St. Ludgerus (Becoming)

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St. Ludgerus from the northwest. In the foreground the former St. Petrus Church, behind it the nave and crossing tower of the Ludgerus Church
View from the east

The St. Ludgerus Church in Essen-Werden is one of the most important late Romanesque church buildings in the Rhineland . It was built at the beginning of the 9th century as the abbey church of the Benedictine monastery in Werden and was redesigned in the 13th century in the Rhenish transition style. Outside the actual church building is the crypt with the shrine of St. Ludgerus . St. Ludgerus has been a Catholic parish church since the abbey was abolished . It has had the title of minor basilica since 1993 .

Building history

Carolingian-Ottonian period

crypt
Ludgerus Shrine
View into the nave of the high altar

Liudger, who became the first bishop of Münster in 805 , had previously founded the Werden Abbey. The first church was built between 800 and 808. This church, consecrated to the Salvator Church, had three naves and about 30 m long. Liudger determined a place in front of the choir, outside the church, near a tree ("locus arboris") as his future burial place. He was buried there in 809. Parts of the burial chamber are still there.

The building history of the following time could not be reconstructed exactly even excavations in the 1970s. Abbot Altfried probably started the new building, consecrated in 875, around 840. The grave of Liudger was included and designed. The ring crypt, built around 830/840, still exists today. It is the oldest preserved of its kind in northern Germany. This was followed by an outer crypt. Further changes to the Carolingian building took place in the Ottonian period.

Before 843 a small church was built next to the abbey church, which was demolished around 1760. Little is known about their history.

The abbey church initially also served as a parish church. At the beginning of the 10th century, a separate church was built as a parish church immediately to the west of the existing abbey church . This church, originally designed as a central building , was consecrated as the Marienkirche ( turrim sanctae Mariae ) in 943 . In addition to the parish services, the meetings of the sending court also took place there. In front of this part of the building in the form of a westwork was a vestibule ("paradise"), which 11/12. Century was added. Parts of it are still there. The sending court found its place there and was also used for other more secular affairs. The parish church changed patronage in the 14th century and has been consecrated to the Apostle Peter ever since . The westwork was basically Corvey's . The building in Werden itself became a model for St. Pantaleon in Cologne .

The outer crypt of the abbey church was demolished and rebuilt under Abbot Gero . The Liudgerids Hildegrim , Gerfried , Thiatgrim and Altfried are buried in the crypt . The new building was consecrated by Archbishop Anno II in 1059. The crypt is a free - standing three -nave, nine - bay vaulted hall with a Romanesque cross vault . The richly ornamented capitals are remarkable . The crypt collapsed shortly after construction was completed and was then renewed. Further restorations followed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The crypt was redesigned again in 1984 and 2016.

After secularization at the beginning of the 19th century, the church became entirely a parish church. Its main pastor , Pastor Primarius cum juristictione quasi episcopali , became the former office president of Werden Abbey, Theodor van Gülpen . The church is a patronage building of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country's construction load obligations are one hundred percent. In 1960 St. Ludgerus became the provost church . Pope John Paul II made it a minor basilica in 1993.

Late Romanesque building

Layout

Probably as early as 1230, and not only after the fire of 1256, the early Romanesque church was fundamentally redesigned as a three-aisled gallery basilica with an eastern transept and a polygonal choir with six-part ribbed vault in the late Romanesque style. One of the key role models was St. Quirin in Neuss . In 1256, a fire destroyed the monastery complex and also damaged the abbey church, which was probably already completed but not yet consecrated. This was then restored with Gothic ribbed vaults and a tracery window in the west and consecrated by Albertus Magnus in 1275 . Günter Bandmann had related these dates to the late Romanesque church building, which, 8 years after the start of construction on the high Gothic Cologne Cathedral , would have become an expression of a refusal to accept the new Gothic style.

It is distinguished by the large, eight-sided lantern tower executed crossing tower , which is also found in a few other Rhenish churches of the late Romanesque. The tower stood at the transition to the Gothic style and - together with the tower-like St. Mary's Church - shapes the overall external impression.

The width of the nave corresponds to the previous building, the side aisles have been widened somewhat, and the interior with ribbed vaults has thus been extended from two to four bays. The central nave of St. Peter's Church was included in the central nave. In total, the central nave of the two united churches now has seven bays. The side aisles of the central nave and the choir in the area of ​​the former abbey church are two-story. The mezzanine floor shows blind arcades with pointed arches. In the central nave, rose windows are used to illuminate the cliffs.

Later changes

State of construction around 1800

In the following centuries nothing essential changed in the building and the monastery buildings as a whole. An angular room in the southern transverse wing from the 15th century should enable a direct connection between the chancel of the church and the abbey.

It was only when the abbey became wealthy again in the 18th century that there were significant structural changes. The representative abbey building dates from this time. The interior of the abbey church was furnished in a baroque style with a new high altar, choir stalls and side altars . The towers of the church were given baroque domes. The previously small gallery windows have been enlarged. The floor was raised in the westwork. A semicircular apse was added on the east side . Paradise was broken off except for one yoke.

In the 1840s / 50s there were safety measures for static reasons. Substantial restorations and redesigns took place between 1884 and 1898. The windows of the westwork were redesigned based on the model of the nave and the lower windows of the westwork were bricked up. The tower of the former St. Peter's Church was raised by one storey to accommodate bells. A folding roof replaced the baroque hood. The side aisles of St. Peter's Church were brought up to a level with those of the abbey church. The western portals have been renewed. The northern portals were renewed in neo-Romanesque style. The crossing tower also lost its baroque roof.

Furnishing

The furnishings include remains of wall paintings in the side rooms of the westwork from the 10th century. A lion frieze dates from around 1060. A portal lion on the north portal was created around 1200. A wooden figure of Our Lady in the north arm of the transept dates from the 14th century. A Vesper picture in the westwork is dated to the beginning of the 16th century. The high altar, side altars, pulpit and choir stalls date from the Baroque era. In the church there are abbots' tombs from different centuries.

The actual church treasure is housed in its own museum, the St. Ludgerus Treasury . There are around 90 works of art in the collection. Among them is the Werden Crucifix . An ivory pyxis dates from the 5th / 6th centuries. Century. It shows the world's oldest depiction of the birth of Jesus.

organ

Modern Klais organ in the baroque organ prospect

The church received an organ in 1983 from the organ building company Klais from Bonn . The neo-baroque organ front was retained and partially expanded in the old style. The instrument has 50 stops on three manual works and a pedal . The game actions are mechanical, the stop actions are electric.

I main work C – a 3
Praestant 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Open flute 8th'
Gamba 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Tube bare 4 ′
Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave 2 ′
Forest flute 2 ′
Cornet V 8th'
Mixture VI 2 ′
Trumpet 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
II Positive C – a 3
Bourdon 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Dumped 8th'
Quintadena 8th'
Octave 4 ′
recorder 4 ′
Octave 2 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave 1'
Sesquialter II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Scharff IV 1'
Cromorne 8th'
Vox humana 8th'
Tremulant
III Swell C – a 3
Salicional 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Reed flute 8th'
viola 8th'
Voix céleste 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Flûte traversière 4 ′
Nasard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Octavine 2 ′
Third flute 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Plein jeu VI 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
bassoon 16 ′
Trompette harmonique 8th'
Hautbois 8th'
Clairon 4 ′
Tremulant
Pedals C – f 1
Pedestal 32 ′
Principal 16 ′
Sub bass 16 ′
Octave 8th'
Gemshorn 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Backset V 4 ′
trombone 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
  • Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P

Bells

Of the old, partly medieval bells of the abbey, only the two clock bells from 1531 and 1574 are left today. Two bells from 1500 and 1643 were damaged during the Second World War and were no longer usable afterwards. You are in the Diocesan Museum in Cologne.

The ringing bells today all come from the renowned Otto bell foundry in Hemelingen / Bremen. In 1909 Otto cast six bronze bells for the Ludgerus Church with the disposition: c '- d' - f '- g' - a '- b'. With the exception of the d'-bell, all of them survived the destruction of the bell during the two world wars. The d'-bell was re-cast by Otto in 1954. The bells have the following diameters: 1620 mm, 1440 mm, 1200 mm, 1070 mm, 960 mm, 900 mm and weigh: 2800 kg, 1950 kg, 1150 kg, 842 kg, 576 kg, 488 kg.

literature

  • Günter Bandmann : The Werden abbey church (1256-1275). Study on the outcome of Hohenstaufen architecture . Habelt, Bonn 1953 (also dissertation University of Bonn 1942).
  • Viola Beier, Birgitta Falk : The restoration of the Ludgerus shrine in Werden. In: Münster am Hellweg. Volume 58, 2005, pp. 49-58.
  • Susanne Conrad, Helga Helbig: The Ludgerus shrine from the provost church. In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland. No. 3, 2006, ISSN  0177-2619 , pp. 118-120.
  • Heinz Dohmen : Basilica of St. Ludgerus Essen-Werden. Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the Apostle of the Frisians and Saxons . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-89870-708-4 .
  • Wilhelm Effmann : To become the Carolingian-Ottonian buildings. Vol. 2: Clemenskirche, Luciuskirche, Nikolauskirche, edited from the estate of Elisabeth Hohmann . JH Ed. Heitz, Strasbourg 1922.
  • Friedrich Küpper, Heinz Dohmen: Propsteikirche St. Ludgerus, Essen-Werden . In: Heinz Dohmen (ed.): Image of the sky. 1000 years of church building in the diocese of Essen . Verlag Hoppe and Werry, Mülheim an der Ruhr 1977, pp. 8-15.
  • Walter Sölter : The former abbey church Essen-Werden (= Rheinische Kunststätten issue 245) Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Neuss 1981, ISBN 3-88094-379-6 .
  • Ernst Zinn: The former abbey church in Essen-Werden. Construction history and obligations. In: Patronage buildings of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Documentation of the architectural monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia . Ministry for Urban Development and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1991, pp. 7–20.

Web links

Commons : St. Ludgerus (Werden)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ St. Ludgerus Abbey Church. Essen-To be accessed on August 30, 2014
  2. ^ Johann Josef Böker : Medieval Sacral Architecture in the Ruhr Area , in: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.), Middle Ages in the Ruhr Area: Forgotten Times before Coal and Steel , Vol. II, Bochum: Peter Pomp, 1990, pp. 233-240.
  3. ↑ Günter Bandmann : The Werden Abbey Church (1256-1275): Study on the outcome of Hohenstaufen architecture. Bonn 1942.
  4. ↑ Information about the organ on the website of the organ builder Klais
  5. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular pp. 282, 284, 517, 522 .
  6. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular 252 to 255 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).

Coordinates: 51 ° 23 ′ 17 ″  N , 7 ° 0 ′ 17 ″  E