Güstrow Cathedral: A North German Brick Gothic Collegiate Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
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- 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 page19 sections
History
Güstrow Cathedral is a medieval collegiate church in Güstrow, Germany, founded on 3 June 1226 in the North German Brick Gothic tradition. Dedicated to St. Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Cecilia, it was established by the Mecklenburg prince Heinrich Borwin II to support the spread of Christianity in territories that had been conquered from pagan communities.
Foundation and medieval development
Heinrich Borwin II died on 5 December 1226, and his father, Heinrich Borwin I, died on 28 January 1227. Construction consequently proceeded under their successor, Nikolaus of Werle. The collegiate foundation, a body established to support a chapter of clergy, belonged to the Diocese of Cammin, a medieval Catholic ecclesiastical territory in Pomerania and the surrounding region. Through the Counts of Schwerin, who protected the Bishops of Schwerin, it also maintained close connections with Hildesheim.
The first surviving construction phase comprised the two rectangular choir bays, built during the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Dendrochronology, the dating of wooden timbers through their annual growth rings, places completion of the nave in 1292. The choir was enlarged with a polygonal termination in the early fourteenth century and rededicated in 1335, possibly by Cono, the auxiliary bishop of Cammin. The west tower was completed in 1420, while the two rows of chapels were added successively during the fourteenth century.
Reformation and ducal church
The collegiate chapter was dissolved during the Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that established Protestant churches in parts of Europe, in 1552. The church then stood unused and served as a stable for twelve years, while its fabric deteriorated. In 1565, Duchess Elisabeth, wife of Duke Ulrich and daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, began its restoration and conversion into a Protestant church. The first Protestant sermon was preached there in 1568.
From 1568 to 1695, Güstrow Cathedral served as the court church and dynastic burial church of the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. When that dynastic line became extinct in 1695, the building became the church of the local parish. Duke Ulrich furnished it with monuments and memorial works, including a large epitaph for Heinrich Borwin II, the church’s founder, together with the founder’s sarcophagus, a pulpit, a baptismal font, and memorials to Ulrich and his two wives.
A posthumous tomb monument to Heinrich Borwin II was placed in the center of the choir in 1574. Philipp Brandin created the monument to Duke Ulrich and the epitaph for his first wife, Elisabeth of Denmark, between 1584 and 1587. The latter included a monumental genealogical tree of the House of Mecklenburg. The monument was enlarged in 1599 for Ulrich’s second wife, Anna of Pomerania, with the work completed by Claus Midow and Bernd Berninger. These works belong to the important tradition of courtly Renaissance art in Germany.
Later restoration and twentieth-century history
The cathedral underwent restoration during the nineteenth century. In 1866, walls and vaults in the altar area that were in danger of collapse were repaired, and a new gable was built for the south arm of the transept. Further restoration began in 2003 and continued for several years.
Ernst Barlach created Der Schwebende in 1927 as Güstrow’s memorial to inhabitants killed in the First World War. The Nazi regime classified the sculpture as “degenerate art,” a term it used for modern art that it rejected and persecuted. The original was removed from the cathedral on 23 August 1937, taken to Schwerin, and melted down in 1941 for the wartime metal collection.
A second casting made from the old mold was hidden in the Lüneburg Heath during the Second World War and later placed in the Antonite Church in Cologne. After the original mold was destroyed in a bombing raid, this second casting made it possible to produce a new mold. A casting for Güstrow Cathedral was made in 1952 and hung there on 8 March 1953. It was moved to its originally intended position in 1985.
Five of the cathedral’s original six bells were requisitioned for military purposes during the two World Wars. The largest, cast in 1617, survived. Another bell, cast in 1726, was recovered from a bell cemetery in Hamburg, returned to St. Nicholas Church in Rostock, and acquired by the Güstrow cathedral congregation in 1964. Two additional bells were installed on 15 September 1990. The cathedral is now a Protestant church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany and belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran cathedral congregation in the Rostock provostry and the Mecklenburg church district.
Remains
Güstrow Cathedral is a red-brick basilica with a transept and a cross-shaped plan. Its architecture combines Romanesque and Gothic elements within the regional North German Brick Gothic tradition, which used brick extensively in place of cut stone. The elongated choir is set at an angle, and the central crossing, parts of the choir, the north transept façade apart from its windows, and the wall piers retain Romanesque characteristics. The long, obliquely attached choir may reflect Westphalian models.
Building plan and medieval structure
Choir and crossing
The earliest surviving structural elements are the two rectangular choir bays built in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. The western choir bay contains the cathedral’s oldest vault, a domical vault whose eight ribs are noticeably slimmer than those of earlier thirteenth-century examples in Bremen. The choir acquired its polygonal termination in the early fourteenth century. The former altar area was probably replaced by a new structure in the fifteenth century.
The crossing and the first half of the choir were built in a Romanesque manner. A smaller predecessor church may have stood on the site and may have been partly incorporated into the later building, although that reconstruction remains probable rather than certain.
Nave, aisles, and chapels
The nave has cross-ribbed vaults. Lower side aisles extend along both the north and south sides of the main nave. Rows of three chapels, or vaulted compartments, were added to both sides, producing the present five-aisle ground plan. An archive occupies the level above the chapels.
The northern chapel row was probably built together with the northern side aisle. Its vaults rest on the same granite pillars as the aisle, and the northern aisle and chapel row were completed in 1388. The southern chapels were added after the southern side aisle had already been built. The eastern chapel in that row probably dates from the second half of the fourteenth century. The westernmost chapel was founded in 1394 and was also known as the Chapel of Saints Peter and Paul. Two figures of those apostles may represent its patrons.
West tower
The rectangular west tower is broader than the nave and rises approximately 44 metres. It is a massive single tower without buttresses, and its completion dates to 1420.
Altars and medieval furnishings
Late Gothic high altar
The late Gothic folding high altar dates from 1495. This pentaptych, a five-part altarpiece with a central shrine and four wings, can present three arrangements: a weekday view, a Passion view, and a feast-day view. The work is associated with the circle of the Hamburg sculptor Hinrik Bornemann.
Four painted panels show the Virgin and Child, John the Evangelist, Cecilia, and Catherine. When the outer wings are opened for the Passion view, sixteen panels arranged in two rows depict events from the Last Supper through the sending of the Holy Spirit, with particular emphasis on Christ’s suffering. The upper row shows the Last Supper, Christ on the Mount of Olives, the arrest of Jesus, Jesus before the high priest, the mocking of Jesus, the scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, and Jesus before Pontius Pilate. The lower row presents the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Descent from the Cross, the Entombment, the Resurrection, Christ’s appearance before the apostles, the Ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The feast-day view reveals painted and gilded sculptures. The central group represents the Crucifixion of Jesus with the two thieves, while an angel and a devil receive the souls of the condemned men. Two small kneeling figures before the group represent the donors, Dukes Magnus II and Balthasar, whose coat of arms stands between them. Both dukes appear again among the figures beneath the Cross. Six small prophets occupy the Gothic frame around the Crucifixion.
The sections beside the central scene and the wings contain unequal upper and lower compartments. The upper compartments hold large standing figures of the twelve apostles. The lower compartments contain small seated figures of eight male and eight female saints beneath elaborate openwork canopies. Their names appear in their halos against a gold background, and the male group includes Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, the four Latin Church Fathers of the Western Church. The predella shows Christ as the Man of Sorrows surrounded by those four figures.
The upper saint row consists of Matthias, James the Elder, Thomas, James the Younger, John, Peter, Cecilia, John the Baptist, Paul, Catherine, Sebastian, Matthew, Bartholomew, Andrew, Simon, and Thaddeus. The lower row consists of Gertrude, Brendan, Barbara, Laurence, Agnes, Ambrose, Margaret, Gregory the Great, Jerome, Dorothy, Augustine, Apollonia, Michael, Agatha, Maurice, and Mary Magdalene.
Other medieval and Renaissance furnishings
The cathedral contains apostle sculptures by Claus Berg and a late fifteenth-century winged altar associated with Hinrik Bornemann’s workshop. Its furnishings include works from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as epitaphs dating especially from the late sixteenth century. A triumphal cross dates from the middle of the fourteenth century.
The early Gothic baptismal font is the oldest identified item of church furnishing. A second baptismal font, made in 1592 by pupils of Philipp Brandin, combines sandstone and alabaster and has a wooden lid.
Ducal monuments and burials
Monument to Duke Ulrich
Philipp Brandin’s monument to Duke Ulrich is a Renaissance work made from several types of marble. It was completed in 1587 after three years of work and enlarged in 1599 for Anna of Pomerania. Kneeling figures represent Ulrich and his two wives. Supporting figures personify Wisdom, carrying a mirror, and Faith, carrying a cross. Reliefs relating to the history of Christ appear on their pedestals, and a wrought-iron enclosure was added at the end of the sixteenth century.
Princely crypt and funerary monuments
The princely crypt contains the sarcophagi of the last two generations of the Mecklenburg-Güstrow line, a dynastic branch of the House of Mecklenburg that ruled Mecklenburg-Güstrow until 1695. They include Duke Gustav Adolf, who died in 1695, his wife Duchess Magdalena Sibylla, who died in 1719, and their children Marie, Magdalena, Karl, and Augusta. Another sarcophagus contains the coffins of the infant duchesses Magdalena, Maria, and Eleonora Wilhelmina, children of Marie and Adolf Friedrich II.
Other funerary furnishings include an epitaph from the workshop of Thomas Quellinus, a Flemish sculptor who worked mainly in Copenhagen. It commemorates Friedrich Gottfried Glück, a ducal medical councillor who died in 1707. A Baroque tomb monument for Günther von Passow, made by Charles Philippe Dieussart, dates from 1659.
Barlach sculpture and organs
Der Schwebende
The Güstrow casting of Barlach’s Der Schwebende hangs in the eastern bay of the north aisle, facing west. It was moved there in 1985 after hanging in the western bay of the south aisle from 1953. The cathedral also contains three other works by Barlach.
Organs
The cathedral has three organs. The principal historic organ was built in 1868 by Friedrich Hermann Lütkemüller. It has 37 stops, mechanical slider chests, three manuals, and a pedal. After alterations including work by Kemper in 1939, Jehmlich and Wegscheider restored it in 1986 and returned it to its original historical condition.
The choir organ was built in 1996 by Kristian Wegscheider of Dresden. It is entirely mechanical, with 15 stops on one manual and pedal, and includes effect stops such as a tremulant, glockenspiel, cymbelstern, timpani, cuckoo, double cuckoo, nightingale, and drum. A four-stop positive organ made by Michael Braun of Eisbergen in 2006 is also available for liturgical use.
A Friedrich Ladegast organ built in 1866 for the church at Plennschütz was transferred to the cathedral’s northern side aisle in 1979 and 1980 after serious moisture problems forced the abandonment of that church. It was sold to the village church at Biederitz in 1996 and removed from Güstrow to make way for the new choir organ. Since 1997, it has stood again in its appropriate setting.
Bells
The original bell installation comprised six bells, all consecrated after the Reformation. The surviving bell from 1617 was recast under Duke Johann Albrecht II by the master Michael Westphal. It weighs 3,350 kilograms, measures 1,672 millimetres in diameter, and sounds the note D. The bell acquired in 1964 was cast in Lübeck in 1726 by Laurentius Strahlborn. It weighs 880 kilograms and sounds F.
The two bells installed in 1990 were cast by the Rincker foundry in Sinn, Hesse. They weigh 773 and 539 kilograms and sound G and A respectively.
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