St. Bartholomew (Hirzenach)

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View of the church from the northwest

The Catholic parish church of St. Bartholomew is a listed church building in Hirzenach , a district of the city of Boppard . It was once the provost church of St. Maria and Johannes Evangelist of the former Hirzenach provost .

The Romanesque pillar basilica was redesigned several times in the Gothic period as well as in the 19th century. A restoration at the end of the 1960s gave it back its late medieval appearance. Since the monastery was closed by the French government at the beginning of the 19th century, the building has served as the parish church of Hirzenach.

history

The Hirzenach Propstei on a local view by Wenzel Hollar , 1636

Soon after the Hirzenach Benedictine monastery was founded around 1100, the construction of a monastery church began, which is said to have been consecrated before 1114 by the Archbishop of Trier, Bruno von Bretten . In the first quarter of the 12th century the nave with a crossing and a semicircular apse was built . The construction of a square tower on the western face of the church also began at this time. But it was not completed until the early 13th century. In the second third of the 13th century, changes were made to the building: the round Romanesque apse was replaced by a choir closure in early Gothic forms and at the same time the choir bay was newly vaulted . At the same time, today's main portal with vestibule was built on the south-western corner of the nave. In the late 15th century, the crossing and transept received a new vault, while the nave received a new stucco ceiling in the Baroque period . Further changes in the 18th century took place exclusively inside. In 1766 the floor was raised by about 40 centimeters to the height of the choir, and in 1790 the interior of the church was repainted. In the same year or in 1789 a new pulpit was added to the provost church. As early as 1788, the monastery had a sacristy added to the church's south side . At that time it was no longer a mere provost church, but had also taken on the duties of a parish church for Hirzenach, because the old Hirzenach parish church had become dilapidated and services could no longer be held there. It is not clear when exactly the monastery church became the official parish church and the patronage changed to Saint Bartholomew, but this was the case at the latest after the Hirzenach provosty was abolished by the French government in 1802. On their order, the windows of the church choir were removed and taken to the Louvre in Paris.

Major repairs were necessary in the 19th century. In 1839 a round tower on the southern outside of the choir had to be put down due to dilapidation, and in 1888 its northern counterpart was demolished. After an architectural survey of the architect Heimann in 1871 there was a first restoration inside and a refurbishing of the sanctuary . From 1914 to 1916 the exterior of the church was also restored, for which 11,000 marks were estimated. In the period from 1968 to 1970, Otto Spengler from Mainz carried out a renewed, comprehensive restoration campaign, during which excavations were also carried out in 1969/1970 . During the restoration, the church received a new roof structure and the medieval floor level of the nave. The archaeological dig also uncovered fourteen old graves there. Many of the historicist additions from the 19th century were removed or dismantled in order to restore the late medieval condition. For example, the neo-Gothic high altar and the neo-Romanesque popular altar were removed from the church. Only the baptismal font from 1878 was left in the church. The preservationists also refrained from reconstructing the neo-Romanesque wall and ceiling paintings by the Düsseldorf painter J. Schneider in the apse and choir. In return, in 1968 they exposed whitewashed vault paintings with tendril motifs in the transept. The flat ceiling of the nave from the second half of the 18th century was replaced by the current one in 1970.

description

St. Bartholomew stands, facing east-west, on a terraced area between the former parish church and the Propsteigebuilding of Hirzenach and dominates the townscape with them. It is surrounded by a cemetery which is enclosed by a wall. In the southern area this is partly still the original quarry stone wall from the time it was built. There are some crosses made of basalt lava embedded in the wall . Two of them date from the second half of the 16th century.

architecture

View of the church from the southeast

The church is a three-aisled pillar basilica with a short transept that belongs to a certain group of Salian churches. This follows the layout of the church of the Siegburg mother abbey of St. Michael . In contrast to this, the Hirzenach church does not have a crypt , presumably because the natural rock on which it was built would have made such a room very complex. The masonry consists of plastered quarry stone from the area. Tuff , slate and trachyte were used for the walls , relief arches , tracery and corner blocks . On the western front side of the building there is a square western tower with four storeys and an octagonal bent helmet , which probably replaced an earlier pyramid roof . Slate-covered gable roofs sit on the central nave and transept as well as on the choir . The side aisles are closed by pent roofs , while the apse has a polygonal roof.

Paradise and main portal

The main portal is on the southern long side. The garments and archivolts of the ogival entrance are three-fold and have two set round bars with early Gothic capitals . The typanon is decorated with paintings in the form of arabesques . In front of the portal is an early Gothic entrance hall with a square floor plan, which is called Paradise . It is designed to be open on its three outer sides with ogival arcades . In the corners of the hall there are bundled columns with simple chalice capitals that support a pressed cross-ribbed vault with pear ribs.

West tower

The massive west tower of the church is just as wide as the central nave. It can only be entered from the outside via a high arched gate on the north side of its first floor. A modern wooden staircase leads up to it. The tower facade is structured vertically by color-contrasting central and corner pilasters. Carnies , which separate the floors of the tower from each other, and a round arch frieze serve as horizontal design elements. They clearly show that the floors get lower from the bottom up. The two lower floors date from the 12th century, while the upper floors were built in the 13th century. Their arched sound arcades are not medieval, but an ingredient from the early modern era . The floors inside do not match the facade layout. The two lower floors are optically combined into one on the outside by ogival blind arcades. The entrance gate leads to a small anteroom from which the stately west gallery can be entered. In addition, the second floor can be reached from there via a narrow staircase in the wall thickness. The gallery is also called the imperial gallery and, like the ground floor, has a groin vault . A small piece of the original slate flooring has been preserved in the southeast corner. The remaining part was replaced by concrete floor. The two lower floors of the tower open to the nave through large round arches with red ashlar. The floor of the first floor is about 40 centimeters higher than the floor of the nave. The height difference is overcome by three steps.

Longhouse

View from the nave to the choir

Inside, St. Bartholomew is completely plastered, as is the outside. The central nave has a flat wooden ceiling and five arcades on each of the long sides, which rest on square pillars with chamfered bases and fighters . The red-brown version was applied during the restoration at the end of the 1960s based on historical models. There are six round-arched windows above the arcades . They are also the result of the last extensive restoration. The original small Romanesque windows were later changed to larger pointed arch windows. These were dismantled at the end of the 1960s so that they have their original shape again, but not their original size.

The aisles are about half as high and half as wide as the central nave. They too have completely unadorned flat wooden ceilings. As in the central nave, the floor there is covered with irregular slabs of slate. It is a reconstruction of the Romanesque flooring of the church.

Transept, choir and apse

Choir and apse

The floor of the transept and crossing is 40 centimeters higher than that of the nave and is therefore on the same level as the floor of the west tower. The crossing is spanned by a star vault, the keystone of which shows the painted coat of arms of the former provost Roland von Waldenburg called Schenkern. There are two doors in the two cross arms. The southern one leads into the sacristy, while the northern one gives access to the cemetery. The tympanum field of this north door shows a depression in which there was probably a relief in the past .

The adjoining early Gothic choir is only one yoke long. The apse with a five-eighth end adjoins it on the eastern side . On the outside, six simple buttresses with small shed roofs mark the corners of the apse. In between are five high, two-lane pointed arch windows with a circular crown. Between them the buttresses are continued upwards as flat pilaster strips. Inside, the walls of the apse are structured in the lower area by a blind arch made of paired pointed arches on a high base. Above that, the windows take up almost all of the remaining space. Most of the glazing you can see today dates from the first years after the Second World War . Three of them have a very simple design and consist only of assembled square glasses with a simple pattern. The top window shows roughly life-size figures of St. Bartholomew and St. John the Evangelist . The two panels of the western apse window date from the historicist era and were made in 1887. They depict Easter and Pentecost in a scenic way.

Furnishing

pulpit

On the north wall of the north aisle hang five old gravestones , including four of former provosts of the Benedictine abbey. The oldest of them is from the end of the 14th century and was intended for Johann (Lutter) von Kobern, who died in 1390. Also made of stone is the baptismal font with neo-Gothic tracery , which is one of the few historicist pieces of equipment that was allowed to remain in the church from 1968 to 1970 after the restoration.

The wooden pulpit from 1789/1790 consists of a sound cover in the form of a curved hood with lambrequin and a square pulpit basket with gold-plated carvings . The same carvings can also be found on the parapet of the pulpit staircase, but this was only installed in 1969.

From an art historical importance are mainly four wooden figures, all of which date from the 18th century. A statue of the Virgin Mary dates to the late Rococo and comes from the same artist who created a figure of St. Bartholomew. There is also a life-size statue of St. John Nepomuk from the mid-18th century. On the ground floor of the west tower - on a console on the west wall - there is a colored and gilded figure of St. Benedict. It was made at the beginning of the 18th century and originally stood in the baroque high altar, which is no longer preserved.

literature

  • Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. Volume 2 (= The Art Monuments of Rhineland-Palatinate. Volume 8). Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich / Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-422-00567-6 , pp. 833–861.
  • Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. In: Stadt Boppard (ed.): Hirzenach 1109–2009. A chronicle. Stadt Boppard, Boppard 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-029300-9 , pp. 469–494, here pp. 472–490.
  • Sabrina Müller: The inscriptions of the Catholic parish church of St. Bartholomew in Boppard-Hirzenach (= inscriptions Mittelrhein-Hunsrück. Issue No. 3). Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz 2008 ( PDF ; 784 kB).

Web links

Commons : St. Bartholomäus  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Koelges: On the history of the Hirzenach Propstei (1100–1803). In: Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (Hrsg.): Rhein-Hunsrück calendar. Home year book of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Volume 60. Simmern 2004, pp. 48-60 ( online ).
  2. ↑ a b c Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück district. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, p. 835.
  3. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 483.
  4. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 482.
  5. ↑ Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, pp. 835-836.
  6. ↑ a b Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 484.
  7. ↑ a b Sabrina Müller: The inscriptions of the Catholic parish church St. Bartholomäus in Boppard-Hirzenach. 2008, p. 6.
  8. ^ Anton Metzdorf: The Hirzenach Propstei. An idyll on the Middle Rhine. In: Koblenzer Heimatblatt. "7th year, no. 16, April 26, 1930 ( PDF ; 86 kB).
  9. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 475.
  10. ↑ a b c Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück district. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, p. 839.
  11. ↑ Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, p. 849.
  12. ↑ a b c Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 485.
  13. ↑ Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, p. 847.
  14. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 489.
  15. ↑ a b Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 486.
  16. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 478, note 35.
  17. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 472.
  18. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 477.
  19. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 473.
  20. ^ Udo Liessem: Art and Building History. 2009, p. 478.
  21. ↑ Sabrina Müller: The inscriptions of the Catholic parish church St. Bartholomäus in Boppard-Hirzenach. 2008, p. 10.
  22. ↑ Alkmar Freiherr von Ledebur: The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Part 2.1: Former district of St. Goar, city of Boppard. 1988, p. 850.

Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 39 ″  N , 7 ° 38 ′ 35 ″  E