Münster Unserer Lieben Frau: Villingen’s Principal Catholic Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page14 sections
History
Münster Unserer Lieben Frau is a historic Catholic church in Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany, built in stages from 1130 to 1284, beginning in the Romanesque style and concluding as a Gothic church. It stands in the center of Villingen and serves as the district’s principal Catholic church. Originally dedicated to John the Baptist, it is now dedicated to Our Lady, a Christian title for the Virgin Mary.
Romanesque beginnings and Gothic completion
Construction began in 1130 in the Romanesque tradition, characterized by massive walls, rounded arches, and compact forms. A town fire in 1271 destroyed parts of the church and led to a change in the building’s architectural direction. Work was completed in 1284 as a Gothic church, a style associated with pointed arches, larger windows, and greater vertical emphasis.
Two towers, each approximately 50 metres high, were added during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their lower levels contain chapels, extending the church’s architectural and devotional spaces.
Baroque transformation
During the eighteenth century, the church was enlarged and received Baroque elements, a style known for dramatic forms, rich ornament, and theatrical spatial effects. Ignatius Bürkner created a stucco ceiling in 1701, replacing the earlier barrel-vaulted ceiling. Anton Joseph Schupp made the Apostles’ figures between 1715 and 1719, while the local metalworkers Johann Stern and Caspar Speth produced the choir grille in 1724.
Johann Martin Hermann created a high altar in 1738. The altar and other furnishings later became targets of nineteenth-century Puritan reforms. In 1829, the interventions removed 70 statues, 10 stained-glass windows, 60 epitaphs, and the choir grille. The Baroque high altar was removed in 1857, and the remaining pieces of the grille are preserved in the Franciscan Museum.
War, memory, and modern restoration
During the Second World War, destruction at the church was confined to its northern windows. The church’s choir director and organist, Ewald Huth, was executed in 1944 after criticizing National Socialism.
A comprehensive renovation carried out from 1978 to 1982 reshaped parts of the interior and entrances. The work introduced new flooring, benches, windows, and a priest’s bench by Elmar Hillebrand. Klaus Ringwald designed an ambo, a reading stand for the liturgy, an altar for liturgical celebration, and two bronze portals. The main portal and south portal were also redesigned by Ringwald. Münster Unserer Lieben Frau is recognized as an architectural monument.
Remains
Church fabric and interior
The surviving building combines Romanesque foundations and forms with a Gothic completion, later Baroque alterations, and twentieth-century interventions. The two towers rise to about 50 metres, with chapels in their lower levels. Within the church, the Gothic pulpit remains, although its builder is unknown. The earlier wheel window was replaced by a pointed-arch window, and the ceiling now carries Bürkner’s stucco work from 1701.
Tower chapels and later altars
In 1908, the chapels in the lower stories of the towers received two paired double altars made by the Moroder brothers. Their altar paintings were created by Martin Feuerstein. These furnishings belong to the later development of the tower interiors.
Portals and former porch
A porch once stood before the double portal built in 1623. It was removed in 1851, while its appearance survives in a watercolour by Pieter Francis Peters. The main and south portals were redesigned in bronze during the renovation of 1978 to 1982.
Treasury and liturgical furnishings
The Münster contains the Nägelinskreuz. Its treasury also holds the Villingen disk cross, acquired from a Freiburg goldsmith in 1268 and altered at a later time.
Monstrance
A 94-centimetre-high monstrance, a vessel used to display the consecrated host, was made between 1755 and 1760 by the Villingen craftsmen Zacharias and Gottlieb Otto. Its design takes the form of a Baroque altar, with columned architectural elements rather than the radiating form commonly associated with monstrances.
Organ
The present organ was built in 1983 by the Sandtner firm of Dillingen. It has mechanical action and electric stop action, along with couplers linking its manuals and pedal. Its controls include an electronic combination system with 1,600 settings and a crescendo roller.
Bells and tower instruments
Church bells
The church has a nine-bell peal and a historic fourteenth-century bell in the roof lantern of the south tower. Eight peal bells were cast in 1954 by F. W. Schilling, and another was made in 1985 by the Karlsruhe bell foundry. Seven ringing bells hang in a wooden frame in the south tower, while the two lowest-pitched bells are suspended in a steel frame in the north tower.
Carillon
A carillon, a tuned set of bells played from a keyboard, occupies the south tower. Its range extends from E-flat 1 and A-flat 1 to A 5. Forty-six bells were cast by the Perner bell foundry in 2006, and a 1909 bell from the original peal, made by Grüninger, was incorporated into the instrument. Four peal bells can also be played through the carillon, giving it 51 bells in total. The 47 playing bells hang in a cylindrical steel structure on a two-storey intermediate level of the tower.
The heaviest bell developed a crack in 2020 and was removed for repair by the Eijsbouts bell foundry in Asten, the Netherlands.
