Church of Our Lady in Eppingen: A Medieval Parish Church in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Electoral Palatinate, German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page14 sections
History
Church of Our Lady, or Pfarrkirche Unsere Liebe Frau, is a Catholic parish church in Eppingen, Germany. Its oldest surviving structure belongs to an early Gothic choir-tower church built around 1200, while the site’s Christian history reaches back to a church mentioned in 985. The building and its medieval wall paintings form an important historic ensemble with the former St Catherine’s Chapel in Eppingen’s old center.
Early Christian and Medieval Origins
A church at Eppingen appears in a donation charter issued by Emperor Otto III in 985. Local tradition places its foundation around 635 and attributes it to Dagobert I, a seventh-century Merovingian king whose dynasty was associated with the expansion of Christianity in parts of early medieval Gaul. This tradition connects the church with the Frankish conquest and Christianization of the Kraichgau and Elsenzgau.
In 1057, Emperor Henry IV transferred a large part of Eppingen, including the church, to the Diocese of Speyer. The Speyer parish benefice, meaning the endowment supporting a parish and its clergy, existed at Eppingen from that year. The congregation remained connected with Speyer until the ecclesiastical reorganization of the nineteenth century.
By around 1200, an early Gothic choir-tower church stood on the site. Its east-facing choir occupied the base of the tower, while the nave extended westward. Both the tower and the nave were enlarged and altered repeatedly during the following centuries.
Confessional Change and Shared Use
Eppingen became part of the Electoral Palatinate in the fifteenth century. The Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that divided Western Christianity and established Lutheran and Reformed Protestant churches, reached the town in 1555. Eppingen initially became predominantly Lutheran, but the ruler imposed the Reformed confession in 1562. Under successive rulers, the town’s confession changed eleven times.
Catholic clergy returned to Eppingen in 1698. Before then, the small Catholic community had been served by priests from neighboring parishes. From 1707 to 1878, the church was a simultaneous church, a building divided for use by different Christian confessions. A partition wall gave the nave to the Reformed congregation and the choir to the Catholics.
Lutherans were again present in Eppingen by about 1750 and worshiped in the former Peter’s Chapel elsewhere in the town. The Catholic choir was relatively small, so it was extended northward with a transept in 1806 and 1807. After the Reformed and Lutheran congregations united as the Protestant congregation in 1821, Peter’s Chapel closed in 1827. The Protestant community had grown to more than 1,700 parishioners, and the nave could no longer accommodate it. A new Protestant church was therefore considered.
Transfer to the Catholic Congregation
Construction of the Protestant Town Church began in 1876. The Catholic congregation then acquired the parts of the older church that had been used by the Protestants. In 1878, the oldest and largest of the four bells, the 1516 Osanna Bell, was moved to the new Protestant church. The church’s old foundation stone, dated 1435, was transferred there at the same time.
In 1881, the Catholic congregation purchased the nave from the Sinsheim collegiate administration and thereby obtained the entire church building. The church was enlarged in 1890 and 1891 by inserting a vaulted choir in front of the original choir tower. This addition changed the function of the medieval tower, whose base was temporarily used as a storage room.
Twentieth-Century Restoration and Present Parish
Valentin Peter Feuerstein restored the tower base and reopened it for use in 1962 and 1963. Between 1969 and 1974, a transept was constructed immediately in front of the tower. The cross-vault added during the nineteenth-century enlargement was removed, giving the church its present arrangement. The remodeling was directed by Building Director Hans Rolli and Senior Building Official Günter Sauer. Feuerstein restored the historic frescoes in the lower tower and on the north wall of the nave, and added painted tracery windows and other decoration.
The parish of Our Lady in Eppingen and its affiliated parish of Mary of Sorrows in Mühlbach form the Eppingen pastoral unit. This administrative grouping of parishes served cooperatively by clergy and pastoral staff also includes the parishes of Saint Valentine in Rohrbach, the Nativity of Mary in Richen, and Saint Mary in Gemmingen-Stebbach.
Remains
The church has a Latin-cross plan. The square tower forms the short eastern arm, the nave runs westward, and the transept creates the cross-arm. The crossing contains the celebration altar and ambo, a lectern used for proclaiming scripture. The oldest masonry belongs to the tower base, while the nave, western porch, later transept, paintings, furnishings, and surrounding chapel show the building’s successive medieval and modern phases.
Tower Chapel and Medieval Paintings
The lower level of the square tower opens westward toward the nave and forms the tower chapel. Three picture friezes are arranged one above another on its walls, separated by horizontal bands of Gothic foliage. The foliage continues over the vaulted ceiling and meets at the keystone. Rectangular fields show scenes from the childhood and Passion of Jesus, together with the twelve Apostles. Two bishops appear beside the passage into the church, while the vault carries the traditional symbols of the four Evangelists: an eagle, a bull, a lion, and a human figure.
The cycle concludes with the Entombment of Jesus. The scenes of the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt were rearranged to form axial relationships with other motifs. The unknown painter’s style relates to the art of the Lake Constance region during the first half of the fourteenth century. More recent comparisons with paintings in the Minster of Constance and the Church of Saint Mary in Reutlingen place the cycle around 1340 to 1350.
The paintings use a lime-based method described as secco painting al fresco, combining work on dry plaster with the application of a wet lime layer. They probably originated during a fourteenth-century remodeling of the choir tower and were later covered with whitewash. The surviving work consists mainly of preparatory drawings, because much of the painted detail was lost when the cycle was uncovered in 1962 and 1963.
On the north wall, a Holy Sepulchre represents Christ’s tomb in connection with the Passion and burial narratives. A medieval slab once used to guard the tomb survives with the structure.
Nave, Transept, and Church Furnishings
Nave Paintings and Portals
The west-east nave and its porch carry the date 1435 at the main portal. A small western vestibule adjoins the nave and has Gothic arched portals. Galleries stand against the western wall of the old nave and above the sacristy in the southern arm of the transept.
Early sixteenth-century frescoes on the north side of the nave depict biblical scenes including the Annunciation, the Nativity of Jesus, and the Arrest of Jesus. Paintings of a milk witch and the Devil decorate the arch of the north side portal. Only fragments of the original inscription remain. The scene shows a witch milking an axe while the Devil draws milk from a cow, imagery corresponding to a sermon preached in Strasbourg in 1508 by Johann Geiler of Kaysersberg and printed in 1517.
Crossing and Devotional Works
The present transept was built between 1969 and 1974 directly in front of the medieval tower. Its crossing contains a modern sandstone celebration altar and matching ambo by Frido Lehr. Their forms echo the Gothic foliage friezes in the tower chapel. Lehr also made the bronze tabernacle stele, the processional cross, and a multipart Stations of the Cross in the north transept. A tabernacle is a vessel or cabinet for reserving the Eucharist, while a stele is an upright decorative or commemorative slab.
The historical pulpit stands at the northern corner beside the transept. Its preserved handrail was installed in the southern transept beside the baptismal font. A Baroque Madonna stands in the choir, and seven glass motif panels made by Markus Artur Fuchs in 1997 form another group of religious artworks. Feuerstein painted the southern side-portal arch in 1977 with themes from the Apocalypse.
Organ and Bells
The organ on the western gallery was installed by the Klais company of Bonn during the 1974 restoration. It has two manuals, 35 stops, and 2,035 pipes. Its key action is mechanical and its stop action electrical. The gallery front is decorated with a carved Stations-of-the-Cross frieze from Oberammergau dating from around 1920.
Four bells cast by the Bochum Association in 1921 hang in an existing oak bell frame. Bell 1 sounds D′, weighs 1,318.5 kilograms, and measures 149 centimeters across. Bell 2 sounds F′, weighs 995.5 kilograms, and measures 133.3 centimeters. Bell 3 sounds A-flat′, weighs 591 kilograms, and measures 110 centimeters. Bell 4 sounds C-flat″, weighs 343.5 kilograms, and measures 91.5 centimeters. A newer bell chime is installed in the attic above the vestibule.
Former St Catherine’s Chapel and Churchyard
Former St Catherine’s Chapel
The former St Catherine’s Chapel stands north of the church and dates from 1450. Its hillside position makes the building substantially higher on its northern side. After secularization, it served for a long period as a school, while retaining its Late Gothic cross-vault.
Crosses, Sculpture, and Dance of Death
Historic grave crosses, mostly wrought iron, and additional religious sculptures surround the church and former chapel. Since 1991, the chapel’s south facade facing the church has carried a ten-meter-wide Dance of Death. This medieval and early modern artistic theme shows Death summoning people from different social ranks and emphasizes the universal reach of mortality.
On the south side of the church stands an Arma Christi cross by Friedrich Andernach, dated 1955 and 1992. Its imagery concerns Longinus, the Roman soldier traditionally associated with opening Christ’s side with a lance during the Crucifixion. A sundial dated 1995 is also located on the south side.
