St. Goar Collegiate Church
The St. Goar Collegiate Church is a Protestant parish church in the city of St. Goar in Rhineland-Palatinate . The former collegiate church is one of the most prominent representatives of medieval church buildings in the Rhein-Hunsrück district . With its Romanesque crypt , the late Romanesque choir and the late Gothic nave, it gives lively evidence of the building traditions and architectural developments on the Middle Rhine .
The collegiate church of St. Goar has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Upper Middle Rhine Valley since 2002 ; it is also a protected cultural asset under the Hague Convention .
Patronage
The church is consecrated to Saint Goar , a priest monk from Aquitaine (born around 495 in France, died on July 6th, 575 in St. Goar). Under King Childebert I (511–558) he came to the Rhine and founded a cell near what is now Oberwesel . In the settlement named after him, St. Goar on the Middle Rhine, a relief plate with the image of the saint has been preserved in the Catholic Church of St. Goar and St. Elisabeth . It shows Goar as the founder of the city with a church model. The Holy stands victorious on the Devil, while two angels carry him the robe and two other crowning a canopy hold over him.
The tower of the Protestant parish church (former collegiate church) of St. Goar also bears witness to the city's founder and his famous hospitality, especially towards the Rhine boatmen. Saint Goar, a boatman pleading for help and a woman surrounded by demons appear in one field of view. The accompanying text says: “St. Goar, their patron in need of shipwreck and honest name. "
History and construction process
The cell of Saint Goar and the buildings of the Prüm Abbey
A building on the site of today's Protestant parish church of St. Goar in the seventh century is documented for the first time. It was the cell built by Saint Goar to accommodate clergymen and believers. After the saint's death, clerics continued his activities in the Marienkapelle and in the hospitium of the newly founded settlement, but no new buildings have survived from that time. At the Imperial Assembly in Attigny in 765, King Pippin gave the cell to the Abbot Assuer von Prüm . This personal donation became the property of the entire Prüm Abbey around 782 under King Charlemagne . In the course of the 8th century , a church consecrated to the priest monk St. Goar and an adjacent monastery building were built on the site of the former cell .
The collegiate church at the time of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen
Around 1089 a fire devastated the building and the church was rebuilt from scratch over almost four centuries. After the construction of the Romanesque crypt at the end of the eleventh century, the late Romanesque choir and its side towers were built around 1250. The construction work came to an end with the rebuilding of the entire nave from 1444 to 1469 by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen. As former bailiffs of the Prüm Abbey, they were able to develop the city of St. Goar and the Rhine Pass there into one of their dominant centers in the course of territorialization, of which the Rheinfels Castle above the city still provides impressive evidence. They used the church as a residential church until the middle of the 15th century and probably also planned a hereditary burial there, but this was not realized because the Katzenelnbogen house died out in the male line around 1479. The Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen fell to the Landgraves of Hesse.
The collegiate church at the time of the Landgraves of Hesse
Under the Landgraves of Hesse as universal heirs of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen, the change of use from the Catholic collegiate church to the Protestant parish church took place in the 16th century, because Landgrave Philip I of Hesse (1504–1567) was the first German prince to become a Reformation known. The Synod of Homberg already adopted two years later (1526) the so-called Hessian Reformation order and deliberate steps firmly to establish the new faith believes. The theology professor Adam Krafft was specially commissioned by the Landgrave to visit the Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen in 1527. When he arrived on November 1, 1527, he brought the new pastor Gerhard Eugenius Ungefug with him to St. Goar and on January 1, 1528 the first Protestant sermon was held in the collegiate church. During the Schmalkaldic War and the subsequent Augsburg interim , Superintendent Melchior Schott, who was then acting in St. Goar, stayed with the Lutheran creed despite massive attempts at intimidation by the then Archbishop Johann V. von Isenburg . Schott's epitaph in the high choir of the collegiate church provides detailed information on this. After the death of Landgrave Philip I and the Hessian division of the estate in 1567, St. Goar and Rheinfels Castle also fell to Landgrave Philip II of Hesse-Rheinfels , along with the Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen . Around 1576, another attempt by the Archbishop of Trier to recatholize the collegiate church via a repurchase right of the Prüm Abbey from 1449 failed . This did not happen, however, because the Landgraves of Hesse made their consent to the incorporation of the abbey in the Trier Kurerzstift, which was required as prudish feudal people, on the condition that the archbishop waived this right of repurchase. Between 1598 and 1610, on the orders of Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel, whose house had come into the possession of the Lower Count after the childless death of Landgrave Philip II, the Reformed Confession was introduced at the collegiate church. The overpainting of the frescoes and the dismantling of the organ, which was ordered in the course of this measure and with reference to the Calvinist ban on images, caused considerable protests in the St. Goar citizenship.
The collegiate church today
Today the collegiate church is one of the five preaching places of the Protestant parish of St. Goar. That at the Ev. Stiftskirche in St. Goar survived the introduction of the Reformation in Hesse, because the dissolution of the monasteries required by the Hessian church order was not applicable to spiritual monasteries. The secularization of ecclesiastical property in the areas on the left bank of the Rhine occupied by France in 1794 was also not applied to Protestant church property, so that the assets of the monastery still exist today in a considerably reduced form and are administered by a monastery advisory board, which is appointed as a committee of the St. Goar presbytery become.
description
Ground plan and structure of the church
The former collegiate church of St. Goar is east and has a three-aisled building structure.
The Romanesque crypt
The earliest surviving evidence of sacred buildings is the large crypt from the second half of the eleventh century, which Georg Dehio described in his handbook of German art monuments as "the most beautiful on the Rhine between Cologne (St. Maria im Kapitol) and Speyer". This first phase of construction, which is still preserved today, extends under the base of the choir and the apse over a total of four bays . The column-supported crypt, like the apse erected on its outer walls, ends in a semicircle to the east. The subdivision of the crypt into a central and two side aisles results in the development of square groin vaults in the central nave and rectangular vaults in the side aisles. The yokes of the central nave are defined partly by round, partly by slightly tapering belt arches and give an early testimony to the timid arrival of Gothic building culture on the Middle Rhine. The columns are made of marble , granite and sandstone and stand on high Attic bases . The base of the vault rests on squat cube capitals . The different materials paired with the simple forms of the Romanesque create a simple and cheerful aesthetic in the crypt. The original access to the crypt was on the west side in the central nave, but is no longer accessible today. Instead, it is accessed via an entrance on the southwest side of the church. The foundation walls of the choir flank towers, as well as the triumphal arch and the side walls of the apse probably also come from this earliest construction phase.
The late Romanesque choir
The final construction of the apse in the 5/10 end on the eastern boundary walls of the crypt, as well as the construction of the choir and the flank towers, however, did not take place until around 1250. The polygonal structure of the apse is emphasized on the exterior by corner pilasters , the wall fields are broken through by lancet windows and are covered by blinds in a pointed arch look. The middle of the windows has tracery , the time of its creation being uncertain. The vault of the apse, which consists of pear ribs, arises from the inside from services that are bundled by whorls (shaft rings). The southern choir flank tower only extends as far as the cornice of the choir and shows the original state of the east complex to this day. Barrel and rib vaults can be found at the location of today's baptistery in the basement. On the upper floor, domed pointed arch windows refer to the late Romanesque period of construction. The northern choir flank tower, on the other hand , bears witness to sporadic changes in the Baroque period , as evidenced by the roof turret with onion dome over the gable roof . Nothing is known about the shape of the nave before the fire in the eleventh century. The nave of the former collegiate church received its present appearance from around 1444 to 1469, when the building was elevated to the residential church of the Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen and funds were available for the reconstruction of the nave, which had been planned since the end of the eleventh century.
The late Gothic nave
The largely unchanged late Gothic church interior is 19 meters wide, 24 meters long and 16 meters high up to the choir. The depths of the side aisles each take up about half of the floor space of the nave and extend over the same height in elevation (hall church). The galleries drawn into the side aisles identify the building as a gallery hall. The main entrance to the church leads through a west tower crowned with battlements and almost completely inserted into the first yoke of the nave, which is pushed like a bolt between the first yoke of the north and south transepts. At the level of the second and third yoke, two chapels were added to both aisles to the north and south . The interior of the church is vaulted by an elaborate reticulated vault on octagonal pillars that varies slightly in the central and side aisles , which ends in elaborately designed figural and ornamental keystones. The ribs of the arcades , which separate the aisles from the nave, partially merge into the filigree net vault .
The structural changes to the Heidelberg Church of the Holy Spirit around 1440 are believed to be the model for the octagonal pillars drawn over the galleries . The galleries divide the aisles into two floors of equal height. The four main bays are adjoined in the east by the almost square choir, already described above. While the galleries in the west are led around the tower, the choir flank towers in the interior of the church are structurally separated from the facade of the side aisles.
Architectural jewelry
When discussing the purely decorative architectural decorations, the painting of the nave that began after the completion of the building around 1469 and lasted 20 years should be mentioned. The figurative works, rediscovered around 1900 and restored in the 1960s, testify - in correspondence with the color scheme of the church exterior - of an economical, but powerful and lively color scheme. All supporting structural elements, such as the arcade arches, the services or the ribs of the net vault, were painted red and grouted in white. The important position of the keystones was additionally emphasized by beams in blue and red. In addition to the depiction of the Last Judgment on the east wall, which is unfortunately lost today, the vaulted caps of the side aisles, the chapels and the wall panels under the galleries were decorated with individual figures of saints and religious groups. In the spandrels of the central nave arches, the twelve apostles, facing each other in pairs, are depicted with the lines of the creed traditionally assigned to them ( apostle credo ) . In the baptistery on the ground floor of the southern choir tower, a mural from the 14th century has been preserved, showing St. John.
Noteworthy furnishings
Earliest evidence of the interior
In the south aisle there are two gravestones from the Middle Rhine early Gothic. One is provided with a portrait of a head of the Prüm Abbey and dates from around 1320. The second tombstone was made for Adelheid von Katzenelnbogen-Waldeck, who died in 1329. In the late Gothic pulpit (1460) is probably a stone carving from the workshop of in Koblenz -based Hermann Sander . It is carried by Saint Goar and the four evangelists . The supporting figures and the figure of Christ are embedded in keel arch niches. Another original furnishing object from the mid-15th century are the glass panes in the northern chapel annex to the east, which is painted with saints.
The grave of Landgrave Philip II of Hesse-Rheinfels
Probably the best-known and most elaborate objects that were erected here in the course of the appointment of the collegiate church to the residential church are the marble tombs from the early Baroque in the northern side chapel towards the entrance in the west. The former is Landgrave Philip II (d. J .) by Hessen-Rheinfels and was erected in the year of his death by Wilhelm Vernukken from Kalkar . The third legitimate son of Philip I (the magnanimous) was born in Marburg in 1541, “since the death of his father in 1567, according to the division of the estate in his will, he was the sovereign master of the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen, where he [among other things] managed the Rheinfels via St. Goar […] to [r] residence [] expanded ”. The tomb of Landgrave Philip II, as an earlier work of art, still shows an additive structure. About a high, rich with Bandelwerk occupied base , a nearly full plastically dissolved from the wall rises sarcophagus , whose "flat ribbon jewelry" Heinzelmann in his article, "North German [n] influences [n]" has been associated. A triumphal arch-like case with rocailles is placed on the sarcophagus - connected to the substructure by volutes . This frames the slightly stepping forward, fully sculptured figure of the Landgrave and ends in a mighty cornice . The second tomb is historically closely linked to the creation of the first, as it shows the landgrave's wife. Anna Elisabeth was born as Countess Palatine von Simmern , was married to Landgrave Philipp II until 1599 and then to Count Palatine Johann August von Veldenz . The installation of the monument together with that of her first husband makes a date before 1599 plausible. A documented, secured attribution of the second tomb to the master of the Cologne town hall vestibule is not possible, but its authorship is generally regarded as probable, especially since it is in no way inferior to the first in terms of the quality of the execution. If the ornamentation is much more filigree, the architecture of the monument appears more organized and streamlined. Two simple columns with acanthus capitals support a projecting cornice richly covered with rocailles, above which the aedicule with the statue of Landgravine Anna Elisabeth rises. Corresponding to baroque architectural treatises, this more important level is characterized by more elaborate architectural decorations. The columns are not only elevated, but also have decorated shafts and are accompanied by double pilasters . The tomb structure closes in an arch field with a cartouche . The figure of the landgrave, who stands opposite her husband, worked in step position, almost statuesque and with folded hands at the same height, underlines the height and the fine elegance of the monument. In the case of the second tomb, Heinzelmann attested a relationship “with the large southern German series of monuments from the end of the 16th century to Wertheim , Pforzheim and Tübingen ”. The stucco work in the north-western side chapel is now also attributed to Wilhelm Vernukken, who built it on the theme of Christian virtues . His work in the chapel of Wilhelmsburg Castle near Schmalkalden can be used as comparative examples.
Tomb of Philip II
Tomb of Anna Elisabeth
19th century furnishings
At the end of the chapel to the north aisle is a wrought-iron historicist grille, which was made around 1900 by Gottfried Strobel from Mainz in a renaissance style and probably replaced a baroque iron gate that was removed when the monuments were installed. The Stumm organ was installed at the beginning of the 19th century. The pews of the church come from the era of historicism and were adapted in a neo-Gothic style to the late medieval interior of the church.
organ
The organ of the collegiate church was built between 1818 and 1820 by the organ builders Franz Heinrich and Carl Stumm (Sulzbach / Hunsrück). Originally it had 23 stops on two manuals and a pedal . The instrument was initially set up in the choir and was only moved to the west gallery in 1842. After the Second World War, the organ was restored and expanded several times. Today the instrument has 26 stops on two manuals and a pedal. Six stops of the Stumm organ are intact and two are still partially preserved.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
Historic bells
From the originally four-part medieval peal, three bells have survived to this day. The oldest and at the same time smallest bell probably comes from the first half of the 13th century. and has the typical sugar loaf shape. The two large bells are dated to 1506 and were cast by the Trier bell caster Wilhelm von Rode.
Stylistic classification and meaning
The crypt - important role models
The importance of the crypt from the middle of the eleventh century was already referred to at the beginning of the fourth chapter. Dehio's comparison of the collegiate church with such important buildings as St. Maria in the Capitol in Cologne (1040) or the Speyer Cathedral is remarkable in that the shape of the large, groin-vaulted hall crypt in the case of St. Goars evolved from strongholds of the late Romanesque within a single decade Building culture prevailed in the province.
The hall type
The former collegiate church in St. Goar combines the type of hall church with the construction of galleries and can thus be located in the building traditions of the Middle Rhine. The basic type of the gallery hall paired with particularly elaborate individual forms - Dehio particularly emphasized the "dovetail-shaped rib endings in the south aisle" - show the Protestant parish church of St. Goar as the highlight and model of late Gothic architecture between Ahrweiler and Heidelberg . The parish church in Kiedrich im Rheingau is one of the church buildings that may have been based on the former collegiate church . The end of the choir of the collegiate church at Münstermaifeld has a striking resemblance to the apse of the former collegiate church of St. Goar with its 5/10 structure, the pear ribs of the vault and the whirled services. It is largely unclear which of the two church buildings may have been the inspiration for the design of the other. The beginning of the construction of the choir of the Münstermaifeld monastery can be dated after the acquisition of a quarry in 1225 and, according to Overdick, belongs to the first phase of the construction work, which continued into the 14th century. The much more elaborate painting of the ribs and services could be seen as an indication of a successor to the St. Goarer Stift.
The hall shape was already established as a type of church in Germany in the 14th century. From regional characteristics in old Bavaria and Westphalia , this design was soon used in large parts of Germany. After the first churches of this type in Hesse, such as B. the Elisabeth Church in Marburg (1235–1285), followed by the hall church on the Middle Rhine. The type of gallery hall must also be seen in direct connection with the clients from the Palatinate / Katzenelnbogen. The Heiliggeistkirche, a Palatine residential church in Heidelberg, probably served as a model.
The decorative elements
The former collegiate church also set accents for Rhenish art in the decorative design. According to Georg Dehio, the painting of the nave from the middle of the 15th century is, for example, "the most extensive monument of this art form from the late Middle Ages on the Rhine." The foliage ornaments of the late Gothic capitals, keystones and consoles are particularly convincing of the three-dimensional architectural decorations .
Reticulated vault in the aisle with church patron Goar in the keystone
Mesh vault of the central nave
Vault in the south aisle with depictions of Mary and saints
Prophet console
Radiant wreath ma-donna and prophet console
Stone pulpit around 1460
Fresco with the martyrdom of Saint Agatha of Catania
literature
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Volume Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland, 2nd arr. and exp. Edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin and Munich 1984
- Josef Heinzelmann : The landgrave burial place in the collegiate church of St. Goar. In: Yearbook for West German State History , Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 25–61
- Michael Imhof: Collegiate Church of St. Goar in St. Goar on the Rhine. Ed .: Wolfgang Krammes; Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2003
- Jürgen Kaiser / Florian Monheim : Romanesque in the Rhineland. Greven, Cologne 2008
- Karl Künstle: Iconography of the Saints. Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1926
- Norbert Nussbaum: German church architecture of the Gothic. Development and designs. DuMont, Cologne 1985
- Michael Overdick: The architectural system of the Rhenish late Romanesque. Werner, Worms 2005
- Ritter, Alexander: Confession and politics on the Hessian Middle Rhine (1527–1685). Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt and Marburg 2007.
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Künstle: Iconography of the Saints . Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1926, p. 283.
- ↑ pastor Krammes: Private Website to the former Collegiate Church of St. Goar
- ↑ a b Collegiate Church of St. Goar on the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage Site
- ↑ a b Ritter, Alexander: Confession and politics on the Hessian Middle Rhine (1527–1685) . Darmstadt and Marburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88443-307-2 , pp. 42-224 .
- ^ Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments . Volume Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland, 2nd arr. and exp. Edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin and Munich 1984, p. 913.
- ↑ inschriften.net
- ^ Josef Heinzelmann: The landgrave burial place in the collegiate church of St. Goar . In: Yearbook for West German State History , Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 25–61. P. 26.
- ^ A b Josef Heinzelmann: The landgrave burial place in the collegiate church of St. Goar . In: Yearbook for West German State History , Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 25–61. P. 35.
- ^ Josef Heinzelmann: The landgrave burial place in the collegiate church of St. Goar . In: Yearbook for West German State History , Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 25–61. P. 40.
- ^ Josef Heinzelmann: The landgrave burial place in the collegiate church of St. Goar . In: Yearbook for West German State History , Vol. 29, 2003, pp. 25–61. Pp. 35-36.
- ↑ More information on the Stumm organ , accessed on April 1, 2019.
- ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer , Matthias Thömmes: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (= contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 40 ). tape 4 : Koblenz and Trier administrative districts, Altenkirchen and Neuwied districts . Schott, Mainz 2005, ISBN 978-3-7957-1342-3 , pp. 939-940 .
- ^ Michael Overdick: The architectural system of the Rhenish late Romanesque . Werner, Worms 2005, p. 18.
- ↑ a b Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments . Volume Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland, 2nd arr. and exp. Edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin and Munich 1984, p. 914.
- ^ Michael Overdick: The architectural system of the Rhenish late Romanesque . Werner, Worms 2005, p. 159.
- ^ Norbert Nussbaum: German church architecture of the Gothic . DuMont, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7701-1415-9 , pp. 86-87 .
Web links
- Hit list in the picture index of art and architecture
- Pastor Krammes' private website on the former collegiate church of St. Goar
- The collegiate church of St. Goar, regionalgeschichte.net
- Church history on Mittelrhein.info
- Scientific processing of the inscriptions on German inscriptions online
- Collegiate Church in the Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage Site
- History of the collegiate church on the homepage of the Protestant parish of St. Goar
- Bells of the St. Goar Collegiate Church
Coordinates: 50 ° 9 ′ 1.9 ″ N , 7 ° 42 ′ 53.6 ″ E