johannes Klott in 1579 and by city citizen Andreas Aichmüller (coat of arms, frame) in 1613, according to the inscription. Jesus is sitting with the twelve disciples in a palace at the Passover meal. In the biblical-historical scene he is shown in the pose of the ruler and Salvator mundi on a canopy-crowned throne, his right hand raised in a gesture of blessing and speech, the left on the head of his favorite disciple, Johannes. The disciples discuss who the traitor is. Behind Judas, dressed in yellow and with a wallet, a disciple folds his hands in a Protestant manner. The viewer's gaze is drawn by diagonal lines (wing-like curtain drapery, people, checkerboard pattern of the floor tiles) as well as by a broad cross composition of the center lines (horizontal: rows of heads, tablecloth; vertical: Back of the throne, John, floor tiles) into the center and onto the head of Jesus.
Ceiling painting
The ceiling fresco in the nave, a rarity in terms of art history and for southern German Protestant churches, was made in September and October 1774 by Johann Nepomuk Nieberlein (1729 - 1805) from Ellwangen. His main work combines the Rococo and its counterstyle, classicism. The Protestant magistrate initially refused to give its approval, because it was "completely abandoned in Protestant churches", and they wanted to have "only decorated it with a few light shells from stucco work". But the pictorial program was implemented in a masterly way in terms of church maintenance.
The christological sermon fresco “Redemption” tells in a stage-like manner of the salvation of believers through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ. Nieberlein made four altarpieces with a common sky, which changes its natural appearance in every scene. The painting frames a rectangle, in whose circular recessed corners a balcony architecture creates the illusion of another gallery. An antique building and a rocky landscape open the church ceiling to the sky, vases, obelisks, etc. a. reinforce the height illusion. The changing colors support the room design and create a festive atmosphere. The overall composition was strictly designed in a brilliant shape. With a similar corner design, each scene in the sunlight or shade is grouped symmetrically.
The geometric center and dynamic center is the eye of God in the triangle (symbol of the Trinity) with the Hebrew lettering "Yahweh". This is followed by the dove (Holy Spirit) hovering over the head of the crucified one, which gives the main axis its statement: The cross of Moses announces the Savior, through the grace of God and the Holy Spirit the crucified Son of God becomes the Savior.
The story of salvation begins with the scene Moses and the bronze serpent. Against the people of Israel grumbling in the desert, God sent fiery serpents that curl on the ground. The cross, erected at the behest of God, wraps around the serpent (symbol of salvation), and beneath it are the saved men, women and children. The scene typologically refers to the crucifixion of Christ in the Old Testament.
The Lord's Supper scene is essential for the evangelicals, as Luther introduced the sacrament of the altar in both forms, bread and wine, for lay people. Jesus sits in the middle of the table, the traitor Judas (yellow robe, purse) withdrew. The room illusion is created by a temple architecture (reference to the heavenly Jerusalem). A servant carries a plate in through a side arch, while on the opposite a mischievously laughing man peers around the pillar - probably a self-portrait of Nieberlein.
In the scene crucifix and world mission, the cross stands on a globe with a fleeing snake, representing the victory over evil. Among them, the personified four continents known at the time, America (natives in feather trim), Europe (ruler in coronation regalia), Asia (Indian turban), Africa (parasol), pay homage to the crucified. The allegory of the spread of the faith related to the evangelical community, which had supported the East Indian mission for three decades.
The resurrection scene contains the central Christian faith theme of hope and takes place in front of a rock panorama (symbol of strength). Christ stands victorious with a white flag on the open sarcophagus. The satan warrior and angel prince Michael sits on it, the hovering angels indicate the ascension to heaven. The kingdom of the dead is shown at the feet of Christ, into which he descended and rose again. The forces of hell that have been struggled are depicted as death (skeleton) and the fallen angel Lucifer (winged), in between the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa (unmasked), whose demonic gaze can enchant and kill.
See also
literature
- Gerfrid Arnold: Chronicle Dinkelsbühl, Bd. 3 u. 4 (1273-1400) , Dinkelsbühl 2002 and 2003.
- Gerfrid Arnold: A new architectural dating of the Heiliggeistkirche in Dinkelsbühl Hospital . In: Alt-Dinkelsbühl, 2010, pp. 1–5.
- Gerfrid Arnold (Hrsg.): The Baroqueization of the Heiliggeistkirche in the hospital 1771 to 1777. By Wilhelm Reulein based on the chronicle of JM Metzger . In: Alt-Dinkelsbühl, 2010, pp. 6-8.
- Gerfrid Arnold: Johann Nepomuk Nieberlein, fresco from the Evangelical Holy Spirit Church in Dinkelsbühl. Artist between Rococo and Classicism . In: Alt-Dinkelsbühl, 2010, pp. 25–28.
- Arnold, Gerfrid: Evangelical Churches in Dinkelsbühl . (DKV art guide 667). Berlin / Munich 2011.
- Martin Ballwieser: The renovation of the Holy Spirit Church (Hospital Church) in Dinkelsbühl . In: Old-Dinkelsbühl, 1969, p 27-30.
- August Gebeßler: Bavarian Art Monuments, Vol. XV City and District Dinkelsbühl. Munich 1962.
- Felix Mader : The art monuments of Middle Franconia, Vol. IV City of Dinkelsbühl. Munich 1931.
- Wilhelm Reulein: A trained contemporary on the expansion of the hospital church in the 18th century. In: Alt-Dinkelsbühl, 1969, p. 31 f.
- Wilhelm Reulein: The Heiliggeistspital in Dinkelsbühl. Dinkelsbühl 1973.
- Hermann Seufert: The master of the Dinkelsbühler Marienleben. In: Alt-Dinkelsbühl, 1962, pp. 1-4.
Unpublished works:
- Hanna Kohlmeyer: The Holy Spirit Church in Dinkelsbühl through the ages. 1978; City Archives.
- Magdalene Gärtner: The Marien altar of the Dinkelsbühl master in the hospital church. 1994; City Archives.
Web links
- Information about the church on the website of the Evangelical Church Congregation Dinkelsbühl
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerfrid Arnold: Chronicle Dinkelsbühl, Volumes 3 and 4 (1273 - 1400) , Dinkelsbühl 2002 a. 2003. - The presentation of the article is based on the research of this author and on his essays in the Alt-Dinkelsbühl series.
- ^ Hermann Fischer , Theodor Wohnhaas : Organ monuments in Middle Franconia . Schneider-Rensch, Lauffen 2001, ISBN 3-921848-08-3 , p. 33, 102 .
- ^ Organ Databank , accessed December 19, 2018.
Coordinates: 49 ° 4 ′ 15.3 ″ N , 10 ° 19 ′ 8.3 ″ E