Korneuburg synagogue
The former Korneuburg synagogue (also called Roßmühle synagogue) is located at Propst-Bernhard-Straße 6 in the municipality of Korneuburg in the Korneuburg district in Lower Austria . The ruins of the synagogue stands since 1980 under monument protection ( list entry ) and is one of the most important examples of medieval synagogue architecture in Germany.
The synagogue as the center of the community
The first news about Jewish settlement in Korneuburg came with the tradition of an alleged host miracle and host atrocity allegation in 1305. There is no information about the Jews in Korneuburg, but it can be assumed that there was already a community in the 14th century In 1371 and 1418 three Jewish judges were attested and in 1469 a synagogue, which was probably confiscated as early as 1420, was given to the city. As of 1409, there is again no evidence of a Jewish community in Korneuburg. Between 1350 and 1420, the year of the nationwide expulsion from the duchy, a total of about nine Jews from Korneuburg can be documented, most of whom still lived in Vienna. Nonetheless, a functioning community was established in the first third of the 14th century, as the synagogue was built around 1325. A medieval synagogue was always the symbolic and geographical center of a community. In addition to its religious functions, the synagogue was a place of internal Jewish jurisdiction, a place of announcements, also of stately measures, but also of the settlement of Christian-Jewish disputes. When all Jews were expelled from the duchy or partly murdered in 1420/21 , the community and the synagogue also came to an end. The construction was financed by the family of Aharon von Korneuburg and his son Isserl (Israel).
The building, which has often been rebuilt, is located east of the main square in the immediate vicinity of the former city wall. Until the end of the 16th century the city rented it to various craftsmen before it came to the citizen Johannes Rosmüller, who set up his mill in it (hence the name "Roßmühle"). After a fire in 1766, the building was used as a storage room. The roof was destroyed in a storm in 1942. The building has been a listed building since 1980. There is a shed in the synagogue that takes up about half of the space.
Building description
The interior has an area of 100 m² and was therefore one of the largest synagogues in Austria at that time, only the Old Synagogue in Vienna was larger. The building is a cubic structure, consisting of quarry sandstone on a slightly elongated, rectangular floor plan. Outside the dimensions are approximately 10.50 × 13.20 m. The entrance was, as usual, on the north side, the bricked-up pointed arch of the entrance is still clearly visible. The main room corresponds to a hall with two vaulted yokes. The east and west walls are pierced with rose windows, the window in the east wall was flanked again by two very narrow, pointed arched lancet windows. In the middle of the east wall, which faces Jerusalem, there is a niche for a Torah shrine . Lancet windows are built into the north and south walls. On the south side there was the room intended for women, as on the outside of the south wall, just above today's floor level, there are four openings, which are now walled up, with arched lintels made of brick. On the inside, the stone frames of narrow horizontal viewing slits can still be seen in some cases. According to Orthodox Jewish tradition, women and men are separated from each other.
The cross-ribbed vault consisting of two six-part yokes is remarkable . Such a vault arises from the late Romanesque rib vault system, especially from the Anglo-Norman area (like the vaults at Ste-Trinité or St-Étienne ) and came to the German-speaking area through the role model effect of French Gothic cathedrals. In the synagogue in Marburg (in the second phase by about 1270) and in the built at the same time Altneuschul in Prague, such a structure also reveals, albeit in a slightly different form: In Prague building is a five-pointed Wölbeinheit.
literature
- Klaus-Dieter Alicke: Lexicon of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area. Volume 2: Großbock - Ochtendung. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-579-08078-9 ( online edition ).
- Sandra Glatz: Synagogues of the Middle Ages and early modern times in the Lower Austria area. Virtual reconstruction of the synagogues in Oberwaltersdorf and Ebenfurth. Diploma thesis at the Vienna University of Technology, Vienna 2013, pp. 9–10 ( online edition )
Web links
- Oldest synagogue remains in ruins (accessed March 19, 2016)
- Arne Herbote: Notes on the medieval synagogue (accessed on March 19, 2016)
Coordinates: 48 ° 20 ′ 38.8 ″ N , 16 ° 20 ′ 8 ″ E