St. Michaels Church (Unterasbach)

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The Evangelical Lutheran parish church of St. Michael is a church building in the Gunzenhausen district of Unterasbach in the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district in Central Franconia .

St. Michaelskirche in Unterasbach
Aerial view with the cemetery from the south. In the background Oberasbach .
St. Michaelskirche with sacristy annex

location

The church stands exposed above the village of Unterasbach at an altitude of 466  m above sea level. NN on the "Michelsbuck" on the left edge of the Altmühl valley on the road to Oberasbach . To the west of the church, instead of the demolished former sacristan and schoolhouse, there is a sacristan and parish hall that was newly built in the late 1980s. The cemetery, which was expanded in 1921, is located south of the church.

Parish and building history

In 1298 the bishop of Eichstätt allocated income from “Aspach” to the Heidenheim monastery ; later the monastery is owned by Fischwassers zu Unterasbach. Since 1298, the village of Frickenfelden (since 1978 district of Gunzenhausen), 4 km away, has also been parish to Unterasbach.

The right of patronage passed to the Counts of Oettingen in 1383 to the Christgarten monastery in the Kartäusertal on the southern edge of the Ries ; later they noticed it again for themselves. The right of confirmation of new pastors lay with the House of Brandenburg, the later Margraviate of Ansbach.

In a document from 1458 one learns that the church has the Archangel Michael as patron. From today's church building, the basement of the tower goes back to the end of the 15th century and thus the late Gothic. In 1937, Gröber reported that the remains of the late Gothic tabernacle were still on the church floor. The church is said to have been a place of pilgrimage; the pilgrimage came to an end at the latest when the Reformation was introduced in 1529 under Pastor Michael Gödler ; In 1530 Gödler was a signatory to the Confessio Augustana . For 1608 and again for 1732 it is recorded that a margravial court in Unterasbach was valid for the pastor of Unterasbach; the parish tithing of the village also went to the Unterasbacher pastor, as well as a third of the so-called Täschlein tithing. During the Thirty Years' War the church was orphaned for a few years, you had to attend church services in Windsfeld until the local pastor also took over the parish of Unterasbach in 1655. The two bells from 1587 and 1699, brought to Gunzenhausen for security reasons, could no longer be found after the war; In 1665 the margrave decreed that Gunzenhausen had to pay the bells. Nothing certain is known about the whereabouts of the new bells from 1666 and 1683. After the Thirty Years War, the parish flourished thanks to exiles from the Upper Austrian Enns area , who also settled in Unterasbach. Around 1707 the church was redesigned inside. 1752–54 the upper floor of the tower with a dome was rebuilt according to plans by the court architect Johann David Steingruber from Ansbach . From 1732 to 1799 there was a clock on the tower. The organ installed in 1735 had to be replaced by a new one in 1820. In 1838, for reasons of space, the gallery staircase was relocated to the outside and several windows were broken out at the same time to obtain light. In 1921 new bells were added to the tower. In 1986 the exterior facade was renovated.

For the first time a schoolmaster of his own for Unterasbach is documented for 1619; until then, the respective pastor taught in the "Teutsche Schule" established in the course of the Reformation. Until 1735 the children from Frickenfelden had to go to the school built next to the church of St. Michael in summer and winter alike, from 1754 only in summer. In 1838 the school building next to the church was renovated and expanded in 1868; In 1923 the school was relocated to the town itself.

Building description

It is a west-east-facing choir tower. The choir in the basement of the tower has a star rib vault, with the double grooved ribs ending on peg consoles. The chancel window in the east shows late Gothic tracery, the nave windows, two on the north and four on the south side, are arched. In the north wall of the nave, near the tower, a narrow arched window from the Romanesque period has been preserved on the ground floor. The nave is designed as a gallery hall; the wooden flat ceiling was replaced by a plaster ceiling in 1848. The polygonal upper floor of the tower shows a pilaster revival ; The top of the tower is a mansard roof-like tower hood with a pointed roof.

Furnishing

  • The altar in the choir was created around 1750. The altarpiece is a small copy of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci from the 19th century .
  • Galleries are attached to the north, west and east sides.
  • The pulpit with its polygonal body and the sound cover with the Holy Spirit dove and volute decoration is a work from around 1700. It hangs on the southern choir wall, access is through a wall opening from the choir.
  • The historic organ was built by the Heilsbronn organ maker Johann W. Eichmüller around 1820. The one-manual work with a permanently attached pedal still contains mostly original pipe material (o). The instrument is on the east gallery above the altar. An oval picture flanked at the lower edge by two putti above the center of the three-part, curved and rounded organ front shows the Archangel Michael weighing souls and killing dragons. A crucifix hangs in the middle of the parapet of the east gallery.

Disposition of the Eichmüller organ:
 Gedackt 8F (o)
Flute 8 '(o, wood open)
Viola da Gamba 8' (Steinmeyer, 19th century)
Principal 4 '(Deininger & Renner, 20th century)
Flaut Travers 4' (Maderer , 21st century)
5th 3 '(o, principle)
Octave 2' (o)
Mixture 1 '(o, 3-4-fold mixture of thirds)
Sub-bass 16' (o)
Octave bass 8 '(o, wood)
(Tuning: Kirnberger III )

Legend

The remote location of the church from the village has probably led to the following legend of the “traveling church”: The church was supposed to be built in the village, but overnight what was built during the day was always on top of it. This was seen as a sign from God and therefore the church above was completed.

Others

The parish Unterasbach-Frickenfelden maintains a St. Michael day care center in Frickenfelden.

literature

  • Unterasbach. In: Karl Gröber and Felix Mader (arr.): The art monuments of Middle Franconia. VI Gunzenhausen District Office; Munich: R. Oldenbourg 1937, p. 281f.
  • Gunzenhausen district. Munich, Assling 1966.
  • Robert Schuh: Gunzenhausen. Former district of Gunzenhausen . Series of Historical Place Name Book of Bavaria. Middle Franconia, Vol. 5: Gunzenhausen . Munich: Commission for bayer. State history 1979.
  • Home book of the city of Gunzenhausen; Gunzenhausen: City of Gunzenhausen 1982, especially p. 266f.
  • From the parish church of St. Michael; in: Horst Keppler: Frickenfelden - a look into the past; Gunzenhausen-Frickenfelden 1988, pp. 105-110.
  • Hans Herman Schlund: Markgrafenkirchen; in: Alt-Gunzenhausen, 45 (1989), pp. 29-92, especially p. 73.
  • Unterasbach; in: Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments. Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia. Edited by Tilmann Breuer and others; 2nd, revised and supplemented edition, Munich / Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 1999, p. 1044.
  • Unterasbach; in: Johann Schrenk and Karl Friedrich Zink : God's houses. Church leader in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen; Treuchtlingen / Berlin: wek-Verlag 2008, pp. 228–230.

Web links

Commons : St. Michaelskirche (Unterasbach)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Keppler, p. 108
  2. ↑ 1250 years Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm; Heidenheim 2002, pp. 95, 222
  3. ↑ Gunzenhausen dean's district
  4. ↑ Schuh, p. 15f .; Gunzenhausen home book, p. 266
  5. ↑ Keppler, p. 109
  6. ↑ Schuh, p. 15
  7. ↑ Gröber / Mader, p. 281f.
  8. ↑ Heimatbuch Gunzenhausen, p. 266
  9. ↑ Schuh, p. 15f.
  10. ↑ Keppler, p. 108f.
  11. ^ Gunzenhausen district, p. 150
  12. ↑ Gröber / Mader, p. 281; Dehio, p. 1044
  13. ↑ Keppler, p. 107f.
  14. ↑ a b c Schrenk / Zink, p. 229
  15. ↑ Heimatbuch Gunzenhausen, pp. 252, 267
  16. ↑ a b Dehio, p. 1044
  17. ↑ a b Gröber / Mader, p. 282
  18. ↑ Keppler, p. 107
  19. ↑ Eugen Maria Hausladen: The church and secular building of the 18th century in the Margrave of Ansbach. II. The margravial builder Joh. David Steingruber and the Protestant church building. Ansbach: Verlag von C. Brügel & Sohn 1930, pp. 56, 59
  20. ↑ Keppler, p. 106; Gunzenhausen home book, p. 266
  21. ↑ St. Michael day care center on the Dean's Office page

Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 33 "  N , 10 ° 44 ′ 57"  E