St. Hilarius (Mainz)

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The Aureus Chapel, destroyed in 1793. Lithograph by Jean Dionis Bernard Wasserburg (1813–1885)

St. Hilarius was an early medieval chapel and later Coemeterialkirche outside the Roman city walls in the Zahlbach Valley , the vallis sacra from late Roman times. The patronage of Hilary of Poitiers allows conclusions to be drawn about the dating of the church to the 6th century, when Hilary became the national saint of the emerging Frankish empire alongside Martin von Tours .

The Hilary Church possibly had a previous building from the late Roman period, possibly the old St. Mary's Church. This could have served as the nucleus for the Maria Dalem (Dalheim) monastery, attested from the 12th century, about 500 m away . A small memorial chapel in honor of Aureus , a Roman martyr buried here and, according to Rabanus Maurus , Bishop of Mainz at the beginning of the 5th century, is also conceivable.

The importance of St. Hilarius is underlined by its function as the burial place of the late Roman-early medieval bishops of Mainz. Up to the 8th century ten Mainz bishops were buried here, four from the late Roman and six from the early medieval period. It is possible that the Bishop of Mainz Sidonius , who lived around the middle of the 6th century, took over a burial tradition from the late Roman period, which began with the burial of Aureus. In 935 their bones were transferred to St. Alban by Archbishop Hildebert .

At the beginning of the 17th century, St. Hilary was again consecrated to Saint Aureus , who, according to local tradition, was buried there. From this point on, tradition speaks of the aureus chapel. This chapel no longer exists; it was completely destroyed in the storming of Mainz in 1793 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Acceptance of Eugen Ewig

literature

  • Eugen Ewig : The oldest Mainz bishops' graves, the list of bishops and the legend of Theonest. In: Eugen Ewig: Late Antique and Franconian Gaul. Collected Writings (1952-1973). Second volume, edited by Hartmut Atsma , Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich 1979.
  • Hans Werner Nopper: The pre-Bonifatian bishops of Mainz. A critical examination of the sources on the beginnings of the diocese of Mainz and the reliability of the lists of bishops. Self-published, Mülheim an der Ruhr (Books on Demand, Norderstedt) 2002, ISBN 3-83112-429-9