Stiftskirche: Baden-Baden’s Dynastic Burial and Parish Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
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- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire, Roman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page30 sections
History
Stiftskirche is a Roman Catholic church in Baden-Baden, Germany, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the apostles Peter and Paul. Its medieval fabric combines Romanesque and late Gothic phases, while later Baroque and historicizing restorations shaped its present appearance. The church belongs to the Baden-Baden pastoral unit, the Baden-Baden deanery, and the Archdiocese of Freiburg. It is regarded as Baden-Baden’s oldest continuously used building and forms part of the core zone of the Baden-Baden UNESCO World Heritage area.
Roman and Early Medieval Foundations
The church stands above a much older religious and thermal landscape. Around AD 75, the hot springs at the Florentinerberg were enclosed and developed into Roman bathing facilities. A religious precinct with sanctuaries dedicated to the springs stood beside the baths. Foundations of these Roman buildings extend beneath the market square and the church, linking the later Christian site to the earlier settlement.
In 712, the thermal baths were transferred to the Imperial Abbey of Weissenburg in Alsace. The dedication to Peter and Paul used by the later parish church probably derived from that institution. A church at Baden-Baden appears in a donation charter issued by Emperor Otto III to Count Manegold of Nellenburg in 987. An earlier church probably stood here, although its precise location has not been established.
Excavations beneath the nave in 1967 uncovered several early medieval slab graves. One in-situ burial, known as Grave 1 or the princely grave, was found together with possible foundations of a pre-Romanesque west façade and portal threshold. These remains provide evidence for an early medieval church at the site before the surviving medieval building.
The Parish Church and the Collegiate Foundation
A Romanesque parish church was built in the mid-thirteenth century, when Baden-Baden became a town. Its existence is mentioned again in the 1245 foundation charter of Lichtenthal Cistercian convent, founded by Margravine Irmengard of Baden. The Margraves of Baden granted the convent patronage rights over the parish and assigned part of the parish endowment to a vicariate. The church’s dedication to Saint Peter is recorded from 1256, and the parish became part of the Diocese of Speyer in 1361.
The church was increasingly tied to the ruling dynasty. Around 1100, Margrave Hermann II had Hohenbaden Castle built as the seat of the Margraves of Baden. From 1391, the margraves used the church as their dynastic burial place instead of the princely chapel at Lichtenthal convent. This practice continued until 1793. Saint Paul appears as an additional patron in written records from 1434.
On 10 April 1453, Margrave Jakob I elevated the parish church of Saint Peter and Paul to a collegiate church with papal approval. A collegiate church is served by a chapter of clergy, rather than by a monastic community alone. Jakob’s foundation fulfilled a vow made by his father, Margrave Bernhard I, who had died in 1431. Twelve canons and ten vicars were assigned to the new foundation. Their duties included maintaining the dynastic graves and praying perpetually for deceased members of the Baden family.
The rebuilding proceeded in two principal phases. The choir was constructed between 1453 and 1455. From 1455, Margrave Karl I continued the work after the Romanesque nave was demolished, and the new nave and remaining work were completed during the 1470s. The margraves’ residence at the later New Castle and their burial church consequently stood opposite one another around the end of the fifteenth century. By 1479, the New Castle had replaced Hohenbaden Castle as the margraves’ residence.
Reformation, Re-Catholicization, and Fire
The division of the margraviate in 1535 into Baden-Durlach and Baden-Baden brought religious conflict to the church. Franciscus Irenicus and Matthias Erb, Protestant reformers, served as court preachers before the first re-Catholicization in 1536. During the Baden-Durlach occupation of Upper Baden, Regent Georg Friedrich supported Protestant use of the church from 1610. Tensions culminated in the arrest of Catholics in 1613 and the dismissal of Eberhard Häusler, a collegiate canon.
After Wilhelm came to power in 1622, Baden-Baden was re-Catholicized. Capuchins took responsibility for Sunday preaching from 1624, and Jesuits joined them from 1640. The Capuchins and Jesuits were Catholic religious orders whose members assisted with preaching and pastoral work at the church.
French troops set fire to Baden-Baden on 24 August 1689 during the War of the Palatine Succession, a late seventeenth-century conflict between France and an alliance of European powers. The church suffered extensive damage. Its roof structure and tower burned, the bells melted, the nave vaults collapsed, and much of the late Gothic furniture and stained glass was destroyed. The choir vault survived, protecting the dynastic burials and epitaphs. The late Gothic sacrament house, made around 1490 as a monumental container for the Eucharistic sacrament, also remained intact.
Baroque Reconstruction and the End of the Collegiate Foundation
The choir received a new roof structure in 1697 and 1698. Johann Michael Ludwig Rohrer directed the restoration of the tower in 1712 and 1713, when its Baroque lanterns and Italianate caps were built. A gilded figure of Saint Peter was placed on the summit. From 1730, houses for the collegiate canons were built along the south side, and the collegiate provost’s residence was erected on Schlossstrasse.
The nave was rebuilt in 1752 and 1753 under Johann Peter Ernst Rohrer. Its new barrel vault and lunettes replaced the destroyed medieval vaulting. Johannes Schütz richly decorated the interior with stucco, a south German Baroque tradition associated with the Wessobrunn school. Margrave Ludwig Georg financed much of the work, including the epitaph for his father, Ludwig Wilhelm. Martin Eigler produced the pews, organ case, gallery enclosure, and portal doors.
The church’s organ history also reflects the reconstruction. An organ repaired in 1558 and an instrument recorded in 1683 were destroyed or damaged in the 1689 fire. Johann Andreas Silbermann built the main organ in 1753 and a four-register choir organ in 1754. The choir instrument was transferred after the collegiate foundation was dissolved, first to the lyceum in Rastatt and later to the Collegium Borromaeum in Freiburg. Its later location is unknown.
After the death of the last Baden-Baden margrave, August Georg, on 21 October 1771, the collegiate foundation lost its original function. It became a school foundation around 1800 and was formally dissolved in 1808 after the lyceum moved to Rastatt. The church entered the newly founded Archdiocese of Freiburg in 1821. Although the collegiate foundation disappeared, the name Stiftskirche remained in use, and the building continued as a parish church. The state of Baden-Württemberg retains structural obligations in the choir area because of the former collegiate foundation.
Historicizing Restoration and Archaeological Investigation
Between 1861 and 1867, the church underwent a historicizing re-Gothicization. Baroque stucco was removed, reconstructed star-vault ribs were installed in the nave, the roofs over the side aisles were lowered, and much of the furnishing was replaced with Neo-Gothic work. A new tower clock and additional clerestory windows were also installed.
Mineral-rich thermal water flowing partly beneath the floor caused further problems. Repairs between 1952 and 1956 addressed this damage, closed the clerestory windows again, returned the side-aisle roofs to their earlier height, and removed the thermal-water heating installed in 1867 because of increasing lime deposits. New stained glass by Willy Oeser was produced at the Grosskopf workshop in Karlsruhe during the same period.
Extensive work in 1966 and 1967 installed a moisture barrier, secured pillars and walls with cast sandstone, and added underfloor heating. Archaeological excavations then revealed Roman bath foundations and early medieval graves beneath the church. The Neo-Gothic interior was largely removed. The surviving figure of Blessed Bernhard II was moved to the south aisle, and the former high altar table was reused as a people’s altar.
The fifteenth-century crucifix by Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden was transferred from the cemetery of the Baden-Baden hospital church into the choir in 1967 to protect it. Tower repairs followed in the 1980s, while conservation of the roof, windows, and façades continued from the late 1990s through 2006.
Recent Conservation and Continuing Use
The church closed in spring 2020 for a comprehensive renovation and modernization under the patronage of Bernhard, Margrave of Baden, and Abbess Maria Bernadette Hein of Lichtenthal convent. The work repaired the masonry and tower caps, renewed the façades, re-gilded the summit figure of Saint Peter, strengthened the bells and their suspension, restored artworks and epitaphs, and installed new electrical systems and hot-water underfloor heating. Much of the 1960s interior treatment was reversed. The church reopened on Palm Sunday 2023.
Margrave Philipp I ordered a bell to be rung every Friday at 11 a.m. in remembrance of Christ’s suffering and death. The present Ave Maria bell continues this function. Six bells melted in the 1689 fire were partly replaced by bells cast between 1700 and 1862. Metal requisitions during the First World War left only the Christ bell, weighing 52 hundredweight. A new eight-bell peal was cast in 1935, but all except the smallest bell were requisitioned during the Second World War.
Albert Junker’s foundry in Brilon cast the present nine-bell peal in 1948 from a silicon-bronze alloy that used electrolytic copper obtained from dismantled wartime naval vessels. The bells were consecrated on 17 October 1948 and first rung six days later. During the 2020 to 2023 renovation, the bell chamber shutters were replaced and the bells received oak yokes and new clappers.
Remains
Setting and Medieval Structure
Stiftskirche stands on the Florentinerberg above Baden-Baden’s old town. Its tower rises approximately 68 metres and forms a prominent element of the city silhouette. The building occupies a site where Roman thermal structures, early medieval burials, and successive Christian churches overlap.
Roman and Romanesque Fabric
Foundations known as the Imperial Baths survive beneath the market square and extend as far as the north side aisle. Foundations continue beneath the choir and far into the south aisle. Excavation in the Mary Chapel exposed the remains of a Roman ancillary building identified as a sudatorium, a heated Roman sweating room associated with a bath complex.
Roman inscribed stones were reused in the church. An honorific tablet dated AD 197 to Emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus, known as Caracalla, was formerly set into the tower until 1804 and is now in the city museum. A Roman soldier’s gravestone remains visible in a buttress of the Saint John Nepomuk Chapel. Its inscription identifies a veteran of Legio VIII Augusta who recovered in the local thermal baths.
The surviving Romanesque fabric includes the four-storey red-sandstone tower shaft and entrance hall, the lower parts of the triumph arch between the nave and choir, and the beginnings of the side-aisle arcades. The original Romanesque nave was approximately 21 metres long. The side aisles extend westward to the Romanesque tower. Remains of the Romanesque arcades survive beside the northwestern and southwestern side portals.
Late Gothic Choir
Built between 1453 and 1455, the late Gothic choir has four bays and measures 23 metres long by 11.5 metres wide. It ends in a five-eighths apse, a polygonal apse whose plan forms five sides of an imagined eight-sided figure. Its three-light windows have elaborate pointed-arch and fish-bladder tracery, a late Gothic pattern of flowing, flame-like curves. The choir floor is six steps above the nave, and the apse rises three further steps.
A surviving star vault spans the choir. Its bosses display the Agnus Dei, the Baden arms, the Baden-Sponheim arms, and the Austrian arms. The last two heraldic devices express dynastic connections of the margraves during the construction period. From 1453 to 1808, the choir was reserved for the collegiate foundation and was at times separated from the nave by a rood screen, a partition between the choir and nave.
The present Baroque choir stalls date from the early eighteenth century. They consist of two rows of five seats framed by columns and gilded foliage carving. The late Gothic stalls made by Hans Kern of Pforzheim in 1512 are now in Baden-Baden’s hospital church.
Dynastic Burials and Memorials
Burial Ground and Memorial Tablet
The choir contains underground burials rather than a crypt. The fire of 1689 destroyed many bronze grave covers. Between 1800 and 1801, Franz Josef Herr reassigned the burial places and added inscriptions to graves whose occupants could be identified.
Inscribed grave slabs identify Rudolf VII; Jakob I and Katharina of Lorraine; Karl I and Katharina of Austria; titular Margrave Albrecht; titular Margrave Christoph the Younger; titular Margrave Jakob II, Archbishop and Elector of Trier; titular Margrave Friedrich IV, Bishop of Utrecht; Christoph I and Ottilie of Katzenelnbogen; Philipp I and Elisabeth of the Palatinate; Bernhard III; Mechthild of Bavaria; Eduard Fortunat; titular Margrave Albert Karl; titular Margrave Ferdinand Maximilian; Wilhelm; Ludwig Wilhelm, known as the Türkenlouis; titular Margrave Wilhelm Georg; Ludwig Georg; August Georg and Maria Viktoria Pauline of Arenberg; and titular Margrave Karl Wilhelm Eugen.
A memorial tablet above the archway to the Mary Chapel lists additional members of the margrave family buried beneath uninscribed slabs. They include Bernhard I, Amalie of Brandenburg, Philibert, Philipp II, Katharina Ursula of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, titular Margrave Leopold Wilhelm, and titular Margravine Anna. Friedrich Weinbrenner designed the tablet in a Classical style.
Philibert died at the Battle of Moncontour in France in 1569. Witnesses saw his death, but his body was probably never recovered. The suggestion that he was transferred to Stiftskirche and buried in the grave of his wife, Mechthild of Bavaria, remains unconfirmed.
Choir Epitaphs
Thirteen grave monuments and epitaphs are mounted on the choir walls. They range from late Gothic to Renaissance and Baroque forms. Among them are late Gothic epitaphs for Philipp I and Friedrich IV, Renaissance monuments to Bernhard III and Philipp II, and a Baroque monument to Leopold Wilhelm and his wife.
Three bronze memorial plaques for Ottilie, Christoph I, and Eduard Fortunat were recast in 1801 by Friedrich Weinbrenner and the engineer Karl Christian Vierordt after the earlier epitaphs were damaged in the 1689 fire. Weinbrenner also designed the tablet for the uninscribed graves and an epitaph for a newly made bust of August Georg.
Ludwig Wilhelm’s Epitaph
The large Baroque epitaph of Ludwig Wilhelm occupies much of the south choir wall. Made from stucco marble with sculpture and gilded elements, it shows the margrave surrounded by personifications of Wisdom, Courage, and Justice. The Golden Fleece on his cuirass identifies his membership in a major European chivalric order. Trophies with Turkish crescents refer to his victories in the Ottoman wars, which earned him the nickname Türkenlouis, or Turk Louis.
A coffin, skeletons, and skulls symbolize death. The monument also includes the Baden arms, a monstrance used to display the consecrated Eucharistic host, and the Eye of God. Ludwig Georg commissioned the memorial for his father. Thomas Heilmann completed it in 1753 after Johannes Schütz died in a scaffolding accident.
Gerhaert’s Crucifix
At the centre of the choir stands a monolithic limestone crucifix made in Strasbourg in 1467 by Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden, a fifteenth-century sculptor. Including its base, it is 6.47 metres high. The dying Christ wears a crown of thorns and has apparently sleeping eyes, while the windblown loincloth refers to the anticipated Resurrection. The base bears the arms of Ulrich Scherer, probably the commissioner. The crucifix stood for roughly five centuries in the hospital-church cemetery before its transfer to Stiftskirche in 1967.
Nave and Principal Furnishings
Late Gothic Nave
The nave is a three-aisled, staggered late Gothic hall church. Its pointed arcades rest on octagonal pillars. It measures approximately 21 metres long and 11.5 metres wide and contains four bays with a star vault. The present ribs were reconstructed in 1867 after the 1689 fire destroyed the original late Gothic vaulting.
The vault bosses carry symbols of religious orders connected with the church: the IHS for the Jesuits, a Maltese cross, the Jerusalem cross, and the gold double hook of Lichtenthal convent. Above the triumph arch, a large heraldic cartouche shows the arms of Baden surrounded by territories acquired by the margraves. Captured cannon and flags with Turkish crescents refer to Ludwig Wilhelm’s military victories.
Triumph Arch and Sacred Images
The people’s altar stands three steps above the nave beneath the triumph arch. It formed part of the Neo-Gothic high altar made in 1867 and has a front decorated with a cross and heart motifs.
A fourteenth-century seated Madonna beside the right pier of the triumph arch is carved from limewood and is regarded as the oldest surviving artwork in the church. Its bronze throne was added in 1984. The image represents Mary as the Sedes Sapientiae, or Seat of Wisdom, presenting her as the throne or embodiment of divine wisdom.
Beside the left pier stands the late Gothic sacrament house, made around 1490. It rises 12.85 metres through five storeys and is surrounded by elaborate branches and roots, giving it the appearance of a monumental monstrance. Its sculpture includes the Evangelists Luke, Mark, and Matthew, prophets, Peter, Paul, John the Evangelist, Saint Martin, and Saint Anne with Mary and the Christ Child. A cross-flower crowns the structure. The tabernacle doors were remade by Herbert Kämper in 1968. The sacrament house survived the 1689 fire beneath an intact section of vault.
Side Aisles and Memorials
Inward-projecting buttresses in the side aisles create window niches that held side altars until 1967. The reconstructed cross vaults date from the rebuilding after the fire, while the ribs in the niches are original late Gothic work.
The south aisle contains a sandstone figure of Saint Christopher, 1.42 metres high and probably made around 1490. It may have been donated by Margrave Christoph I. The aisle also contains a figure of Blessed Bernhard II of Baden in armour, with a Baden shield and an Order banner. Anselm Sickinger probably made the statue in the 1860s for the former Bernhard altar.
Side-aisle epitaphs commemorate Albrecht von Berwangen and Margarete von Nippenburg, Walter von Heimenhofen, Hans Mandriba, Friedrich von Bissingen, Franz Wolfgang Hornus, Adam Wolfgang Rottenberg and Philippina Rottenberg, and Johann Anton Wandel. The memorials represent officials, builders, donors, and church officers from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. The Berwangen monument is a sandstone slab with a helmet crest, coats of arms, and a Gothic inscription. The Rottenberg epitaph has Baroque stucco-marble pilaster framing.
Side Chapels
Mary Chapel
The Mary Chapel closes the north aisle. Built in 1468, it has a star vault with the Baden arms on its boss and an apse lit by three pointed-arch windows. Its sandstone Madonna and Child, approximately 1.15 metres high, was carved around 1500 by an unidentified artist. A missing sceptre was restored in 1987. The chapel also contains a candle stand and two Baroque-style pews.
Epitaphs in the chapel commemorate Hans Adam Röder von Tiefenau; Bernhard of Baden, the first provost; Kaspar Vogt; Johannes Gessel; Johannes Horn and his parents; Johannes Auer, the fourth provost; and Alexander Rath. Excavation in the chapel exposed the Roman sweating room beneath it.
Saint John Nepomuk Chapel
The Saint John Nepomuk Chapel closes the south aisle and contains the only Baroque altar surviving from the church’s Baroque furnishings. Martin Eigler made the wooden altar around 1752. Its coloured stucco-marble decoration includes Saint John Nepomuk holding a cross, two putti, an image of Saint Ursula, and an Agnus Dei beneath the altar table.
The chapel was established during the fifteenth-century late Gothic expansion, with the former chapter house above it. It comprises two rooms, each with one bay and a cross vault. The altar vault boss bears the Oettingen arms and an inscription dated 1662, recording a renovation commissioned by Maria Magdalena, the wife of Margrave Wilhelm. A small pointed-arch window lights the chapel. Since 2023, it has housed the tabernacle and an Eternal Light lamp made by Joseph Moye around 1690.
Three inscription stones are built into the chapel’s exterior. One is the Roman gravestone of the Legio VIII Augusta veteran. Two fragments, probably from 1388 to 1404, refer to the tomb of Otto von Selbach and his son Otteman.
Windows, Tower, and Portal
Stained Glass
The choir, nave, and side chapels contain 28 tracery windows with modern stained glass designed by Willy Oeser and produced at the Grosskopf workshop in Karlsruhe from 1952 to 1956. The brightly coloured, mouth-blown glass is set in lead.
The windows depict the life and glorification of Mary, together with Peter, Paul, the four Evangelists, prophets, saints, and episodes from the life of Christ. Choir scenes include Mary’s Coronation, the Stabat Mater, the Pietà, Pentecost, Mary’s death, and the Assumption. One window on the north side shows Mary extending her mantle over the House of Baden and includes Blessed Bernhard II. Windows in the Saint John Nepomuk Chapel depict the first eight Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem, while the remaining six are in the vestibule of the Mary Chapel. The Mary Chapel apse windows are purely ornamental.
Tower and Tower Hall
The Romanesque tower shaft consists of four tapering storeys built from massive red-sandstone blocks. Round-arch friezes, corner pilasters, and intermediate pilasters articulate its elevations. The fourth storey contains a mechanical clock operating since 1936; its clock and hands were renewed in 1984. Two original round-arch windows remain on the west side.
The tower was raised by an additional storey in the fifteenth century. Sundials have been mounted on its south and west sides since at least the eighteenth century. The octagonal bell storey originally had pointed-arch windows, and its elongated spire, built around 1474, was destroyed in 1689.
The present crown dates from the rebuilding of 1712 and 1713. It includes diamond-patterned masonry, another row of round-arch windows, four large clock faces, and three Baroque lanterns with Italianate caps. The former death bell, cast in 1728, hung in the lower lantern and was probably lost during twentieth-century wartime metal requisitions.
The tower hall originally served as an open western forecourt in front of the Romanesque nave. Since the late Gothic rebuilding, the main portal has occupied its west side, while the other three sides open into the nave and aisles. A glass closure installed in 2024 bears the inscription In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Martin Eigler made the Baroque-carved organ-gallery enclosure in 1753. The gallery runs around three sides of the tower hall, and its projecting eastern section rests on four consoles made by the Rastatt metalworker Oegg. The hall contains epitaphs for Karl Heinrich Freiherr von Orselaer zu Staufenberg and his wife, and for Salomé Gress. Since 2023, it has also served as a baptistery, with a richly ornamented red-sandstone font in the form of a chalice transferred from Lichtenthal convent during the recent renovation.
Main Portal
The recessed main portal is reached from the market square by seven steps. Martin Eigler made its oak door in 1752. Its three leaves contain images including a chalice, cruets, a censer, and Saint Peter. A roughly 50-centimetre execution sword is embedded in the north wall, with the date 1616 and initials cut below it.
Since the 1470s, a late Gothic gable with crockets has crowned the portal. Its tympanum shows Veronica with the Veil, while a Madonna and Child occupies the canopied niche above. The Baden arms form the upper termination. Side niches contain Peter and Paul, and lower niches depict a prophet, a king, Mary, and the Angel of the Annunciation.
The three principal portal figures were replaced by copies in 1913, while the late Gothic and Baroque originals are preserved in the city-history collections. Falling debris damaged the Madonna and parts of the portal decoration in 1689, and these elements were renewed in 1752.
Organs and Bells
Organs
Johann Andreas Silbermann’s 1753 main organ originally had two manuals and an independent pedal. Georg Hladky added reed stops in 1797, bringing the instrument to 25 registers. After further nineteenth-century alterations, the case and 49 pipes from its 1753 Bourdon 8-foot stop survive at Saint Cyriacus in Karlsruhe-Bulach.
The 1905 Voit organ had 43 registers on three manuals and pedal. It was suspended from the tower wall because space was limited and was expanded in 1928. A rebuilding in 1953 and 1954 added a fourth manual and a remote organ in the north aisle, electrified the action, and redesigned the case. Approximately 60 percent of the Voit pipes were melted down during this work.
The present main organ by Johannes Rohlf was inaugurated in 1990. It has 31 registers on three manuals and pedal, mechanical action, two channel tremulants, and a nightingale-effect stop. Its case follows Silbermann’s forms and dimensions, and the pedal section occupies the reopened tower arch. The organ was cleaned and tonally softened in 2006.
The remote, or Gospel, organ was installed by Carl Hess in 1954. It has ten registers on one manual and pedal and was reactivated in 2009 after approximately twenty years out of service. Its electrical action was renewed and a MIDI interface added. An electronic organ with more than 30 registers has stood in the choir since 1998. A painted wooden Madonna and Child stands on the central tower of the main organ case. Its date is uncertain, possibly belonging to the Baroque rebuilding around 1752 or the re-Gothicization around 1867. A radiating halo and crescent moon form its iconography.
Bell Peal
The present peal comprises nine bells cast by Albert Junker in 1948. Their inscriptions name Pope Pius XII, Freiburg capitular vicar Wilhelm Burger, Baden-Baden parish priest Hugo Heiler, and the Brilon foundry. The bells received oak yokes and new clappers during the 2020 to 2023 renovation, preserving the church’s continuing liturgical soundscape alongside its medieval, Baroque, and modern architectural remains.
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