St. Mauritius Church (Hemsbach)
The church of St. Mauritius in Hemsbach, a district of Osterburken in northeastern Baden-Württemberg , is a former pilgrimage church that was first mentioned in 1281. Wall paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries have been preserved in the listed church.
history
The origins of the St. Mauritius Church in Hemsbach are largely unknown. The church is located near the Rimschbach and was once probably even on an island formed by two arms of the brook, so that the church or its predecessor buildings could be built on the site of an ancient water sanctuary. It is also assumed that a chapel already existed in Hemsbach when it was first mentioned in a document in 837. Since a lost village "Vustenheimesbach" is mentioned in 1239, it is unclear whether today's village Hemsbach is identical to the one mentioned in 837 or whether today's Hemsbach was founded between the 10th and 12th centuries, close to what it was then Form is already existing today's Mauritiuskirche.
The first reliable mention of the church took place in 1281. According to investigations on the building, the tower should already have existed at that time. The nave, on the other hand, had a smaller footprint than it is today and only reached its present size of 9.40 x 5.40 m through expansion in the 14th century. The first written references to the pilgrimage to Hemsbach also date back to the 14th century.
The church is dedicated to St. Mauritius was consecrated, but the nameless Three Virgins were also venerated there, whose origins are still pagan in nature, but which later received Christian interpretation. Already in Roman times in the 2nd century AD, matrons were called on for help with epidemics. Documented construction work on the church from the years 1348/49 and 1611 is also related to the thanks for surviving plague epidemics, so that the pilgrimage to Hemsbach and the veneration of the "Three Virgins" there could be related to the plague. In 1594 the altar of the "Three Virgins" is mentioned. On the altar there are said to have been three statues, which were dressed in clothes made of calico . A letter from Pastor Link has survived from the second half of the 17th century, describing the pilgrimage to Hemsbach to the advent of the pilgrimage to the blood miracle of Walldürn as the most famous one far and wide. Several invoices from the period between 1650 and 1666 have been received that prove a pilgrimage on Whit Tuesday, with linseed and flax listed as offerings.
In 1656 the parish went from the Würzburg rural chapter Odenwald to the Mainz rural chapter Taubergau. In the 18th century the pilgrimage was placed on Whit Monday. At that time, under the altar table of the “Three Virgins”, which was already described as “very old”, there was a kind of tunnel to the choir, which the pilgrims believed would cure back pain by crawling through it. The altar was therefore also known as the "slip altar". Braids of hair around the altar should help against headaches, and shavings cut off from a stick placed behind the altar should help against toothache.
In 1756, by order of Dean Schaffgen, the slip altar was walled up and pigtails and cane removed. In the following years there were several controversies regarding the pilgrimage and the veneration of the virgins, who were hostile to the diocese, but were allowed to stay in the church for the time being because of their age and their traditional custody.
In the 19th century, pilgrimages were banned in the Grand Duchy of Baden . As elsewhere, the statues of virgins from Hemsbach were probably destroyed.
The church had to be repaired and refurbished several times in the course of history. The reason for a lot of damage was its close proximity to the water, which means that there was constant moisture inside the church. In 1845 the Vogtgericht demanded that the church be drained, but the village, which had 108 inhabitants at the time, was unable to cover the costs, so that the urgent renovation was not carried out for several decades. The Grand Ducal Office in Adelsheim, threatened to close the church in April 1885, pushed for a renovation within three months, which was not done. In Osterburken, Pastor Christophl had meanwhile started to promote the demolition of the church and to collect money for a new building. Since he wanted to use the collected donations exclusively for a new building, the Mauritius church continued to deteriorate. In the winter of 1889 the church was closed because of the risk of collapse. While collecting for a new building was still going on and the pros and cons of demolishing the church were being considered, the Archbishop's Building Office had a ramshackle side wall reconstructed in 1891 to at least prevent the walls from breaking apart. Despite continued appeals for donations, not enough money could be collected for a new building in the following years, so the dilapidated church was preserved for the time being. The inflation at the beginning of the 1920s with the accompanying loss of the foundation capital finally put an end to the demolition and new construction plans.
With funds from the Conservatory of Ecclesiastical Monuments, the church was finally renovated outside in 1937 under the leadership of Pastor Gebert from Osterburken. However, the Heidelberg building authority described the result of the facade work as “neither technically nor artistically satisfactory” and Conservatory Prelate Sauer even wrote: “True orgies have unfolded in the paintwork. Pink-red stone and square frames stand next to the blue-green of the gutter and the brown-red of the doors and the staircase. Such repairs are a disgrace to the whole country ”.
Before Pastor Gebert could also carry out an interior renovation at his own discretion, the Würzburg plasterer and painter Andreas Menna was appointed as an expert and responsible for a professional renovation, which took place from 1940 to 1942. During the renovation under Menna, the medieval wall paintings, which were painted over in the 17th century, were exposed and, against initial resistance from the community, the gallery, which was subsequently expanded to half the space, was brought back to its originally narrower dimensions. In addition, a newer extension was demolished and the altarpiece was restored.
In 1958, Hemsbach became a subsidiary of the Catholic parish of Adelsheim. In 1962, the pastor Blank from Adelsheim applied for the renewed repair of the church, which is now a listed building , during the course of which further layers of historical paint were exposed inside between 1963 and 1966 and restored by the artist Valentin Peter Feuerstein . During this renovation, the altars were also revised and rearranged. A new consecration altar made of red Main sandstone was erected in the choir. In 1968 the organ on the gallery (built in 1844/45) was renovated. In 1975/76 further restoration measures were carried out. In 2002 the Friends of St. Mauritius Hemsbach eV was founded under the chairmanship of MdL Peter Hauk , which supports further restorations with ideas and finances.
Murals
The wall paintings of the Mauritius Church in Hemsbach are a so-called Bible for the poor , which was intended to convey scenes from the Old and New Testament to people who were unfamiliar with reading in the Middle Ages.
The oldest painting in the church is probably the depiction of the creation story from around 1350 , which extends from the choir arch over the entire right wall of the nave. Other paintings show scenes from the New Testament, among others. a. the adoration of the shepherds, the flight into Egypt, the entry into Jerusalem, the last supper and the kiss of Judas.
The vaulted ceiling of the choir shows the names of the four evangelists with their associated symbols : man, lion, bull and eagle and probably dates from around 1450. On the left wall of the choir there is a depiction of the coronation of Mary by the Holy Trinity, which becomes a scene flanked by two angels making music. Right in the choir is an apocalyptic depiction of the Last Judgment, in which the poor sinners are already in the jaws of the hellhound. Church patron St. Mauritius is depicted on the right side wall of the apse .
Coronation of Mary
Part of the creation story
Altars
The oldest descriptions of the church's altars mention the altar of the “Holy Virgin” and an altar of Mary in 1594. An altar for the patron saint Mauritius, on the other hand, was not mentioned at that time, but was later found as the third altar in the church. The altars have been replaced or rearranged several times over the years. The two baroque altars on both sides of the choir arch that are still preserved today date from the late 17th century. The left altar was merged from the former Marien and Mauritius altars. The statue of the Madonna is made of terracotta and is dated between 1480 and 1520 due to the small suction bag in the hand of the baby Jesus. The statue probably comes from Bohemia, as there is a corresponding wooden sculpture in the Prague National Gallery. The right altar shows St. Ursula of Cologne with her companions. The statues of virgins were on this altar in the 18th century. The main altar is an unadorned sandstone altar from the 1960s.
Bells
There are two bells in the tower of the church . The smaller bell with a weight of 75 kg dates from the Middle Ages and has a minuscule inscription. Due to its age, the bell escaped being melted down in the First World War. A bell weighing 183 kg from the 19th century, which was melted down at the time, was replaced in 1922 against a bell weighing 162 kg with the inscription “St. Mauritius, please for us ”. A third bell from the 15th century that once existed was melted down in 1942.
literature
- Elmar Weiß: The Church of St. Mauritius in Hemsbach - once a place of pilgrimage to the three holy virgins . Osterburken 2003
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 25 ′ 41.6 ″ N , 9 ° 24 ′ 3.7 ″ E