St. Aegidius (Mittelheim)

General view from the south

View through the central nave

The Basilica of St. Giles is a three-aisled Romanesque church in Mittelheim in the Hessian Rheingau . The church consecrated to Saint Aegidius dates back to the early 12th century , but was partly built on the foundations of a chapel from the 10th century , making it the oldest church in the Rheingau. St. Aegidius is now a branch church of the parish of St. Peter and Paul Rheingau, a new type of parish. Since 2015 St. Peter and Paul in Eltville is also the parish church of Mittelheim.

history

The basilica around 1900
(Photography: Albrecht Meydenbauer )

A single-nave, Ottonian chapel existed on the site of today's basilica as early as 1000 . After 1108 Augustinian choir women lived in a small monastery by the chapel , founded by the Mainz ministerial Wulverich von Winkel, a member of the Greiffenclau family , in honor of St. Aegidius . The chapel was replaced by the current three-aisled structure between 1118 and 1131.

The basilica is inaugurated in 1131; The monastery is joined by the Augustinian canons expelled from Eberbach Monastery by Archbishop Adalbert I of Mainz , making the Aegid monastery a double monastery . However, the men's convention only lasted a few decades. In 1213 the Augustinian nuns moved into the Gottesthal monastery near Oestrich; however, they continue to use the basilica as a monastery church. At this point there are no more monks in Mittelheim; they have probably returned to Eberbach Monastery (now populated by Cistercians ). From about 1250 the monastery in Mittelheim is again inhabited by the Augustinians after much of the Convention of Kloster Gottesthal to the Cistercian has converted. With the permission of Archbishop Christian II, a small group of choir women who remained Augustinian is returning to the monastery buildings in Mittelheim. Archbishop Gerhard I , the successor to Christian II, forbids the nuns of Mittelheim to accept novices ; the monastery is slowly dying out.

From 1263 the basilica is the parish church of the community of Mittelheim. From 1284 the Gottesthal monastery has patronage rights over the parish and basilica in Mittelheim. In 1353 the parish of St. Aegidius was established and had its own pastor . Since 1448 the Gottesthal Abbey and the St. Viktor Abbey in Mainz have been obliged to maintain the basilica. In 1511 the church received an artistically carved pulpit from the workshop of Erhart Falckener , who was born in Abensberg and worked on the Middle Rhine. In the period from 1699 to 1720, the St. Viktor-Stift and the Greiffenclau family from Schloss Vollrads provided a high altar and furnishings in the baroque style.

In the course of renovations in 1903, 1938 and 1952, the basilica was returned to its original Romanesque state. In 1938 the foundations of the Ottonian predecessor building of the basilica from the 10th century are exposed.

An architectural peculiarity of the basilica is the triple apse , which is rarely preserved today : Both the main nave and the two side aisles each end with a semicircular altar niche in the east.

Furnishing

Baptistery with octagonal baptismal font made of sandstone with the coat of arms of the donor (around 1490);
High altar (Romanesque block from the time it was built), above it a baroque crucifixion group from 1720. An opening on the back leads to a confessio with altar bar and reliquary grave;
Bavarian Renaissance pulpit (Erhart Falckener workshop, 1511) with carvings and inscriptions;
Grave monuments from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries for local aristocrats and aldermen; the earliest of these epitaphs is dedicated to Margaretha von Frankenstein . The tomb for Rosina Greiffenclau von Vollrads, who died on May 26, 1658, is lavishly decorated with the family coat of arms and inscribed;
Under the crossing there are two Gothic sculptures of St. Egidius (around 1380) and St. Urban (around 1500), as well as Baroque figures of saints from the 17th and 18th centuries (above the entrance on the west wall, St. Margaret and St. George above slain dragon, on the arcade pillars in the nave Aloysius , Josef , Antonius von Padua and again Aegidius);
Baroque choir stalls from 1684, confessional around 1700;
In the north side apse late Gothic Pietà from terracotta (1420), which was sponsored by a wine merchant's family in the 19th century;
Organ from 1978.