St. George's Church (Kleinbottwar)
The St. George's Church in Kleinbottwar , a modern suburb of Steinheim an der Murr in the district of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg , is a historic church building whose origins lie in the late 15th century. The building served in particular as the burial place of the Lords of Plieningen and from 1649 to around 1740 also their successors, the Lords of Gaisberg . The crypt , which was damaged in 1913 and then closed , was uncovered and documented in the late 1990s.
history
In the 14th century there was a Georgskapelle in Kleinbottwar as a branch of the Church of St. Martin in Steinheim an der Murr. At the instigation of the Lords of Plieningen, who had their seat at Schaubeck Castle and were wealthy in the surrounding area, the St. George's Church was built in 1491 instead of the small chapel. The church was intended in particular as a burial place for the Lords of Plieningen, so that a crypt was laid under the choir . The parish in Kleinbottwar became churchly independent in 1499. The church was probably completed in 1500 and was consecrated by Johannes von Plieningen .
In the period that followed, the Plieninger generously furnished the Georgskirche. The most important art treasure of the church is the late Gothic carved winged altar , which Hans Leinberger created around 1510/20 , and in whose central shrine a figure of Mary is flanked on the left by the church patron St. George and on the right by St. Aegidius. Georg is shown as a knight in uniform and has the Plieningen coat of arms at his feet. The furnishings from the time the church was built are supplemented by a richly decorated sacrament house and a baptismal font from around 1500. The church once had historical stained glass (donor panes) in the choir windows, but these were sold significantly below value in 1838 and replaced by light-colored glazing. Five of the long-lost discs were rediscovered in the 1980s in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg and in Lichtenstein Castle . Corresponding copies were made in 1992/1993 and have been back in the church since then.
The church was used as the burial place of the Lords of Plieningen for around 150 years, then for another 100 years until around 1740 as the burial place of the Lords of Gaisberg, who came into the Plieningen inheritance through marriage in 1649. The art treasures of the church include several historical Plieninger tombs from the 16th century. A two-part epitaph on the north wall of the choir was created by Michael Lang from Heilbronn around 1530. The tomb next to the altar, which shows two Plieninger brothers in armor, is like the one on the south wall of the nave by Jeremias Schwartz from Leonberg from the period around 1600. The stair tower of the church was used as the entrance to the patronage for those who remained Catholic after the Reformation Founding family built. The pulpit was made by Melchior Gockheler in 1617 .
The burials of the nobles were not only carried out in the family crypt under the choir, but also in small brick vaults, each for one person, covered by stone slabs throughout the floor of the church. The crypt under the choir was initially only loosely covered with stone slabs until the church was expanded and rebuilt in 1913 according to a design by the renowned Stuttgart architect Martin Elsaesser - a “restoration” according to the historical considerations of the time. During the construction work, especially when redesigning the choir, little consideration was given to the historic crypt, which was partially filled with rubble and was no longer accessible after the choir was raised with more stone slabs and a layer of concrete. During renovation work in the late 1990s, the 7.5 square meter crypt was briefly accessible again, so that parts of the rubble from 1913 could be removed and the condition of the crypt room documented. However, the monument office only allowed about a third of the crypt to be examined. Since this was probably under water again and again until recently and the work in 1913 had also been messed up, only disordered remains of dead bodies and coffins were found, most of which were embedded in dried mud. The most interesting finds include a human skull with the traces of a healed saber blow and remains of old coffin bouquets made of pearls and wire. From some parts of the coffin one could make statements about the painting of the coffins with casein . In the masonry of the crypt, stone formations give rise to speculations about a walled up second crypt, accessible via a staircase. However, only two exploratory boreholes were allowed to research them, and they remained inconclusive. The crypt was then closed again; it has yet to be fully explored.
literature
- Hans Dietl: The St. George Church in Kleinbottwar. In: History sheets from the Bottwartal , No. 8 (1999).
- Hans Dietl: The St. George Church in Kleinbottwar. Winged altar by Johannes Leinberger (1505). In: History sheets from the Bottwartal , Volume 11, Pages 24-27.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georgskirche website with historical details (accessed February 18, 2017)
- ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 48, 1914, No. 2 (from January 7, 1914), p. 28.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 58 '48.3 " N , 9 ° 17' 17.4" E