St. Blasius: The Historic Parish Church of Bopfingen, Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page17 sections
History
St. Blasius is a historic church in Bopfingen, Germany, whose present character was shaped largely during the town’s prosperity as a former Free Imperial City in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Its origins reach back to around 650, when a wooden predecessor was built, making the site one of the earliest churches in the Alemannic region.
Early Church and Parish Foundation
During the Frankish period, the wooden church was followed by a stone chapel built from limestone-tuff blocks taken from Roman ruins. The chapel belonged to the original parish church of St. Martin in Kirchheim am Ries. Around 1100, the noble lords of Flochberg-Gundelfingen, based at Flochberg Castle, founded the present church and established it as an independent parish church.
After Bopfingen’s possessions passed to the Staufers, also known as the Hohenstaufens, the town benefited from its position on important routes linking Cannstatt with Donauwörth and Ulm with Rothenburg. These routes connected territories influenced by a medieval ruling dynasty whose power shaped the political history of the German lands and the Holy Roman Empire. During this period, St. Blasius became a pilgrimage destination. An indulgence letter of 1317 provides evidence of this developing religious importance.
Medieval Expansion and Damage
The original church was a single-nave Romanesque building. It was probably enlarged during the period of Bopfingen’s growth by adding the choral area, while parts of the south and west walls were retained. The church was probably damaged in 1330 during the conflict over the Staufer inheritance, a struggle that also brought about the destruction of Flochberg Castle.
In the late fifteenth century, the nave was extended toward the north. The work brought new Late Gothic elements to the building and created the setting for much of the church’s surviving late medieval art. The treasures associated with this period remained almost intact because the Reformation reached Bopfingen gradually and comparatively moderately.
Reformation and Tower Reconstruction
The tower was renewed in 1561 but collapsed in 1611. It was rebuilt in 1613 in the form that survives today. Because the civic community had contributed to the reconstruction, it acquired ownership of the two octagonal upper stories. These levels could be used for secular purposes, including displaying the time and watching over the town.
The Bopfingen Confessional Painting, a canvas from around 1600, reflects the town’s Protestant identity. It records Bopfingen’s adherence to the Augsburg Confession of 1530, the principal statement of faith presented by Lutheran representatives at Augsburg.
Modern Alterations and Church Administration
The interior was renovated in a Neo-Gothic style in 1885. The choir windows installed that year were made by the Stuttgart glass workshop Waldhausen and Ellenbeck. Their floral motifs and patterned backgrounds were intended to screen the interior from glare caused by the morning sun. The tower was renovated and fitted with a clock in 1908. During restoration in 1955 and 1956, the Neo-Gothic interior paintings were removed.
New nave windows designed by Georg Sternbacher were installed in 1979 and 1980. The congregation belonged to the Aalen church district of the Evangelical State Church in Württemberg until the end of 2025. Since 1 January 2026, it has belonged to the newly established Ostalb church district.
Remains
St. Blasius consists of a simple, flat-ceilinged nave hall and a rectangular choir covered by a rib vault. The surviving building combines early reused masonry, Romanesque and Gothic construction phases, a rebuilt early modern tower, and furnishings added or altered from the fifteenth century onward.
Building and Masonry
Nave and Northern Extension
The nave forms a broad hall with a flat ceiling. Its northern side preserves windows with Late Gothic stylistic elements, reflecting the enlargement carried out in the late fifteenth century, probably around 1460 to 1470. The north wall also retains remnants of a painted cycle showing the life of Jesus. Several of the Fourteen Holy Helpers appear in its lowest row. This group of saints was traditionally invoked together for protection from particular illnesses and dangers.
Choir and Reused Roman Stone
The rectangular choir is covered by a rib vault and represents the medieval development of the church beyond its original single-nave form. Roman limestone-tuff blocks reused from ancient ruins remain in the present structure. On the exterior south wall, to the left of the entrance portal, one of these blocks carries an image of Epona, a Celtic and Gallo-Roman goddess associated especially with horses and their protection.
Tower
The tower rebuilt in 1613 retains two octagonal upper stories that once served both civic and ecclesiastical purposes. Six bells hang in the tower. Four make up the church’s peal, a fifth bell in the lantern strikes the clock, and the function of the sixth bell is not specified.
Altarpiece and Medieval Art
Winged Altar
The church’s principal artistic feature is a late Gothic winged altar completed in 1472. It came from the workshop of Friedrich Herlin of Nördlingen, a painter known for using Netherlandish pictorial techniques associated with Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. The inner left wing shows the Nativity, while the inner right wing depicts the Adoration of the Magi. On the outer sides, the left panel presents the capture of Saint Blasius and his appearance before the governor, and the right panel shows his martyrdom.
The reverse of the shrine is painted with scenes from the Passion of Christ and is now hung separately in the church. The carved figures were made by an Upper Rhine master working in the tradition of Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden. A Madonna of the Grapes occupies the central shrine, while the side shrines contain Saint Blasius and Saint Christopher, both members of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Twelve small apostle figures fill the predella, the lower section of the altar. Herlin’s associate Hans Weidenlich carved the Gothic cresting, the ornamental structure rising above the shrine.
Wall Paintings
A fragment of a wall painting from around 1400 survives in the sacristy. Slightly later remains on the choir wall again show scenes from the martyrdom of Saint Blasius. The choir arch carries a Last Judgment, and the south wall has a larger-than-life image of Saint Christopher. Both of these works probably belong to the period after the Reformation.
Furnishings and Memorials
Sacrament House and Windows
The sacrament house, a structure used to store the consecrated Eucharist, was made in 1510 by Hans Böblinger the Younger. Behind the altar, the choir windows made in 1885 contain floral designs and the period’s common carpet-like patterns. The nave windows installed in 1979 and 1980 use delicate colors and a fine structure of lead strips, following Georg Sternbacher’s designs.
Epitaphs and Tomb Monument
The church contains epitaphs for Walter of Bopfingen, the town clerk Sylvester Vischer, who died in 1576, the preacher Balthasar Pfister, who died in 1581, and the town clerk Balthasar Enslin, who died in 1612 and was an ancestor of Goethe. A life-sized tomb monument from 1524 commemorates a knight of Emershoven. Its superimposed Crucifixion relief is made of red marble.
Organ and Prayer-Candle Stand
An organ stood in the church by 1465. In 1893, the Link organ-building company supplied a replacement, opus 198, with 19 stops on two manuals and pedal. Konrad Koch built the organ that replaced it in 1974; that instrument has 24 stops on two manuals and pedal.
A prayer-candle stand dating from 2015 stands beneath the pulpit. Its design incorporates the numerical symbolism of the Gothic baptismal font. A circle containing the candles rests on four solid feet, joining earth and heaven in symbolic form.
