Frauenkirche, Dresden: The Church of Our Lady and Its Medieval Predecessor
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page21 sections
History
The Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany, stands in the Neumarkt district and traces its origins to a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, probably established among the Sorbs around the late 10th or early 11th century. It served as Dresden’s mother and principal church until the 16th century. Its medieval predecessor was eventually replaced by a Baroque church designed by George Bähr, whose construction began in 1726.
Early mission and parish church
The first church probably arose in the medieval district of Gau Nisan during Christian missions to the Sorbs, a West Slavic people. A bishop of Meissen is considered its likely founder and patron. It may initially have served as a mission station rather than a parish with a fixed congregation. Its foundation date remains uncertain. A date found during ceiling work around 1580 was probably 1020, and later chroniclers considered that year plausible. A Slavic tradition gives 8 September as the consecration date and names Přibislav, probably a court chaplain to the Bohemian duke Oldřich. Archaeologist Reinhard Spehr placed construction around 1060. Excavated burials probably date to the 11th or early 12th century, while later finds reach back to the late 10th century.
The early parish served about 30 Sorbian villages on both banks of the Elbe, some as far as 10 kilometres away. Poppitz provided property or revenue for the church from its foundation. Growing settlement and wealth in the 12th century led to a stone replacement, probably built before 1170. The parish priest of Dresden appears as a witness in a charter of 1240, an indirect reference to the church. Its first direct written mention came on 1 October 1289, when Abbot Heydolf appointed Albert of Lobeda as priest and forbade Albert’s opponent, Adolf, to speak in the church.
Control of the church and its income shifted among religious and territorial authorities. It belonged to Margrave Henry III, a territorial ruler, until shortly before 1288, then passed to a Clarissan convent, a community of women in the Franciscan tradition, at Seußlitz. In 1316 it was exchanged with Bishop Withego II of Meissen. In 1404 Margrave Wilhelm I of Meissen acquired it from Bishop Thimo of Colditz in exchange for the church benefice at Ebersbach and the Nikolaikirche in Freiberg.
Gothic rebuilding and Dresden’s parish churches
A new church rose in the 14th century around the earlier stone building. A consecration in 1388 may refer to this rebuilding, although the connection is uncertain. An altar was donated in 1395, and further alterations followed in 1452. Between 1470 and 1483, late-Gothic work brought new roofs and a long choir. The choir’s main altar was consecrated on 6 November 1483. A new roof turret followed in 1497, and a spindle set on a golden sphere was added in 1499.
The Frauenkirche’s parish included a broad area of the eastern Elbe valley, while another church served Dresden’s growing urban population. The Nikolaikirche, about 400 metres away, had served a merchants’ settlement founded shortly after 1100. Re-consecrated as the Kreuzkirche in 1388, it became a city church around 1150 but remained subordinate to the Frauenkirche, which retained parish and burial rights. The Frauenkirche increasingly served rural communities, while the Kreuzkirche became the citizens’ church. By about 1400 the parish priest had moved to the Kreuzkirche’s parsonage. Relics made the Kreuzkirche a pilgrimage destination, and its rebuilding from 1499 to 1516 left it larger and more richly furnished than the Frauenkirche.
The Frauenkirche and its churchyard were also major burial places. The earliest graves in Dresden’s oldest known burial ground date to around 1100. Clergy were initially buried inside the church; from the 16th century, donors, nobles and citizens were interred there as well. Because development around the church restricted the cemetery’s growth, graves were reused and bones placed in underground vaults beneath an ossuary. Bishop Johannes of Meissen consecrated the ossuary in 1514. From 1561 to 1562, Voitt Grohe built family burial structures beside the church, later extending them around the cemetery. By 1565, the grounds contained more than 100 family burial places.
Reformation and renewed worship
The Reformation transformed the church’s religious life in 1539. After the death of the anti-Lutheran duke George the Bearded, his successor Henry IV introduced Protestantism in Saxony. Services at the Frauenkirche stopped, and worship took place at the Kreuzkirche instead. The Annaberg and later Dresden mint masters acquired church furnishings; the altars were removed and the bells melted down. The building stood empty for a time but continued to serve as a burial place.
Meanwhile, fortification works around the settlement had begun in 1520 under George the Bearded. Dresden’s city fortifications were built from 1546 under Caspar Vogt von Wierandt and completed in 1556, incorporating the Frauenkirche into the fortified city. The church became a second city church in 1549. Poppitz passed to the city in 1550 despite the parish priest’s protest. As the Kreuzkirche could not accommodate both the city’s worshippers and those from the Frauenkirche’s 26 villages, the council ordered repairs to the old church in 1556. Services resumed there in 1559 for the villages, although baptisms remained restricted to the Kreuzkirche. By 1714, ten villages had left the Frauenkirche’s parish because of limited space.
Decline and replacement by a Baroque church
The church’s condition became increasingly difficult to maintain. From 1714, Frederick Augustus I, Saxony’s elector, pressed for a representative replacement and for the churchyard to be secularized. The senior church authority and Dresden citizens opposed closing a burial ground used by generations of families. The elector ordered its closure in 1715, and part of it was taken for a new regiment house. In 1714 the church sexton Johann Gottfried Michaelis had listed 1,351 monuments and inscriptions in the church and cemetery.
In 1721 a large bell lost its clapper and damaged the roof, while cracks developed in the masonry. The choir’s rib vault and roof turret had to be removed the following year, and the bells were rehung in a temporary tower north of the church. From 1724, workers removed gravestones and dismantled the family burial structures. The work continued until 1727; families could arrange reburials, and the city transferred remains to the Johannis cemetery when needed.
In January 1725 the church, still in use, was at risk of collapse. Workers braced it internally and externally, while the churchyard became a store for building materials for the new church. Construction of Bähr’s Baroque Frauenkirche began between the Maternihospital and the old church’s choir, allowing services to continue in the older building. The new church’s foundation stone was laid on 26 August 1726 during a service in the old church. By year’s end, the new foundations crossed the old nave and main walls. Frederick Augustus I then approved the old building’s demolition and ordered worship to move to the Sophienkirche.
The last service in the old Frauenkirche took place on 9 February 1727, and demolition started six days later. The organ and seating were removed, and the main altar went to the Annenkirche. Epitaphs were transported to the Wilsdruffer Gate. Workers stripped the roof and dismantled the church by the end of April; the west wall and adjoining cemetery wall remained until August, when demolition was completed down to the foundations.
Later history
The Frauenkirche became an independent parish church in 1878. In 1926 the Sophienkirche, not the Frauenkirche, became the Protestant cathedral of Saxony. Both churches were destroyed in 1945. The Frauenkirche was later rebuilt. Excavations in 1987 clarified the sequence of earlier buildings; stonework from the medieval choir was recovered during clearance of the ruins in 1993, and grave slabs reused in the new church were recovered in 1994.
Remains
The surviving plans and excavated foundations reveal a medieval church with a nearly square, three-aisled nave, a later choir extending to the east, and attached service spaces. The earlier stone church is thought to have been a three-aisled basilica. Slate foundations laid in clay, uncovered in 1987, belong to that building. The later Gothic church enclosed its predecessor and developed through successive additions.
The medieval church
Stone foundations and nave
The Gothic nave measured 25.40 metres across and 23 metres long on the exterior, with an interior measuring 23 by 20 metres. Its enclosing walls were offset rather than parallel. Three arches on two piers separated each side aisle from the central nave, with the end arches resting on projections from the walls. Plans show rectangular piers, though a partly worked octagonal piece suggests that the drawings may represent the bases rather than the full supports.
Five basket-arched windows lit the south side of the nave and three similar windows the north. Three doorways connected the building with its surroundings: a pointed-arch entrance from the churchyard on the south, another on the north and a third opening onto the western street. A stair tower adjoined the church at the northwest. The 1557 painted coffered ceiling, divided into recessed panels, had openings through which worshippers could follow services from the attic when the church was crowded.
Choir
The late-Gothic choir extended east from the central nave, matching its width and ending in three sides of an octagon. It measured 15 metres long and brought the church’s total length to about 38 metres. An inscription dates its construction to 1477–1483. The choir had a vaulted ceiling and three-light pointed-arch windows. Its painted vault included Saxon provincial coats of arms, the Lamb of God above the altar and symbols of Christ’s Passion, including a crown of thorns and three nails.
Drawings differ over whether a shorter choir preceded the long one. The roof framing was in place by 1472, before the recorded construction period for the long choir, and the unusual arrangement has been taken as possible evidence of an earlier choir. Bähr’s plan depicts the long choir irregularly, while Johann Gottfried Michaelis drew it more regularly. Architectural historian Cornelius Gurlitt judged Bähr’s version more accurate.
Side chapel
A chapel adjoined the east end of the north aisle and ended in a polygon. Its exact shape is uncertain because images and surviving plans differ. It was probably no earlier than the late-Gothic choir.
Sacristy
The two-storey sacristy stood east of the southern aisle and south of the choir, ending in a polygon. The ground floor contained graves and stored clergy’s vestments; burial societies and guilds used the upper floor to keep shrouds and equipment. Its upper windows had curtain arches, and the buttresses ended in curved caps. Records note work on its window and a keystone in 1468, a new door and probable vaulting in 1469, and larger vaults in 1470. The construction sequence is uncertain: the sacristy mentioned in the 1460s may have been a more modest earlier building, followed by a successor around 1500. Its windows were enlarged and a door opened to the churchyard in 1703.
Roof and interior surfaces
The high hipped roof over the nave had a ridge running north to south. Lower roofs covered the choir and sacristy, while an additional cross-hipped section sat below the nave roof and above the adjoining buildings. Its precise position and purpose are uncertain. The roof turret is thought to have stood near the middle of the nave ridge. The church’s medieval interior was probably grey with white joints, judging from paint traces on surviving arch fragments. By 1714, wooden galleries were described as grey-white marbled, as were parts of the choir. Biblical scenes and donors’ names or coats of arms appeared on the nave ceiling and the council gallery in the southern aisle.
Churchyard and burial structures
Ossuary vaults
The underground ossuary vaults held bones from reused graves. In 1714 they were described as full and closed by an iron door. The churchyard also contained a chapel with an altar dedicated to Saint Anne, traditionally regarded in Christianity as Mary’s mother.
Family burial structures
More than 100 chapel-like family burial structures stood along the church and cemetery walls by 1565. Each had its own crypt; some were richly furnished and had painted vaults. The family burial place of Centurio Wiebel, for example, was painted by Samuel Bottschildt. These structures were dismantled during preparations for the new Frauenkirche.
Furnishings and surviving objects
Altars and memorials
The church had seven altars by 1395. Among them were an altar to Saint Michael, donated by Hans Münzmeister in 1366 and rededicated in 1395 and 1459, an altar to the Trinity recorded in 1394, and an altar endowed in 1395 by Margrave Wilhelm I for the apostles Philip and James and all twelve apostles.
The last main altar was donated in 1584 by Heinrich and Adolf von Krosigk in memory of their brother, court marshal Hans Georg, who died in 1581. Sculptor Christoph Walther of Breslau made it from white Pirna sandstone. Its carved scenes showed the Last Supper, Nativity, Resurrection, Crucifixion and Last Judgment, with a dove representing the Holy Spirit above. The altar originally stood 7.34 metres high; a later aureole raised it to about 8.20 metres. After its transfer to the Annenkirche in 1727, it was altered and eventually moved to the Matthäuskirche. It was changed again in 1882 and damaged in the bombing of February 1945. Surviving original components include columns, consoles and sections of the cornices, carved with lion heads and foliage.
Pulpit
Hans Walther II made the white Pirna-stone pulpit in 1556–1557, and Augustus Cordus painted it. It stood against the southern wall pier of the arch between nave and choir. A life-size alabaster crucifix was set above its entrance. Biblical scenes included Adam and Eve, Christ on the cross, the baptism of Christ and John the Baptist pointing to Christ. A stone angel supported the pulpit and held a tablet. Descriptions from 1714 mention a canopy painted white and gold, with a sun above and a dove below.
The pulpit was removed during demolition in 1727 and stored in a burial structure at the old Annenkirchhof. The pulpit at the Kreuzkirche in Bischofswerda is considered very likely to be the Frauenkirche pulpit, although it may instead be a close copy of one made for the chapel at Stolpen Castle. Its differences from the 1714 description include a Resurrection scene, no baptism scene and an open book held by the supporting angel. These variations may reflect later changes or a scene obscured by the council gallery in Dresden.
Organ and bells
Lorentz Steer’s organ was installed between 1557 and 1559. Tobias Weller built a replacement from 1619, installed in 1622, with a case painted by Sigismund Bergt with scenes of the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi. Weller enlarged it in 1653; Andreas Tamitius renovated it in 1680, and Johann Heinrich Gräber renewed its wind-chest leather in 1711. During the old church’s dismantling, the organ was divided, and its stops were used in instruments for Plauen and Loschwitz.
The first roof turret was installed in 1472, and bells were hung there the following year. Caspar Beyer made a new wooden, octagonal turret in 1497; it was clad in slate and topped with four projecting structures bearing gilded finials. Three bells from the secularized Cistercian monastery at Altzella were donated by Elector Augustus in 1556 and hung the next year. A fourth, the largest, was cast by Johann Hilliger in 1619. After the turret was removed in 1722, the bells hung in a temporary churchyard tower. The surviving third Altzella bell returned to Dresden in 1998 and became the Maria memorial bell in the rebuilt church’s eight-bell set in 2003.
Memorials, fragments and the earlier church’s location
Many tomb monuments from the church and churchyard were lost through successive rebuilding. Some simpler grave slabs were reused as building material in the new Frauenkirche and recovered in 1994. Tombstones and epitaphs from the old church and cemetery are displayed in the rebuilt Frauenkirche, the Kreuzkirche and the Dresden City Museum. Stonework from the late-Gothic choir was also reused in Bähr’s church and recovered during clearance of the ruins in 1993.
A 24-arm chandelier made in Nuremberg in 1667 hung at the centre of the old choir and was later installed in the choir of Bähr’s church. Jeweler Michael Ayrer donated a votive glass panel in 1626 for a window southeast of the altar; after the old church was demolished, it returned to the donor’s family and remains privately owned in Berlin. The present Frauenkirche occupies the area of the old church’s choir, while the earlier nave footprint lies outside the present building. A bronze plate in the paving marks the Maternihospital’s well and helps locate the old church in relation to the rebuilt one.
