St. Georg (Peißenberg)
The St. Georg Chapel in Peißenberg , a market in the Upper Bavarian district of Weilheim-Schongau , is located on the wooded southern slope of the Hohenpeißenberg on the site of a high medieval ministerial castle. The simple church houses not only some remarkable pieces of equipment but also an important cycle of Gothic wall paintings.
history
The castle Peißenberg was probably in the 12th century as the seat of Guelph ministerial family. As servants sat u. a. the Lords of Peißenberg and the Marschalken of Schiltberg on the mountain spur. After the death of the last Guelph , rule came to the Counts of Seefeld in 1286.
In 1388 the fortress and its neighboring castle “St. Jais “(Jodok) destroyed by order of the ducal. It is said that around 500 residents of Weilheim, who were loyal to the Duke , stormed the castle. The renegade Count Wilhelm von Seefeld was, however, guaranteed amnesty in Augsburg the following year .
The castle chapel, however, was preserved. Around 1400/10 an extensive cycle of wall paintings was commissioned from a painter from Munich or Augsburg. Of the original 50 or so depictions from the life of St. George , 18 image fields have survived. In 1497 the reticulated choir was added to the Romanesque nave. Today's high altar was built in 1675.
In 1909 a Munich master painter stole the two late Gothic statues from the high altar, but they could quickly be returned to the church. Another theft of the two remarkable sculptures was also soon cleared up in 1965.
The small sacred building was renovated in 1940, 1979/81 and 1997 (interior). The castle stable is freely accessible, the key to the chapel is kept in the farm next door.
description
The white plastered chapel stands on the highest point of the Burgstall, about 700 m above sea level. A simple pointed arch portal allows entry on the south side. In addition, two pointed arch windows break through the masonry of the nave. The retracted choir is built to the east. A small, slate ridge turret with a tent roof sits above the west gable .
inner space
The rectangular nave is covered by a wooden beam ceiling on beams. The choir with the baroque high altar is slightly lower than the lay room.
Wall and ceiling paintings
The vault fields of the late Gothic reticulated vault are painted with tendril motifs. On the windowless north wall of the nave, the remainder of the series of images from the life of the titular saint was exposed. The scenes are designed according to the oldest tradition of the legend of St. George , which does not yet include the battle of the saint with the dragon ( Passio Sancti Georgi in Codex Gallicanus , 9th century). The legend of the dragon fight was only added to tradition in the 12th century. The picture fields were found again in 1929 by the owner, the "Jürgamo" (farm name), and uncovered in 1940. 18 depictions show St. George as a martyr and the death of the saint in a sometimes drastic way.
Furnishing
The high altar from 1675 contains, in addition to the central picture with the popular sculpture of the patron saint with the dragon, two late Gothic sculptures of St. Agatha and St. Onuphrius (around 1500), which are ascribed to the "master of the Untermenzinger altar figures". Outside are the saints Cosmas and Damian, the excerpt shows the apostle Peter. The work of the Weilheimer Franz Koch in the predella is a reverse copy of the miraculous image (Annunciation) of the Church of SS. Annunziata in Florence .
In the northern corner of the choir there is another three-dimensional representation of the dragon fight on a console (16th century). The southern counterpart is a late Gothic Mother of God with the child from around 1500. The two candlestick angels on the choir walls were created around the same time. The crucifix on the west wall dates from the 16th century. The painted epitaph (1647) of the Lengger family hangs above the portal . Under St. George with the dragon you can see the elegantly dressed parents with their stately group of children.
Burgstall
The farm on the outer bailey west of the chapel may still go back to the castle's former farm yard. The court name "Jürgamo" is derived from the chapel. The "knight saint" St. George was patron of numerous castle chapels. As early as 1431, the Tuchsenhauer of "St Jörgen Guetl" was mentioned in the Salbuch. The family resident there has been looking after the small church that they own for centuries.
The main castle is separated from the courtyard by a four to five meter deep neck ditch . The elongated castle plateau slopes down to the east in several stages. To the south of the steep slope is a kennel-like terrace . To the north, a deep stream valley protected the facility. Remnants of the wall above are only preserved in the nave of the former castle chapel.
literature
- Max Biller: Peißenberger Heimat-Lexikon . 2nd expanded edition, Peißenberg 1984, p. 352 ff
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments, Bavaria IV: Munich and Upper Bavaria (edited by Ernst Götz, Heinrich Habel and others). 3rd updated edition, Munich 2006. ISBN 3-422-03115-4
- Georg Paula , Stefanie Berg-Hobohm : District Weilheim-Schongau (= Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation [Hrsg.]: Monuments in Bavaria . Volume I.23 ). Lipp, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-87490-585-3 , pp. 232 f .
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 47 ′ 31.4 " N , 11 ° 2 ′ 58.6" E