Bartholomäuskirche Markgröningen: A Gothic Evangelical Church in Germany
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- Germany
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- Medieval
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- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
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- Religious
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On this page25 sections
History
Bartholomäuskirche Markgröningen is a Gothic church in Germany, built in several phases between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew, it is now an Evangelical church in the former imperial and Württemberg administrative town of Grüningen.
Early churches and the Early Gothic foundation
The present church replaced a three-aisled Romanesque basilica on a raised platform above the early medieval settlement around Wetteplatz and a manorial estate to the south. That predecessor may itself have replaced a fortified church with a separate tower. The Romanesque building may have originated in the eighth century, although the tradition that Hildegard, the wife of Charlemagne, founded it remains unverified. The churchyard continued to serve as a burial ground until 1618, and prominent people were buried inside the church during that period.
The earliest written reference to the church’s community is an entry from Hirsau Abbey around 1150 mentioning a priest of Grüningen. A parish priest is first recorded in 1257. An inscription fragment beside the pulpit records the consecration of the Early Gothic church in 1260. It credits Count Hartmann II of Grüningen with the foundation and his son Hartmann III with bringing the construction largely to completion. Hartmann III’s tombstone bears the Württemberg arms and is regarded as the oldest stone-carved heraldic relic of the Württemberg dynasty.
Count Hartmann II donated and consecrated the oldest known bell in 1272. By that time, the altar area with its side chapels and the towers, probably in an earlier form, had been completed. The nave was extended westward in 1277–78, although tree-ring analysis of its roof timber may instead indicate a later repair.
Conflict, patronage, and Württemberg rule
A royal army captured Grüningen in 1275 during the struggle to take the town and other former imperial possessions in the Neckar basin from the Counts of Grüningen. The newly built church may have been set on fire during the fighting. After Count Hartmann III defeated the royal forces near Brackenheim on 19 October 1277, the victory was locally celebrated as the “revenge of Saint Bartholomew,” referring to the reported desecration of the church.
In 1277, Bishop Friedrich of Bolanden of Speyer confirmed Hartmann III’s foundation for the church’s Marian altar. Hartmann III may also have founded the Marian bell at that time. In 1295, Counts Konrad and Eberhard of Grüningen-Landau and the cleric Ludwig of Grüningen sold their allodial property in Grüningen, including the right of church patronage, to King Adolf of Nassau. This patronage right gave its holder influence over the appointment of the priest and related institutional privileges.
The formerly imperial town and its church patronage returned to Württemberg in 1336. Work followed on the roof over the western nave bay around 1340–46. The western work and its two towers may also have been modified in this period, although their Late Romanesque and Early Gothic forms, together with the thirteenth-century bell foundations, indicate that the towers were not first built in the fourteenth century.
Fifteenth-century enlargement
The church was expanded during the fifteenth century. The Reischach Chapel was built first, followed by a second chapel on the south side, founded by Walter von Haslach and completed by Aberlin Jörg in 1459. The latter became known as the Volland Chapel after Elisabeth Volland, née Lyher, endowed an altar there.
Aberlin Jörg built the Late Gothic choir and added the sacristy between 1469 and 1472. These works gave the church essentially its present form. The medieval building served as the ecclesiastical centre of the Grüningen rural chapter within the Speyer archdeaconry of Trinitatis. An archdeaconry was a major administrative district within a diocese, while a rural chapter was a smaller grouping of churches within it. The parish priest normally served as dean, and the urban parish included about twelve chaplaincies connected with surrounding churches and chapels.
Reformation and the Poor Conrad uprising
Around 1514, Reinhard Gaißer, a doctor of theology and former rector of the University of Tübingen, led the church. During the Poor Conrad uprising, a 1514 popular revolt in Württemberg against social and political grievances, especially elite privileges, he used sermons to urge the common people of Grüningen and other places to resist the ruling elite, particularly Vogt Philipp Volland. A Vogt was a territorial or municipal official with administrative, judicial, or supervisory authority.
Gaißer’s nephew Wilhelm assisted him as a cleric and messenger to resistance centres in the Rems Valley and at Leonberg. Reinhard Gaißer remained town priest after the uprising. In 1517, he successfully opposed the hospital master Johannes Betz’s sale of indulgences. A later dispute with Betz over ecclesiastical precedence was decided in Gaißer’s favour in 1521 by Bishop Georg of the Palatinate. Gaißer also served as dean and head of the Grüningen rural chapter.
The Reformation removed the church’s additional altars and simplified its previously colourful interior. Wall paintings that had been covered over were uncovered only during work in the twentieth century. After the Reformation, the church became the seat of an Evangelical superintendent, the senior cleric overseeing a group of parishes. The district included numerous surrounding parishes until the Markgröningen special superintendency was incorporated into that of Ludwigsburg in 1812.
Modern alterations and structural concerns
A renovation begun in 1847 replaced the nave’s timber ceiling with a timber-and-stucco rib vault. Installing a new Walcker organ in the choir required additional galleries in the side aisles and new side doors near the western work. The founder’s bells and the cracked Domenica were melted down and recast in 1855. Around 1870, the choir roof turret and the structure connecting the towers over the roof ridge were removed. The first-floor chapel vault in the western work was also taken out and replaced by a higher window.
The 1953–56 renovation substantially redesigned the interior. Four bodies buried near the altar, possibly those of the church’s founders, were removed without examination during the installation of underground air heating, and the crypt beneath the altar area was reportedly destroyed. The baptismal font, choir screen, crucifix, organ, galleries, and decorative stucco were relocated or removed.
A new organ was inaugurated in 1978. Further renovation from 1984 replaced the pews and laid new sandstone slabs over electric underfloor heating. This work exposed remains of the Romanesque predecessor, but the archaeological opportunity was not fully documented. Hartmann III’s tomb cover was removed from the north wall, cleaned of its colour, and moved to the Volland Chapel.
The raised platform supporting the church no longer provides sufficient support for the heavy towers. The roof, western work, and especially the High-Watch Tower are leaning westward. Ground stabilisation and comprehensive structural repair are therefore required. The historical Schäferlauf continues to be held on 24 August as the church’s dedication festival. It developed from the Bartholomew market, first recorded in 1445, and was associated with Bartholomew’s role as patron of shepherds and with the seasonal movement of sheep after the grain harvest.
Remains
Bartholomäuskirche Markgröningen is a strongly 57-metre-long, three-aisled basilica, meaning that a tall central nave is flanked by lower side aisles. Its fabric combines Early and Late Gothic phases. The nave is about 24 feet, or twelve Grüningen ells, wide and 48 feet high, while each side aisle is about 12 feet, or six ells, wide. The clear interior height exceeds 15 metres, approximately twice the stated width of about 7.5 metres.
Predecessor church and principal layout
Romanesque predecessor
The earlier Romanesque basilica also had three aisles, with a central nave approximately the size of the present one. Its floor survives below the current church floor. Part of it was exposed during the 1984 renovation and can be viewed through an archaeological window, allowing the earlier building to be understood beneath the Gothic church.
Gothic nave and choir
The present nave and side aisles are divided into eight bays and generally retain cross-rib vaults from their construction periods. A cross-rib vault is supported by intersecting stone or masonry ribs. The fifteenth-century choir extends the basilica eastward and ends in a five-sided polygonal termination. Its central axis lies slightly north of the narrower nave axis. The choir and sacristy have net vaults, a later Gothic form with a more complex web-like pattern of ribs.
Chapels, portals, and western work
Side chapels
The two easternmost bays of the north aisle form the Marian Chapel. Its net vault and former separation from the nave reflect its role as a distinct devotional space. On the south side, the Reischach Chapel and Volland Chapel occupy the third and fifth bays. The Volland Chapel also has a net vault. Together, the two south chapels frame the central south portal, whose former rich ornament survives only in part.
Portals and western entrance
The north portal was built in front of the church in 1713 and altered in 1858. The main entrance passes through a vestibule in the western work between the two towers. Above the vestibule, the room retains the corbels and springing points of a cross-vault removed when a tall western window with atypical tracery was installed in the nineteenth century.
Towers and surviving connections
Bell tower and High-Watch Tower
The two towers have different roofs and stand just under 40 metres high without their finials, or nearly 50 metres including them. The south tower is the bell tower. The north tower belongs to the town and formerly served as the High-Watch Tower, a surveillance tower used to observe approaching danger or fire. It retains an external gallery or walkway.
A Romanesque-looking barrel vault in the High-Watch Tower still blocks access to the upper levels, including the former watchman’s dwelling and gallery. After the connection between the towers was removed, an opening was made into the central part of the western work and a wooden stair was installed as a bypass.
Former bridge and transverse structure
Both towers formerly had galleries and were connected at different times by a covered wooden bridge or a transverse building. Doors later reduced to windows in the facing tower walls provide evidence of these connections. A bridge appears on a 1682 forestry map, while drawings from 1797–98 and 1864 show a transverse building. By 1889, the connection had disappeared.
Carved stonework and paintings
Choir bosses and Princes’ Capital
The bosses in the choir vault carry, after Aberlin Jörg’s mark, the symbols of Mary, Peter, Paul, Matthias, and Bartholomew, followed by the arms of Count Eberhard im Bart and the town. These symbols may refer to altar endowments and dedications. Financing for the construction was probably shared by the count, the town, and church funds. A further boss at the transition to the west wall bears a mason’s mark associated with the Strasbourg stoneworking family Dotzinger.
The Gothic “Princes’ Capital,” the sculpted upper part of a column before the Marian Chapel, has nine fully carved heads. A male head is highlighted by a rose vine, while another wears a crown. Three heads were lost and replaced in the twentieth century. The crowned head may represent Gertrude of Hohenberg, wife of King Rudolf of Habsburg. A female head beside the possible groom Albrecht III may represent his presumed bride Margarete of Fürstenberg, although these identifications remain uncertain.
Wall paintings
The oldest painting in the church is a Last Judgment in the vault of the fourth bay of the south aisle. A second Last Judgment, dating from around 1500, occupies the chancel arch leading into the choir. The front wall of the Marian Chapel contains an early-sixteenth-century Dormition of the Virgin, and the choir has further wall paintings, including probable post-Reformation overpaintings of older frescoes.
Liturgical furnishings and memorials
Baptismal font and choir stalls
The thirteen-sided baptismal font was carved from a single block of stone. Its sides show Christ and the twelve apostles. It is about 1.30 metres high and carries an inscription giving the date 1426, although that inscription was probably added later and a manufacture date around 1492 is considered more likely. Its unusual size has been interpreted as evidence for immersion baptism, a rite in which the person being baptised is immersed in water. The basin is covered by a glass plate and was restored in 2013–14.
The fourteenth-century choir stalls have full-figure carvings on their side panels. Saint Christopher appears on the right, while Saints Peter and Paul appear on the left. One figure is shown being venerated and defending against a dragon-like creature. The 26-seat stalls flanking the Late Gothic choir probably date from around 1470, as does the massive sacristy door with ornamental fittings, which is probably original to that construction phase.
Epitaphs and tombs
The Volland Chapel contains a richly decorated 1490 epitaph for Elisabeth Volland, née Lyher. The Reischach Chapel holds an epitaph for her daughter Walburga von Reischach, who died young. Two tombstones found during renovation around 1985 commemorate the knight Kraft Gruibinger, who died in 1412, and the castle bailiff Conrad Sefler, who died in 1419. The church also contains the tomb cover of Hartmann III of Grüningen.
Bells, organ, and historic measures
Bells
The five principal bells replace older instruments. The main set hangs in the south tower, while a replacement bell donated in 2017 is housed in the lantern of the north tower. The bell cast in 1272 was dedicated to the four Evangelists, Luke, Mark, Matthew, and John, at Count Hartmann’s instigation. A larger undated bell attributed to Hartmann III carried an inscription naming Mary, the Evangelists, and the count’s marriage to a daughter of the lord of Eberstein.
The older bells were melted down and recast in 1855 after the Domenica developed a crack. During the First World War, all but the large bell may have been melted down for weapons production. In 1942, all the bells were surrendered for armaments production, but they were not melted down and were recovered after the Second World War. Ringing resumed in 1948.
The largest bell, the Domenica, was cast in 1487. A bell added in 1923 commemorated soldiers killed in 1914–18, but it was recast after cracking in 1933 and then also carried an image of Martin Luther and the words “The word of the Lord endures forever.” A third bell was cast in 1954 to commemorate the fallen of both world wars, and a baptismal bell without a dedication was cast in 1956. A separate quarter-hour bell above the south tower bears the inscription “Martin Miller of Esslingen cast me, 1604” and is the oldest surviving bell of the church.
Organ and measures
The original Walcker organ cost 8,000 gulden and dates from 1848 or 1850. In 1978, it was replaced by an instrument built by the Vier organ-building company. The Walcker case was adapted, twelve registers were retained, and the present organ was installed on the western gallery. It has 34 registers on slider chests, the wind chests that supply pipes, with mechanical suspended action linking the keys to the valves. Six Hauptwerk registers can also be played from the pedal, and six prepared stops remain.
Cast-iron markings for the historic Grüningen measures survive on the west wall of the High-Watch Tower. The ell measures 62.9 centimetres, while the rod measures about 474.4 centimetres, approximately 15 feet. A perforated bracket above may have supported a removable dry measure such as a Simri.
