| St. Michael's | |
|---|---|
| Church of St. Michael's | |
Michaeliskirche or St. Michaelis | |
 St. Michaelis in 2009, view from southeast | |
  St. Michael's  St. Michael's | |
| 52°09′10″N 09°56′37″E / 52.15278°N 9.94361°E | |
| Location | Hildesheim |
| Country | Germany |
| Denomination | simultaneum (Lutheran and Catholic) |
| Website | michaelis-hildesheim |
| History | |
| Status | parish church |
| Dedication | |
| Consecrated | 1022 |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | active |
| Architectural type | basilica with 2 quires and 2 transepts |
| Style | Romanesque Gothic (southern side windows) |
| Groundbreaking | late 10th century |
| Completed | late 12th century |
| Specifications | |
| Length | overall: 74.75 metres (245.2 ft) nave between crossings: 27.34 metres (89.7 ft) transepts: 40.01 metres (131.3 ft) |
| Width | nave: 22.75 metres (74.6 ft) transepts: 11.38 metres (37.3 ft) |
| Nave width | 8.6 metres (28 ft), centre nave |
| Nave height | 16.7 metres (55 ft) |
| Number of spires | 2 crossing towers and 4 side towers |
| Bells | 10 |
| Administration | |
| Synod | Lutheran Church of Hanover, Diocese of Hildesheim |
| Deanery | Hildesheim-Sarstedt (Kirchenkreis), Hildesheim (Dekanat) |
| Parish | Kirchengemeinde St. Michaelis, Hildesheim (Lutheran), Pfarrgemeinde St. Godehard, Hildesheim (Catholic) |
| Clergy | |
| Provost | Land Superintendent Eckhard Gorka, Hildesheim-Göttingen diocese |
| Official name | St Michael's Lutheran Church |
| Part of | St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Church at Hildesheim |
| Criteria | Cultural: (i), (ii), (iii) |
| Reference | 187bis-001 |
| Inscription | 1985 (9th Session) |
| Extensions | 2008 |
| Area | 0.58 ha (1.4 acres) |
| Buffer zone | 157.68 ha (389.6 acres) |
The Church of St. Michael (German: Michaeliskirche) is an early-Romanesque church in Hildesheim, Germany. It has been on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list (along with the nearby Hildesheim Cathedral) since 1985 because of its outstanding Romanesque architecture and art.[1] It is now a shared church, the main church being Lutheran and the crypt being Roman Catholic.
YouTube Encyclopedic
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Bronze doors, Saint Michael's, Hildesheim, commissioned by Bishop Bernward, 1015
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Travel Germany - Visiting St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim
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The Church of St. Michael - Hildesheim, Germany - UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list .
Transcription
SPEAKER 1: We're looking at the Bishop Bernward doors that date from about 1015. We know that Bishop Bernward went on a pilgrimage to Rome, and then returned back to Hildesheim, and wanted to recreate some of the monumental art that he saw. And specifically, when he was in Rome, he saw the monumental wooden doors at Santa Sabina that have scenes from the Old and New Testament carved into them. And he felt like he needed his own doors. SPEAKER 2: We read these starting in the upper left hand corner, in which you have the creation of Eve from the side of Adam. And then, below that is the presentation of Eve to Adam. Then the temptation. Below that, is then the accusation of Adam and Eve. And then, below that, the expulsion. The panel below that, interrupted by the door handles, and we see Adam working the land on the left, Eve nursing on the right. And a fun fact about the Eve nursing is that this is one of maybe only 20 images of Eve nursing. Below that, we have Cain and Abel and their sacrifices or presentation to the Lord. Below that, in the final panel, is the murder of Abel by Cain. SPEAKER 1: And then, instead of going back to the top, on the right it starts at the bottom, where we have the Annunciation, with Mary and the angel. Then the Nativity, that's the birth of Jesus. And then the scene that's interrupted by the door handle here is the adoration of the magi. We have three magi on the right approaching Mary and Jesus on the left. Above that, we have the presentation in the Temple. Above that, we've got Christ being presented to either Herod or Pilate before his crucifixion. Above that, we've got the crucifixion of Christ. Above that, we have the Marys at the tomb, which was the standard scene showing the Resurrection in the early Middle Ages. And then at the very top, we have what's called the noli me tangere. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus in the garden, and he says, don't touch me. And so we have our scenes from early Genesis, and then scenes from the Gospels. Now, one of the really interesting things that happens here is that we have all these scenes lined up next to each other. There are some visual and also some thematic patterns that happen left to right. And the one that I think is a really good example-- in the third panel from the top, we've got the Temptation. Adam and Eve are about to eat the fruit. And then on the right, the Crucifixion. And if we look at the tree that holds the fruit in the Adam and Eve scene, it's very much a cruciform shaped tree, just as we have Christ on the cross in the center of the other image. And then we have Adam and Eve on either side, just as we have the tormentors on either side. And then on the far edges of the Adam and Eve scene, we've got trees. And then, we have Mary and John in the Crucifixion scene. So there's a similarity of composition. And what I think that does is bring out the thematic connection of in Adam all men die, and in Christ all men are made alive, which is a really important idea for Christianity. And especially for Christianity in the Middle Ages. SPEAKER 2: Absolutely. This is a very long, old tradition in Christianity to compare Christ as the new Adam, and then Mary, the new Eve. And you have traditions that the cross was made from the wood of the tree in the garden. SPEAKER 1:So this an Ottonian work of art. And Ottonians were kind of, hangers on to the Carolingian Renaissance. They saw themselves as being inheritors of the Carolingian Empire. In my mind, they are not so much looking back so diligently to the classical models. But there is definitely the flavor of some of that Carolingian Renaissance here. These are cast in solid bronze. And it's very much thought that the lost wax method was used here. That Bishop Bernward had his artists recreate or rediscover the lost wax method, so that these doors could be cast in two single pieces, as opposed to being hammered from the inside with the repousse. SPEAKER 2: And that is very much in keeping with that Carolingian and the inherited idea of looking back to classical and ancient models and reclaiming them and reviving them. SPEAKER 1: Right. So we have the ancient method used here in the Ottonian period.
History
Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (996–1022) built a Benedictine monastery from the ground up on a hill linked with the archangel Michael just a half kilometer north of the city walls of his seat (Hildesheim), a monastery that featured an imposing church some 70 meters in length overall. Bernward set the first stone for the new church in 1010 and dedicated the still unfinished building to Michael on the archangel's feast day, 29 September 1022, just a few weeks before his death. Construction, however, continued under his successor, Bishop Godehard (died 1038), who completed the work in 1031 and reconsecrated the church to Michael on September 29 of that year. The church has double choirs east and west, double tripartite transepts at either end of the nave, and six towers—two large ones over the crossings east and west, and four other tall and narrow ones attached to the small sides of the two transepts. The eastern choir featured three apses, and the west had a deep chapel with a huge single apse rising high over an elaborate cross-vaulted hall crypt with an ambulatory. Bishop Bernward's remains were placed in the western crypt.
The monastery comprised a church family and had two other sanctuaries dedicated to Martin and the Holy Cross lying in the cloister that extended northward from St. Michael's north flank. The monastery and church opened southward toward the city of Hildesheim, its south flank comprising a facade of a sort. It seems likely that the monastery on the Hill of St. Michael was surrounded by a wall.[2]
In 1186, after a reconstruction following a fire, Hildesheim's Bishop Adelog of Dorstedt – assisted by Tammo, Prince-Bishop of Verden – reconsecrated St. Michael's.
When the people of Hildesheim became Protestant in 1542, St. Michael's became Lutheran, but the Benedictine monastery operated here until it was secularized in 1803. Monks continued to use the church, especially its western choir and crypt, down to that moment.
St. Michael's Church was heavily damaged in an air raid during World War II on 22 March 1945, but reconstruction was begun in 1950 and completed in 1957. In 1985, the church became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, along with the Cathedral of Hildesheim, its collection of medieval treasures and its 1000-year-old rosebush.
Architecture
St. Michael's Church is one of the most important churches of early Christian period architecture. It is a double-choir basilica with two transepts and a square tower at each crossing. The west choir is emphasized by an ambulatory and a crypt. Nikolaus Pevsner wrote that St. Michael's "is the earliest surviving example of a truly Romanesque exterior."[3]
The ground plan of the building follows a geometrical conception, in which the square of the transept crossing in the ground plan constitutes the key measuring unit for the entire church. The square units are defined by the alternation of columns and piers. Pevsner described this as a "more thorough 'metrical system' " than found in any prior Romanesque architecture.[4]
The ceiling of the church is decorated with a fresco, 27.6 m long and 8.7 m wide, depicting the Tree of Jesse, the ancestral line of Jesus.[1] The genealogy has been dated to roughly 1130. The famous Bernward Doors, featuring bronze reliefs of scenes from the Bible, were originally commissioned for St. Michael's but are now found at the nearby Cathedral of Hildesheim.[5]
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The Bernward Column in St. Michael's (before 1810); reconstruction by Carpiceci/Gallistl -
St. Michael's from inside before restoration 2005 -
The Woehl-organ from 1999 -
The wooden ceiling, together with the wooden ceilings of Zillis (Switzerland) and Dädesjö (Sweden), is one of the few monumental panel paintings of the high Middle Ages that have survived. -
St. Michael's from inside after complete restoration between 2005 and 2010
Measurements
- Total length: 74.75 m
- Total length of the transepts: 40.01 m
- Total width of the transepts: 11.38 m
- Length of the crypt: 18.36 m
- Length of the nave: 27.34 m
- Width of the nave incl. lower aisles: 22.75 m
- Width of the nave without lower aisles: 8.60 m
- Height of the nave without lower aisles: 16.70 m
- Thickness of the walls: 1.63 m
Location
St. Michael's Church is situated at the Western rim of the city centre of Hildesheim, on the so-called Michaelishügel ("St. Michael's Hill"). The main entrance to the Church is on the south side. Magdalenengarten, a baroque park, is very close to the church in the west. The cloister is also accessible from there. It leads to the Church's contemporary (administrative) buildings. From the south and east of the Hill is Hildesheim's downtown, to the west is the River Innerste and in the north the Gymnasium Andreanum school.
Burials
See also
References
- ^ a b "St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Church at Hildesheim". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Gerhard Lutz and Angela Weyer, eds., 1000 Jahre St. Michael in Hildesheim (Hildesheim: Hornemann Institut der HAWK, 2012)
- ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus (1953). An Outline of European Architecture (5th ed.). Penguin. p. 51.
- ^ Pevsner 1953, pp. 43–44.
- ^ "Hildesheim Cathedral". Sacred Destinations. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
External links
- Introduction to the Michaeliskirche (Hornemann Institut)
- Exhibition "Bernwards Schätze" (Bernward's Treasures) online Hannoverische Allgemeine photo gallery (in German)
- St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim on sekulada.com (in Polish)
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This page was last edited on 26 December 2023, at 17:03