St. Michael (Allersburg)

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Parish Church of St. Michael in Allersburg

The Catholic parish church of St. Michael is located in the Allersburg district of the Oberpfälzer Markt Hohenburg in the Amberg-Sulzbach district of Bavaria .

history

It is believed that the church was built on the site of Allersburg Castle, which has completely disappeared . The cemetery wall could still be part of the former Bering .

The first written mention of the church comes from 847 and 863 from the time of the Regensburg bishop Erchanfried , who hands over the church at Alarespurc to the noble priest David ; even then this was a parish seat. The Counts of Hohenburg acted as rulers , in 1257 the Hochstift Regensburg succeeded in this area and so it remained until the dissolution of the spiritual principality in 1810.

The cemetery surrounding the church was built as early as the Middle Ages , in whose walls the loopholes and the ledge of the former battlement can still be clearly seen. East of the church is the former Karner with the Leonhard Chapel.

Construction

The current church had one, possibly even two, previous buildings. This is indicated by a Romanesque knot column at the location of the right side altar, a baptismal font on the northern outer wall and two bells from the 12th century come from the early days of the church. The basic structure of the church points to the Gothic ; Typical of this is the 28 m high flank tower on the south side, as well as the retracted and, compared to the nave, narrower choir with a three-eighth end.

The nave of the originally single-nave church was opened to the south with three arcades in the middle of the 18th century and a baroque aisle was added. This also creates the asymmetrical tailcoat roof .

The church was renovated between 2013 and 2019 (complete exterior renovation, renewal of the outdoor facilities, strengthening of the roof structure, new slate roofing of the church tower, gilded dome including a tower cross).

Cemetery wall of the Church of St. Michael (Allersburg)

Interior

The altarpiece of the high altar shows the church patron St. Michael and is decorated with acanthus tendrils. On the left of the choir arch are the four evangelists with Christ and on the right the Madonna in a halo. The relatively new ceiling painting in the choir symbolizes the Trinity.

The church windows were donated in the 19th century. St. Lawrence can be seen under the organ gallery .

Bar cross plate from Allersburg

A special feature of the church is the so-called Allersburg stave cross plate. It is an epitaph for the knight Heinrich von Kutzenhofen, who died on September 29, 1283. The stone slab is walled in next to the main entrance on the south side of the church. It is 1.86 m high and 0.78 m wide. Originally it was embedded in the church pavement and covered the grave site. During the renovation in 1985, it was set up to protect it from further wear and tear. A rod cross plate usually shows a high cross, the foot of which stands on a three-mountain (also called a three- pass ). The main element is a Greek cross , which continues downwards in a pole. In many cases there is also a left-leaning shield of the deceased. In the present case, the tombstone shows a raised cross in bas-relief, the lobed beams of which widen at the ends in the shape of a clover. The base has the shape of a pressed three-mountain with leaf motifs on the inside. The shield, which takes up the width of the image field, shows an ax, the coat of arms of the Kutzenhofer. The inscription in Gothic capitals reads:

" + ANNO DNI M / CCLXXIII PXIMA DOMENICA POST / MICHAELIS / HEINRIC MILES DE VHIVZZEVOVEN "

- Quoted from Mathias Conrad (1995, p. 7)

( German : "In the year of the Lord 1283 the next Sunday after Michaelis died Heinrich, knight of Kutzenhofen.") This knight was probably a ministerial of the counts of Hohenburg. The location of the abandoned town of Kutzenhofen is not known. In the 15th century the Kutzenhofer appeared in the Neumarkt area and wore a blue hatchet on a golden background in their coat of arms.

graveyard

The cemetery around the church dates back to Carolingian times. The cemetery has a 4 m high defensive wall with a Gothic archway and some loopholes . This enclosure may have been expanded during the Hussite Wars at the beginning of the 15th century. The wall is raised on the unprotected mountain side and had a battlement there , as can be seen from the ledge on the inside. The Karner was also integrated into the cemetery wall.

Karner

Since Allersburg was also the parish seat of Hohenburg, those who died there had to be brought here and buried. Due to the cramped conditions, this meant that bones were repeatedly found when a new grave was built. These were collected in a cart . The former Karner is a Romanesque central building from around 1200; A two-story construction with a crypt in which the bones were collected and a chapel above it was common. In the 19th century it was structurally changed and converted into a Leonhard Chapel and, more recently, a morgue . Architecturally noteworthy is the easted oriel apse with a richly profiled console and the arched portal on the west side.

literature

  • Mathias Conrad: The Kirchberg in Allersburg. In: amberg information. July / August 1995, pp. 6-9.
  • Mathias Conrad: Rod cross plate in Allersburg. In: amberg information. September 1995, pp. 6-9.

Web links

Commons : St. Michael (Allersburg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Helml: Castles and palaces in the Amberg-Sulzbach district . Druckhaus Oberpfalz, Amberg 1991, p. 13ff.
  2. ^ Paul Böhm: Golden shine on St. Michael in Allersburg. Onetz from July 15, 2019, accessed on July 2, 2020.

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 30.1 ″  N , 11 ° 46 ′ 46.6 ″  E