Freising Cathedral: Co-Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page20 sections
History
Freising Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Freising, Germany, formally dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Korbinian. Built by the Bavarian church of the medieval period, the present Romanesque-origin cathedral was completed and consecrated in 1205. It served as the cathedral and episcopal seat of the former Diocese of Freising and is now a co-cathedral, a church sharing cathedral status with another church in the same archdiocese, of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
Early ecclesiastical foundation
A church dedicated to Mary stood on the Domberg by about 715. Its foundation is attributed to the Bavarian duke Theodbert. In 739, Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon missionary and church organizer who helped establish Bavaria’s ecclesiastical structure, made it the cathedral church of one of the dioceses founded in Bavaria under papal direction.
Bishop Arbeo developed the site as a religious and educational center by establishing a monastery, a cathedral school, and a library. Manuscripts produced or preserved by the monastery are now held by the Bavarian State Library. The church was rebuilt around 860, when Bishop Anno created a three-naved cathedral. A fire destroyed that building, and it was rebuilt in 903.
The Romanesque cathedral
The earlier cathedral was destroyed by a devastating fire on Palm Sunday, 5 April 1159. Construction of the present, third cathedral began in the same year, with some older building elements incorporated into the new structure. The Romanesque building was completed and consecrated in 1205, giving the Domberg a substantial ecclesiastical landmark that continued the site’s role as the center of the Freising diocese.
The cathedral was altered repeatedly during the later Middle Ages. Its original wooden flat ceiling was replaced by a Gothic vault in 1481 to 1483. During the late fifteenth century, the church was substantially remodeled in the Gothic style, a medieval form characterized by ribbed and pointed structural elements. This work has traditionally been associated with Jörg von Halsbach. The cathedral floor was renewed in 1699 to 1701, and the tombs of Freising’s bishops were removed during that campaign.
Baroque and Rococo transformation
Under Prince-Bishop Veit Adam von Gepeckh, a prince-bishop who combined ecclesiastical office with the political authority of a territorial ruler, the cathedral underwent extensive renovation and refurnishing from 1621 to 1630. Hans Krumpper supplied the principal designs, with possible participation by the Augsburg painter Matthias Kager. The campaign remodeled the apse and choir, installed a new high altar, replaced the rood screen with a broad staircase, added choir oratories, and created a western organ gallery with an organ.
A further campaign began around 1724 in preparation for the church’s millennium. Cosmas Damian Asam and Egid Quirin Asam completed the work in less than a year and a half. The German Baroque artists coordinated the frescoes, stucco, colors, and high-altarpiece painting, transforming the interior into a unified Rococo setting. Rococo is a later decorative style known for elaborate, light, and highly ornamental forms.
The cathedral’s bell history also reflects successive periods of rebuilding. Its eleven bells belong to Renaissance, Baroque, and modern casting phases. Eight of the eleven Renaissance bells survived a fire that destroyed the earlier bells in 1563. Two new bells were consecrated by Cardinal Friedrich Wetter on 13 October 2007. The largest bell was cast in 1724 for Elector Maximilian II Emanuel from metal taken from Turkish cannon used at the 1688 siege of Belgrade.
Secularization and later ecclesiastical use
The Diocese of Freising was secularized in 1802 and dissolved in 1803. In 1821 it was re-established as the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, whose seat was transferred to Munich. The former cathedral became a branch church of Freising’s Saint George parish. In 1983, it became a co-cathedral of the archdiocese, an elevation promoted by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI. It remains the venue for priestly ordinations of the archdiocese.
The Domberg continued to serve educational and cultural purposes. A seminary and grammar school were established there in 1826. The higher seminary moved to Munich in 1968, the lower seminary closed in 1972, and a diocesan museum of Christian art opened in its former rooms in 1974. The former episcopal residence became the Kardinal-Döpfner-Haus educational center, while the grammar school moved to the nearby Philippsschloss in 1981. A library opened on the complex in 1994.
Joseph Ratzinger studied theology on the Domberg from 1946 to 1951, was ordained a priest in the cathedral with his brother Georg, and later taught theology in Freising. As Pope Benedict XVI, he visited the cathedral on 14 September 2006 and met the clergy there. During renovation work in the 1920s, frescoes were partly overpainted. Moisture later damaged both the added paint and the underlying frescoes, and the later layer was chemically removed during a comprehensive renovation in 2006. The cathedral complex entered another renovation phase in 2018.
Saint Korbinian, the church’s second patron, is also the patron saint of Freising and of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. He was the principal early medieval missionary and bishop associated with Freising, and his familiar bear attribute comes from the legend of his journey to Rome. Saint Sigismund is the third patron of the Freising episcopal church.
Remains
Freising Cathedral is a 78-metre-long, externally austere, five-naved basilica of Romanesque origin. Its two-towered west front, galleries in the side aisles, Romanesque crypt, Gothic choir, and later Baroque and Rococo furnishings preserve the physical record of successive rebuilding campaigns. Brick forms the main material of the towers, with partial use of tuff, while stone, stucco, fresco, carved wood, and metalwork appear throughout the interior.
West front and entrances
Towers and outer portal
The west front has two towers, each about 56 metres high. The north tower tapers through two slight setbacks derived from removed Romanesque divisions and retains its original spiral stair. Romanesque blind-arch friezes and pilasters were identified on the towers but were removed when the surfaces were painted in 1724. The narrow outer portal, made in 1681, is carved from red Adnet marble, a limestone from Salzburg stoneworking traditions. Its niche contains a figure of Saint Korbinian.
Vestibule and principal portal
The three-part vestibule contains Early Gothic lateral vaults dating from 1314. Its left side altar bears Johann Andreas Wolff’s Beheading of Saint Catherine, painted around 1699 to 1700. Beneath the late Gothic central-nave vault of 1483 stands the massive Romanesque principal portal of the preceding building, created before 1190. Stone sculptures were added during the rebuilding begun in 1159.
The portal figures have traditionally been identified as Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and Bishop Otto of Freising on the left, with Beatrix of Burgundy on the right. These names may reflect Baroque reinterpretations. The figures probably originally represented King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. A Baroque inscription identifies the right-hand figure as Beatrix, and a toad appears below it. The portal sculpture was probably reinterpreted when the Romanesque entrance was altered to accommodate the organ gallery. The traditional identification of the left figure as Barbarossa remains uncertain, and there is no contemporary evidence that he sponsored rebuilding after the fire of 1159. The toad, interpreted since the nineteenth century as a fertility symbol, had a negative meaning in the Middle Ages.
Choir and central interior
High altar
The present high altar was made in 1625 to Hans Krumpper’s designs. Philipp Dirr carved its figures, and the altar replaced an older Gothic high altar. It incorporates a tabernacle, the altar structure used to reserve consecrated Eucharistic elements, rather than the medieval sacrament house or niche. This arrangement is an art-historical peculiarity because the relevant instruction of the Council of Trent, the sixteenth-century Roman Catholic council whose reforms influenced church furnishings, did not apply to cathedral churches.
Peter Paul Rubens painted The Woman of the Apocalypse between 1623 and 1625 for the high altarpiece. The original is now in the Munich Pinakothek, and a copy by Emil Böhm replaced it in the cathedral in 1926. The painting shows Mary amid the struggle of the Archangel Michael and the Devil, with angels acclaiming her and the Freising Domberg visible at the lower right. The altar is flanked by Dirr’s statues of Saint Korbinian, shown with a bear, and Saint Sigismund.
Choir stalls
The Gothic choir stalls date from 1488. Their series of bishops begins with the year 724, and every stall back has different ornament. Together with the late Gothic vault above the central nave, the stalls preserve elements of the cathedral’s fifteenth-century transformation within the later decorated interior.
Side aisles and chapels
Northern side aisles
The northern inner side aisle contains the Sacrament Chapel and Erasmus Grasser’s Lamentation Group, made in 1492. The northern outer side aisle has a 1626 altarpiece by Peter Candid depicting Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth. The two outer side aisles developed from small subsidiary chapels added successively during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Gilded wrought-iron ornamental grilles made in Freising around 1630 separate the inner and outer aisles.
Saint John Nepomuk Chapel
The apse of the southern side aisle contains the Saint John Nepomuk Chapel, designed by Egid Quirin Asam in 1737 to 1738 in the Italian Late Baroque style. Its three stucco altar figures represent John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, and John Nepomuk. The chapel is therefore also popularly called the John Chapel.
Organ gallery
The organ gallery was installed around 1623 according to Hans Krumpper’s designs, and its surviving case was completed in 1624. Its figurative decoration was probably designed by Krumpper and executed by Philipp Dirr. The folding doors show an angel concert on the inside and the Annunciation on the outside, while a clock with a Roman numeral dial occupies the upper center. The present organ was built by Winfried Albiez of Lindau between 1978 and 1980. It has three manuals and 52 stops, and the case can be closed by its painted wings.
Crypt and eastern additions
Romanesque crypt
The Romanesque crypt is a vaulted chamber beneath the church choir, used for burials, relics, and worship. It has four aisles and was probably complete by 2 September 1161, when the relics of Saint Nonnosus were deposited there in the presence of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg. Its bays are supported by three rows of eight columns and two rows of eight half-columns, distributing the weight of the vaults evenly. Each crypt column and capital has an individual design.
The central Bestiary Column, dating from the twelfth century, is carved with people fighting beasts and dragons. It is described as the only column of its type in Germany. The crypt also contains a nineteenth-century shrine holding the relics of Saint Korbinian, while Saint Lantpert is buried there. The shrine is a neo-Romanesque reliquary, a container for sacred relics, made in 1861 by the Munich goldsmith Ferdinand Harrach.
Maximilian Chapel
The octagonal Maximilian Chapel was added east of the crypt in 1710 by Giovanni Antonio Viscardi. Its stucco was made by Nikolaus Liechtenfurtner, its ceiling paintings by Hans Georg Asam, and its altarpiece was designed by Johann Andreas Wolff. Johann Baptist Deyrer painted the wall paintings beneath the niches in 1772. The chapel also contains a small reliquary donated by Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, holding a relic of Blessed Kaspar Stangassinger.
Cloister, bells, and sacred objects
A Gothic cloister adjoins the cathedral immediately to the east. It was newly laid out in the fifteenth century and received stucco decoration by Johann Baptist Zimmermann in 1716. Its northeastern section leads through the fourteenth-century Benedictus Church. Above the southern part is the Baroque hall of the cathedral library, dating from 1732.
The cathedral complex also contains a silver icon of the Virgin Mary, kept within a Baroque altar in the Diocesan Museum. It is traditionally attributed to Saint Luke the Evangelist and was said to have reached Freising from Constantinople through Italy and England before Bishop Nikodemus della Scala donated it to the cathedral. The complex contains the remains of Saint Korbinian, Saint Nonnosus, most of Freising’s sixty bishops, and numerous canons.
