St. Martin (Riegel am Kaiserstuhl)
St. Martin is the Roman Catholic parish church of Riegel am Kaiserstuhl in the Emmendingen district of Baden-Württemberg . The parish belongs to the pastoral care unit Nördlicher Kaiserstuhl of the Archdiocese of Freiburg . St. Martin , a baroque hall church , is the third church with this patronage at this point.
Martinskirche on the Fronhofbuck
The first Martinskirche is said to have been built in the 6th or 7th century on the so-called Fronhofbuck (west of the cemetery). It served there as a separate church of a Franconian royal court . The patronage gives an indication of this, because Bishop Martin von Tours was particularly venerated by the Franconian royal house of the Merovingians . The first written mention dates back to the second half of the 10th century.
The Romanesque Martinskirche
But probably already in the 2nd half of the 12th century the church was moved to its current location and built in the Romanesque style. The Romanesque tower can be clearly seen in the oldest painting in the municipality of Riegel am Kaiserstuhl from 1709. The medieval walls became visible when the new heating system was installed in October 1996. They are references for various church extensions. The addition of a late Gothic choir at the end of the 15th century can also be documented in writing. During the Thirty Years War the church suffered severe damage, especially after the battle of 1633 under the Swedish general Gustaf Horn . This was followed by raids by the French. The nave was damaged during the war and the upper part of the tower was shot down, the three bells stolen and the paraments thrown away .
In 1651 the common landlords complained about the damage and wanted to repair it. The population was decimated due to the war, it was not until 1666 that the number of residents rose again to 800 people (from 150 in 1638). But since the financial strength of the church was very small, a complete restoration was a long time coming. The communicator, Major General von Schütz, recommended the introduction of a bell bag. The congregation agreed to help with hand and cart windows, so that in 1666 the church was restored. Two years later, three new bells were consecrated. The cemetery was to the south of the Romanesque church.
In 1483, Einsiedeln Abbey gave its patronage rights over the Riegel parish church and its chapels to Ettenheimmünster Abbey . In 1716, the monastery passed the patronage rights on to the then owner of the Lichteneck estate, the Baron von Garnier. The right of patronage remained associated with the Lichteneck estate until it was sold in 1812. By 1740 the community already had 1,400 Catholic residents. A modernization of the church was planned.
The baroque parish church until 1936
When Count Christoph Anton von Schauenburg inherited the Lichteneck share (22/42) in Riegel in 1741 after the death of his father Hannibal , he found the church too small and too dark. He commissioned the master builder Franz Rudhart from Kenzing to prepare a plan, a wooden model and a cost estimate. With this he was able to convince the two co-lords, the imperial baron Ferdinand Sebastian von Sickingen and Augustin Dornblüth, abbot of the monastery of Ettenheimmünster, of a new building. On March 7, 1743, the Riegel owners decided to demolish and rebuild the church. Despite the Austrian War of Succession, the demolition of the Romanesque church began immediately and the tower was blown up.
The apse of the new building has been rearranged. The Romanesque church was oriented west-east, while the new building was planned in a north-south direction. All limestone material was quarried at the foot of the Michaelsberg, five hundred trunks of fir wood were brought in and fourteen oak trunks were cut for the pews. So the shell construction was completed at the end of 1744.
In 1745 it went to the external and internal furnishings. The master carpenter Franz Rudhart and his workers supplied the doors, benches and the organ gallery. While the numerous stucco works were made by Johann Georg Gigl , the altar and ceiling paintings were painted by the Vorarlberg master Benedikt Gambs . The three bells, a small organ and a statue of Our Lady were taken from the old parish church. The auxiliary bishop Franz Karl Josef Fugger of Constance took the consecration of the church on August 3, 1749 in the names of the church patron Saint Martin and St. Apostles Peter and Paul in front.
Financing the project was very difficult. Franz Rudhart, for example, spoke of 12,000 guilders before construction began, the church fund only had 4000 guilders. The political community was supposed to give an additional 3,000 guilders, although the cost of the nave and the tower had already been paid by it. Despite the protest and under the strain of billeting, contributions and compulsory labor due to the war, the sum was raised by the citizens. Immediately, however, a petition was sent to the front Austrian government in Freiburg with the content that the debt should be borne by the tithe. But neither the abbot of the Ettenheimmünster monastery nor the count of Schauenburg were willing to simply accept this. Only the new bishop in Constance, Franz Konrad von Rodt , had an understanding, and so the prince-bishop's quartermaster paid 1000 guilders on January 6, 1751. When the political community agreed to pay a further 2,000 guilders, the total costs of 19,410 guilders were covered. The tithe wore only 9,000 guilders at that time.
On June 23, 1768, the community of Riegel signed a contract with organ builder Johann Andreas Silbermann in Strasbourg for the construction of an organ. This was installed on October 30, 1770. The cost of the Riegeler organ was 3,000 French livres . It received fourteen registers. Like all Silbermann organs, it was of high quality. Repairs were carried out for the first time in 1815, then in 1824, 1834, 1845, 1857, 1890 and 1899. In 1917, the tin prospect pipes had to be delivered due to the war. In 1929 a major renovation followed, for which the original French sound style fell victim. Zinc pipes were used. It was now based on the taste of the times.
The cemetery was located around the church until 1809, then it was moved to its current location on Forchheimer Straße, as was the crucifixion group donated by the widow Montfort in 1746.
The entire masonry of today's church building and the 42 meter high tower are already over 250 years old and still show the slim, baroque shape that was influenced by Franz Rudhart. The tower ends in an octagonal dome. The nave has the external dimensions of almost 50 meters long and 17.1 meters wide, while the transept has a total width of 25.5 meters. The transept cuts the nave so that the floor plan shows a cross. A 2.7 meter high sandstone statue of Maria Immaculata with the signature of Joseph Hörr has been located above the main portal since 1781 . It is the last and largest picture of the Virgin Mary by the famous Freiburg sculptor († 1785). This image of the Virgin Mary is a donation from Jakob Comaida, an Italian who settled in Riegel as a chimney sweep. Access is through the vestibule under the tower. Then you enter the 43.5 meter long, 15.05 meter wide and 11.6 meter high nave below the gallery.
Several repairs were made from 1856 to 1860 and 1901 to 1911. It was not until 1903 that the 6.3 meter high and 1.5 meter wide windows were decorated with glass paintings by glass painter Eugen Börner from Offenburg. They melted in the fire in 1936. The inscription on the second window on the right side of the nave read: The windows made in 1903 were donated in memory of Hofrat Dr. Anton Winkler born here August 3, 1821, † August 30, 1892, professor at the Vienna University of Technology, from his grateful heirs Fr. X. Wehrle, post office administrator ao, whose sister Karolina Klorer nee. Wehrle and his wife Franziska Wehrle geb. Haberer .
When the electrical lighting was installed at the end of 1906, the candlelight could be replaced. Before that, each participant in the service brought his own wrapped candle.
The bells, cast in 1668, were transferred to the new building in 1747, but when the largest jumped in 1769, the municipality decided in 1770 to cast the bells. First of all, there were only three bells instead of the agreed four, weighing a total of 4,492 pounds. But the community insisted on four bells. Experts thought the tower was too weakly built. In the summer of 1771, the Strasbourg bell founder Mathäus Edel delivered the four bells that had been ordered within six weeks. The solemn consecration took place on September 24th by the prelate of Ettenheimmünster. The part owners, Elisabeth Auguste Eleonore, Margravine of Baden-Baden, Ferdinand Sebastian Freiherr von Sickingen-Hohenberg and Augustin Dornblüth, Abbot of Ettenheim Munster, were godfathers and are immortalized in inscriptions on the big bell, as well as Vogt Hermann Rebenstock and Heimburger Josef Hildebrand. The second bell was dedicated to St. Martin, the third to St. Peter and Paul and the smallest to St. John Nepomuk. This had to be cast in 1805. This bell survived the First World War, but was destroyed by the fire in 1936.
The parish church after the fire in 1936
On October 28, 1936, the Catholic parish church burned down due to a heating defect in the tower area. Numerous works of art from the 18th century were destroyed inside. In his report of January 11, 1937, pastor Josef Blum listed the burned objects: the pictures of the side altars, the shrine of St. Celestine, a wood-carved baptismal font, prayer chairs, the organ, all station pictures, the Christmas crib, all processional statues, all of them Sacristy cupboards, all four bells, gold brocade robes, all the music from the church choir. The pulpit and roof also fell victim to the flames. All paintings and stucco were destroyed.
Pastor Josef Blum in particular tried hard to restore the former condition during the reconstruction. Photos were used as a template for the reconstructions. On September 15, 1937, the painter August Braun from Wangen im Allgäu was commissioned to restore the paintings and a ceiling painting was ready by the end of the year. And at Christmas the Celestine Altar and the new bells were consecrated. In 1939 the altarpieces on the two side altars were restored. The sculptor Angelo Valentin in Offenburg was commissioned to rebuild the pulpit.
When the community of Riegel was bombed on December 26, 1944 and numerous houses in the town center were destroyed, a bomb hit the high altar. Due to the bad economic times caused by the war, the reconstruction was significantly more difficult than in 1936. But this time, too, the reconstruction of the original condition was important to the pastor Blum at the time. He brought in the same artists who had done plastering or painting during the first reconstruction, e.g. B. August Josef Braun from the Allgäu. The ceiling paintings show his signature with the year 1949.
The decorations and stucco ornaments were reconstructed by the plasterer Hans Georg Gigl after the war by the Wiener & Schäffert company using old images. The baroque pulpit crowned with a statue of St. Michael, formerly on the east side, was attached to the west side in the nave. The white painted wooden figures of the apostles Peter and Paul, who were secondary patrons of the church and who stood at the high altar, were damaged to varying degrees. While the statue of St Paul was badly damaged, the statue of St Peter was completely burned.
Since that time, the division of the mantle can be seen on the altar sheet of the renewed main altar. Above it is the coat of arms of the patron saint, Count Christoph Anton von Schauenburg (square shield with decorated St. Andrew's cross and eagle in alternating positions, in the middle a shield with three goblets) and that of his wife Elisabeth von Hennin (ship with three masts and sails) appropriate.
The right altar was originally dedicated to St. Anna, but was renamed on May 16, 1779 after the relics of St. Celestine were transferred. The altarpiece showed St. John Nepomuk. Its depiction instead of St. Anna proves the special admiration of Johannes Nepomuk by the Schauenburg family. Now, after the fire of 1936, a Nepomuk statue has been erected instead of the painting. The martyrdom of Celestine was painted on the altar sheet in 1938. The relic of St. Celestine burned with the shrine in 1936, the remains are placed in a relic container on the altar.
The tomb of Maria Franziska, Countess von Hennin, née Beroldingen, which is on the left side of the choir, was only slightly damaged in the fire. She was the mother-in-law of Count von Schauenburg and lived with his family in the castle. She died on September 8, 1748 at the age of 65. Above the epitaph is the coat of arms - a ship with three sails - of Countess von Hennin, née Freiin von Beroldingen.
After the fire, a new organ was built in 1938 by the Freiburg organ builder Willy Dold . Attempts were made to adapt the exterior of the previous organ. However, the quality of the organ from the 18th century remained unmatched. Various damage in the decades that followed ultimately made a completely new building necessary. The music lover Pastor Rudolf Brandstetter as well as the organist and choir director Georg Koch and Professor Musch were responsible for this. The result confirmed the demands and quality. On March 17, 1991, the inauguration of the new organ, which was built in the organ building workshop Riegner & Friedrich , Hohenpeißenberg im Allgäu, took place. The organ prospect is adapted to the baroque space, but the sound of the instrument is consciously based on the North German tradition.
One year after the fire, Grüninger cast four new bells (54 hundredweight) in Villingen . On March 17, 1942, due to the war, the three bells were removed and transported to the blast furnace. It was not until 1955 that a new bell could be hung. In 1752 the Strasbourg master clockmaker Christian Meyenbau installed a church clock, and in 1896 a new one took its place. This also burned in 1936.
literature
- Mechthilde Michels: Riegel community, 7,000 years of settlement history (1993?)
- Catholic parish Riegel am Kaiserstuhl: Church leader St. Martin
Web links
- About the parish church on the site of the pastoral care unit Nördlicher Kaiserstuhl
- Description and disposition of the organ in St. Martin in Riegel
Coordinates: 48 ° 9 ′ 6.6 ″ N , 7 ° 44 ′ 58.9 ″ E