St. Nicholas (Stendal)

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North elevation
Stendal Cathedral (1833)

The St. Nicholas Cathedral is a late Gothic brick church on the edge of the old town of Stendal . It is best known for its large collection of late medieval stained glass .

History and architecture

Towers of the cathedral
Remnants of the cloister

In 1188, Margrave Otto II of the Askanians and his brother Heinrich von Gardelegen , sons of the Askanier Otto I , founded a collegiate foundation in Stendal . Instead of a diocese initially planned here, they donated a pen under the patronage of St. Nicholas .

The collegiate chapter consisted of twelve secular canons : the provost, the dean and ten canons . It was independent of the bishop, was directly subordinate to the Pope and was thus the most important spiritual center of the Mark after the dioceses of Havelberg and Brandenburg . The provost of the Altmark's highest clergy and the canons held the church patronage over all of the Stendal parish churches, as well as over numerous churches in the surrounding villages. In a document from Pope Clement III. on May 29, 1188 it was declared that the new monastery in Stendal was directly subordinate to the Pope.

At around the same time, the construction of the first collegiate church began. It was a three-aisled basilica with a transept and apse , similar to the monastery church of Jerichow . The west facade with its two towers has been preserved from this first building.

The current building was built from 1423 onwards. It is assumed that in order to preserve the previous building for as long as possible, the choir , south wall and north wall of the nave were built around the existing building and only demolished after the outer walls were completed. Towards or shortly after the middle of the 15th century, the new church should have been largely completed. It is a three-aisled, four-bay hall church with a transept and a long choir. The three-bay long choir closes with a polygon made up of seven sides of a decagon. The building shows a close relationship with the slightly older pilgrimage church in Wilsnack and was probably built by the same construction hut .

The west building from the second quarter of the 13th century was taken over by the foundation building. The top floor of the towers dates from the 15th century and is crowned by pointed helmets. The transept has a richly decorated stepped gable with a tracery rosette and two stars of David at eaves height. A portal with a finely profiled sandstone border and statues of Saints Nicholas and Bartholomew leads from the north into the transept.

Inside, strong round pillars support the vault. Each of the almost square yokes of the side aisles has two window axes, so that five-part vaults are created similar to the side aisles of Magdeburg Cathedral . The choir is separated by a rood screen with two passages, which is provided to the west with an ambo on two columns and a vault. On the north side, the second yoke is followed by a vestibule, which is provided with a rose window and a stepped gable. This vestibule was necessary for access to the nave, as a Lady Chapel had been added to the west wall of the tower front and therefore access from the west to the nave was no longer available. This chapel was demolished in 1730 and can only be seen in the roof approach on the west building.

In 1551 the collegiate foundation was abolished as a result of the Reformation and its goods were assigned to the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt . St. Nikolaus became the parish church of the city and the seat of the superintendent of the Altmark.

During the Second World War , the building was severely damaged by bombs in an air raid on April 8, 1945. Above all, the vaults of the south transept and the west wing of the cloister were destroyed. The medieval windows were removed in good time and were spared.

Furnishing

Rood screen and choir
organ

Most of the furnishings are the 22 medieval stained glass windows that were made between around 1425 and 1480. Heavily restored in the 19th century, around half of the glass is likely to be original today. The large number of stained glass from the Middle Ages is unique in Central Germany and is only surpassed by the number of stained glass in Erfurt Cathedral .

The altar was rearranged from the remains of three altars and shows in the shrine Maria with the three holy kings in the style of the beautiful Madonnas around 1430 in an unusual asymmetrical composition. The predella with five female saints, which was originally created for the St. Petri Church in Seehausen , is a little younger . The wings with four reliefs of the legend of Mary come from the possession of the Stendal museums.

The choir stalls are richly carved from the construction period around 1430. In the cheeks there are free plastic figures and reliefs with scenes from the Old Testament. The front rows are crowned by eight seated figures of the prophets. In the misericordies of the back rows of seats there are imaginatively carved representations of masks, animals, mythical creatures , angels making music and genre scenes .

The wooden pulpit with a curved staircase and sparse decorations dates from 1744. The epitaphs of Katharina Staude, who died in 1548, with a fine Renaissance relief and Paulus Wagener with a rich architectural frame from 1591 should also be mentioned.

The organ on a gallery in the west has, behind a prospectus from 1912, a work from 1954 and 1970 with 56 stops , three manuals and pedal by Alexander Schuke based on the old model .

Monastery building

The cloister with the chapter house connects to the church to the south. The west wing was destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in a modern way by 2013. The two-story chapter house is located in the east wing, with the two-aisled chapter house on the lower floor . The chapter house, completed in 1463, is closed with cross vaults above low round pillars and has wide, pointed arched windows with frameworks. The south wing is open to the courtyard with wide pointed arches and on the upper floor shows decorative friezes made of shaped stones between pointed arched windows.

See also

literature

Books

  • Hermann Alberts: Abbey and Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Stendal. Lower Saxony Image Archive, Hanover 1930 (= North German Art Books, 27).
  • Verena Friedrich: Stendal, St. Nikolaus Cathedral. Kunstverlag Peda, Passau 1995, ISBN 3-930102-73-0 (= Peda art guide; 317).
  • Christian Popp: The Diocese of Halberstadt 1. The St. Nikolaus Abbey in Stendal. Germania Sacra , New Series 49. DeGruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019535-4 (plus dissertation, Humboldt University 2005; digital copy at Germania Sacra online).
  • Hannelore Sachs: The Stendal Cathedral. History of the city and cathedral monastery. Union Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-372-00259-8 . (= The Christian monument; 57).
  • Eberhard Simon (ed.): The St. Nicholas Cathedral in Stendal. History and present. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-374-00544-6 .

Essays

  • Hermann Justus Jeep: The cathedral in Stendal. In: Altmärkischer Hausfreund , calendar for the year 1895. 16th year. Self-published by CF Nachtigal, Stendal 1894, p. 55 f.
  • Hermann Alberts: 750 years of St. Nikolaus Abbey and Cathedral in Stendal. In: Annual report of the Altmärkischer Verein für Vaterländische Geschichte zu Salzwedel e. V. Vol. 52 (1938), pp. 3-11.
  • Karlheinz Blaschke : The Augustinian Canons of St. Nikolai in Stendal 1188–1551. In: Peter Johanek (Hrsg.): Urban plan and urban development. Research into the development of central European cities. Selected essays by Karlheinz Blaschke (= urban research: series A, representations vol. 44). 2., unchanged. Aufl. Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-02601-8 , pp. 302-314.

Web links

Commons : Dom St. Nikolaus (Stendal)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The pen did not follow any order rule, according to Popp (Lit.), p. 22 against older opinion.
  2. ↑ a b c d Hannelore Sachs: The Stendal Cathedral. History of the city and cathedral monastery. Berlin 1988, p. 5. (= The Christian Monument; 57.)
  3. ↑ a b Eberhard Simon: The buildings of the cathedral monastery - past and present. In: Eberhard Simon (ed.): The St. Nicholas Cathedral in Stendal. History and present. Berlin 1988, p. 21.
  4. ↑ Popp (Lit.), pp. 32-40.
  5. ^ Superintendent Hermann Alberts and Udo von Alvensleben had deposited the medieval windows in his manor in Wittenmoor .
  6. ^ Ernst Schäfer: Laudatio Organi. 4th edition. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1982, p. 180 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 36 ′ 1.3 ″  N , 11 ° 51 ′ 37.5 ″  E