Johanneskirche (Schwaigern)
The Johanneskirche in Schwaigern in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg is a Protestant parish church . The building dates back to a construction from the 13th century and was expanded to its present form in the 16th century. The most important art treasure of the church is the Barbara altar by Jerg Ratgeb from 1510, further historical altars as well as grave slabs and epitaphs of the lords and counts of Neipperg are set up in the church.
history
The town church is located in the immediate vicinity of Schwaigern Castle in the center of Schwaigern. The city's foundation probably goes back to the construction of a manor in the 7th century, which was located on the site of today's castle and whose associated church probably took the place of today's city church. The presence of an early chapel or church at that location is considered to be certain about the supporting position of monasteries and bishops in the Franconian expansion period, even if there are no structural findings or written sources. With the expansion of the manor into a castle and the gradual fortification of the place in the 13th century, a Romanesque church with a mighty tower was built around 1200 . The oldest surviving parts of today's church come from this church , consecrated to John the Baptist : the tower base and parts of the north aisle .
The church was first mentioned in a document in 1366. It was part of the Wimpfen archdeacon of the Worms diocese . With the elevation to the city and as the seat of the Lords of Neipperg, Schwaigern gained a certain central function in ecclesiastical matters too, so that the city became the seat of a 36-parish regional chapter . As the seat of the archpriest and many benefactors , the church originally had numerous altars (ten altars are mentioned in 1496), and at times up to five chaplains were employed.
Under Georg Wilhelm von Neipperg, the church was significantly enlarged from 1514 to 1520 in the Gothic style . The Latin building inscription on the south-western corner pillar of the church announces the renovation. This translates as follows: In the year of the Lord 1514 under the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximilian Pius Felix Augustus, the noble men of the famous and trained in arms have in praise and honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her mother Anna, who was blessed above all, as well as St. John the Baptist the Neipperg with the subjects and inhabitants of this little town had this building built by master builder Bernhard Sporer for their and their own fame and for their descendants earning great merits. Master builder Bernhard Sporer extended the old nave to the south with the larger main nave and the choir, which was attached to the south of the tower and extended to the east .
The Lords of Neipperg, who with the exception of a short break in the 14th century had church patronage from the beginning of the records and also had their burial place in the church, were predominantly Reformation-minded and carried out the Reformation in their areas in the 16th century . The first Protestant preacher in the church was probably Bernhard Wurzelmann around 1525. Its representative Ulrich Schweicker could possibly be the Ulricus Vuissacensis Suigerus , who cannot be identified with certainty and who co-signed the Syngramma Suevicum .
Even after they had become Catholics in the 18th century, the Counts of Neipperg retained the right of patronage over the Protestant pastors, before Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg, with a church ordinance from 1753, transferred the occupation of the pastor's position to a civic body.
In 1856, Princess Marie von Württemberg, the wife of Alfred von Neipperg , donated a large sum for a major renovation. a. moved the organ from in front of the choir to the gallery and readjusted the floor of the choir. The otherwise almost unchanged buildings of the church were not changed significantly until the 20th century. In 1910 an extensive renovation took place in which heating and lighting were installed, passages were created between the southern side chapels and the seating was changed. The seating was once arranged around the stone pulpit on one of the central pillars. The installation of rows of benches facing the choir in 1910 made it necessary to erect a new wooden pulpit on a front side pillar, which all visitors could see. In 1962 the choir was renovated, and in the 1990s the tower was re-covered, many windows were renewed and the outer facade was refreshed.
In the years around 2010, further extensive renovations followed, whereby the interior of the church in particular was made lighter and the art treasures kept in the church were rearranged.
description
architecture
The church is essentially a two-aisled hall church from the late Gothic period . The church is accessed through the main portal in the west gable into the main nave, which is around 30 meters long. A stone gallery in the west of the interior , on which the organ is located, creates a kind of vestibule. The nave is by drawn into the interior pillars in five yokes divided. To the north, the side pillars are connected with arcade arches and divide the main nave from the north aisle, which dates back to the nave of the Romanesque church of the 13th century. The niches between the southern supporting pillars each form side chapels and thus indicate a southern aisle, giving the church the impression of a three-aisled basilica . The total width of the ships is about 22.5 meters. The north aisle opens to the east to the approximately 8 × 8 meter square tower base, which served as a tower choir until the church was expanded. From the main nave, the approximately 20-meter-long and up to 13-meter-wide choir opens to the east , which is divided into four bays and ends with a triangle. Additional side chapels are built on the south and north sides of the choir and in the north wall, including the marshal's chapel in the north with particularly ornate tracery windows .
With the exception of the flat-roofed north aisle and the cross vault in the old tower choir, the individual yokes are each covered with a mesh vault. In the main nave and choir, numerous keystones with coats of arms and saints can be seen in the vault, the vaults of the side chapels are mostly decorated with ornate coat of arms stars. The vaulted plinths of the main nave carry a total of twelve apostle half-busts.
Artistically significant stone carvings in the church are also the sacrament house in the northeast corner of the choir, which is crowned by a several meters high canopy decorated with figures and tracery , and the stone pulpit with its small octagonal canopy. The pulpit and sacrament house date from the time the church was expanded around 1515. The sacrament house was donated by Hans Reich in 1520 and bears the stonemason mark of church builder Sporer.
View through the main nave to the choir
View from the choir to the west gallery
Altars
Barbara altar
The Barbara altar was commissioned by Georg Wilhelm von Neipperg from the painter Jerg Ratgeb in 1510 . The altar is designed as a triptych with wings painted on both sides and shows the life and martyrdom of Saint Barbara in eleven scenes . In the course of the story, the characters portrayed get bigger and bigger. The decapitation of Barbara by her father Dioskuros is finally the main scene of the altar in the lower area of the central picture. On the left wing you can see Jesus with Maria Magdalena in the foreground , the right wing shows scenes from the life of the apostle Paul . The main scene on the right wing is the conversion of the apostle, who turns to Christ on a collapsing horse while his companions continue on their way. The farewell of the apostles is depicted on the outside of the altar wing. The predella shows two angels with instruments of torture and has asymmetrically sawn-out sides and a small central niche.
The central panel is 168 cm high and 98 cm wide. The wings are each 168 cm high and 49 cm wide. The altar bears the inscription SPES PREMII SOLACIUM LABO IMR 1510 on the lower frame of the central picture . The Latin saying means: The hope of recognition is the consolation of work . The signet IMR is that of the painter Jerg Ratgeb, 1510 is the year of creation. The altar was probably made in Heilbronn and was hung in the second side chapel next to the tombs of Ludwig and Anna von Neipperg until 1910. The altar was restored again in 1950 and after pest infestation in 1971.
Mary Altar
The altar of Mary in the choir is made of lime wood as a triptych. The altar, which is more than eight meters high, shows the dying Mary surrounded by disciples in the middle picture as a colored high relief . The altar wings show colored reliefs with scenes from the life of Mary: Annunciation, Visitation, Birth of Jesus and Adoration of the Kings. The painted outer sides of the wings each have two image fields with two depictions of saints each, namely Georg and Ursula, Katharina and Quirinus, Florian and Christophorus as well as Johannes and a bishop who cannot be identified in detail due to a lack of attributes. Colored figures of Barbara and Margarete can be seen on the inactive leaves . The shrine is 1.74 meters high and 1.53 meters wide. In the 5.75 meter high crack of the altar, fully plastic standing figures of a mercy seat and two saints are set up under towering pinnacles .
The motifs of the altar go u. a. probably based on an engraving by Martin Schongauer (Marientod) and Albrecht Dürer's life of the Virgin Mary. Different hands can be distinguished when performing the carving. The carver of the three-dimensional figures could have been trained by the Upper Rhine master HL . The altar was probably made in a workshop in Heilbronn, the painting of the altar is mainly attributed to Jerg Kugler , who was then active in Heilbronn, due to the initials I. K. , the dating 1523 and the stylistic proximity to the Fleiner St. Vitus Altar .
St. John's Altar
The Johannes altar, of which only two painted wings have survived in Schwaigern, is the oldest altar in the church and is dated to the late 15th century. The central painting of the altar is lost and its former motif is unknown. Although no St. John's altar is mentioned among the ten altars occupied in the church in 1496 and the altar panels could also come from another altar, it is assumed, due to the patronage of St. John, that the panels are remnants of a former high altar dedicated to the church patron . The altar was restored in 1962 and 1971.
The decapitation of John the Baptist and an apocalyptic Madonna can be seen on the outside of the wings. On the wing side with John the Baptist, numerous plants are depicted naturalistically in the surrounding landscape. The Madonna standing on the crescent moon, with a ring nimbus and a halo , is depicted in an architecture with a tiled floor, columns and vaulted ceiling. The insides of the wings show the baptism of Jesus on the left, the Saints Peter and George on the right with their respective attributes: Peter with the papal crown, book and key, George in armor, with a flag and dragon. The backgrounds of the inside of the panels are uniformly formed by half-height curtains with rich vegetal patterns.
As a peculiarity of the unknown painter who carried out the work, the strict, straight folds of the garment, whose hard composition contrasts with the filigree rendering of the garment patterns and textile structures, are considered. This peculiarity of the dressing as well as the same naturalistic depiction of plants can also be found on two altar panels from Rottweil, which are kept in the Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart and which are attributed to a Neckar Swabian master around 1440. Since the panels in Schwaigern are more compositionally accomplished, a painter of the same origin from a somewhat later period, perhaps around 1450–60, comes into question.
Martyr altar
The martyr's altar is a carved altar with a housing made of spruce wood, the figures of the shrine and the wings, which are in low or half relief, are carved from linden wood. The central shrine is 174 cm high and 123 cm wide. As a half-relief it shows the legend of Achatius of Armenia , according to which Romans who had converted to Christianity were overthrown to death from a rock. The inside of the wings show half-reliefs of Mary with the baby Jesus and the evangelist John . The center shrine and the insides of the wings are each decorated with tendril canopies. The outside of the wings show Christopherus on the left and Sebastian on the right as half-reliefs. The inner wings once had elaborate foliage similar to that of the central shrine. Half-reliefs of Katharina (left) and Barbara (right) can be seen on the inactive wings. A crucifixion group in the form of full figures has been preserved in the altar extract from what was once the more complex explosion . On the right of the predella, next to a relief carving of Anna herself, a kneeling female donor is shown in the same manner, the corresponding donor figure is missing from the missing spot on the left.
What is striking about the altar is the contrast between the moving scene in the central shrine, which is based on a motif reproduced several times by Albrecht Dürer, with the calm figures of saints on the wings, which are otherwise rarely found in the area. Instead, a contrast of calm figures in the shrine and moving scenes on the wings, as seen e.g. B. can be seen at the Crispinus and Eligius altar. The half-reliefs on the outside of the wing, which also have no regional equivalent, are just as unusual on the martyr's altar. Only the inactive wing reliefs of the altar in the Bonifatius Church in Braunsbach come close to them stylistically. The altar can be seen as a continuation of the techniques of Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden and Tilman Riemenschneider and was therefore probably made around 1520-25.
Crispinus and Eligius Altar
The Crispinus and Eligius altar is also a carved altar from around 1520. The shrine and wings are made of spruce wood, the figures of lime wood. The altar dedicated to Crispinus and Eligius shows scenes from the life of the saints on the wings as relief carvings: on the left two group pictures from the legend of the brothers Crispinus and Crispinianus (above the martyrdom of the brothers, below the saints with their characteristic shoe), on the right below the horse miracle attributed to Saint Eligius, above a scene that cannot be properly interpreted. The three-dimensional standing figures in the middle are James , Archangel Michael (with sword) and Margaret , the figures in the altar extract represent St. Martin, the Man of Sorrows and Nicholas . The outside of the wings, the inactive wings and the predellanic niche of the altar are empty, but originally also carried Figure decorations. In the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart there are three holy linden wood reliefs from Schwaigern, which were probably once part of the working day side of the altar.
Martyr altar
Crispinus and Eligius Altar
Funerary monuments
Numerous historical grave monuments of the Lords and Counts of Neipperg and their relatives have been preserved in the church, among which the stone tombstones of the builder of the church, Georg Wilhelm von Neipperg, and his wife Anna Barbara von Schwarzenberg in the middle side chapel on the south wall are of particular importance . Older literature attributed the tombs to the sculptor Christoph von Urach , while more recent literature speculates on an unknown Heidelberg master. The people are depicted as life-size relief sculptures. Georg Wilhelm appears in a lifelike pose as a knight in armor with a feather-adorned hat and the Neipperger flag surrounded by family and ancestral coats of arms. Anna Barbara, the donor of the Martyrs' Altar, is shown in a rigid praying posture. The people in the chapel niche to the right are depicted in a similar manner: Georg Wilhelm's son Ludwig von Neipperg, who appointed the first evangelical preacher in Schwaigern in 1525, and his wife Katharina von Stockheim. In total there are around 30 historical grave monuments in the church.
Anna Barbara von Neipperg born from Schwarzenberg
Ludwig von Neipperg
Katharina von Neipperg b. from Stockheim
In addition to the older stone slabs, there are also younger wooden epitaphs in the choir , which, in ornate colored painting, show the deceased in a praying posture in front of mostly biblical scenes and surrounded by inscriptions. The epitaphs of Hartmann von Neipperg († 1571) and Caspar Nothracht von Hohenberg, who was married to a Neippergerin, show the deceased with their wives praying in front of the resurrected one in the manner typical of the time. The middle pictures of the epitaphs are laterally framed by columns with the coats of arms of the ancestral line. In the choir there are additional epitaphs of a Neippergerin who died in 1630 and a Count Schenk von Waldstetten. The most recent epitaph is from 1734.
Nothafft -Epitaph
Giving epitaph
Epitaph Margret von Neipperg († 1630)
Man of Sorrows
Outside in the south-west corner of the church there is a Man of Sorrows , a larger than life stone sculpture of Jesus with a loincloth, a crown of thorns, wounds and a face marked by pain. The figure is crowned by an ornate canopy and stands in a pillar niche on a base that bears the building inscription of the church from 1514. The Man of Sorrows figure that is now on the outside is a copy of the original figure from 1520, with missing parts, which was moved inside the church in 1978 to protect it from progressive weathering. The original figure had no arms or hands for a long time. The original gesture can be seen on a drawing from 1748 and probably deviates from the arm position of the reconstruction.
organ
The organ was built in 1984 by the organ builder Rensch (Lauffen aN) and extensively restored in 2015. The slider chests -instrument has 34 registers on two manual stations and pedal . The first manual serves as a coupling manual to which only the swell is permanently attached. The main work can be disconnected using a manual slide coupler. The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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- Pair : II / I, II / P, III / P
literature
- Werner Clement: Schwaigern, Evangelical City Church . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2000, ISBN 3-7954-6327-0 ( Art Guide No. 2453)
- Ute Beitler: The town church in Schwaigern. Your building and art history . In: Schwaigern. Homeland book of the city of Schwaigern with the suburbs Massenbach, Stetten a. H. and Niederhofen . Stadtverwaltung Schwaigern, Schwaigern 1994, pp. 477–494.
- Hartmut Gräf: Unterländer Altars 1350–1540. An inventory . City Museums Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1983 ( Heilbronn Museum Booklet . No. 2)
- Immo Eberl: The Church History of Schwaigern . In: Heimatbuch über Schwaigern and its suburbs , Schwaigern 1994, pp. 441–476.
- Ute-Nortrud Kaiser: Jörg Ratgeb - trace security . Exhibition catalog. Frankfurt / Main and Pforzheim 1982, pp. 74-103 (advice activity in Heilbronn with a focus on the Schwaigerner Barbara altar).
- Karl Heinrich Koepf: The Man of Sorrows in the city church to Schwaigern . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , 7th year 1978, issue 3, pp. 100-103. ( PDF )
Individual evidence
Web links
- For the history of the Johanneskirche at kircheniertel-brackenheim.de
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 31 ″ N , 9 ° 3 ′ 33 ″ E