The ruins of the basilica of St. Sola.

We went to the small town of Solnhofen today.  It has the ruins of the basilica that contained the grave of St. Sola, who died in 794.  He went to Fulda in 744, where he became a monk and was made a priest by St. Boniface (the patron saint of Germany).  Sometime between 745 and 750 he was sent to Husen, which is called Solnhofen today in his honor.  He was visited by Charles the Great (Charlemagne) in 793 who was making his way from Regensburg to Weissenburg.

Foundations of earlier churches

The basilica was built on the foundations of earlier churches. The first two churches were probably built in the sixth century, before the time of St. Sola. The first church was of an early type with two or three apses and served as a base for missionaries from the south. The second church was built in approximately 700.  It was a larger church because evidence of two separate rooms was found.  The second church was an aisleless church with a single nave without pillars or columns. It was destroyed between 725 and 728 in the war of Charles the Hammer (then king of  the Franks) against the Bavarians  A third church was probably built as a meeting house for St. Sola with the support of Willibald (the first bishop of Eichstätt) and Wunibald (founder of the Abbey in Heidenheim). The fourth church built sometime after 795 (shortly after Sola's dealth) was probably the first to be a Benedictine cloister. 

Columns with Carolingian capitals

The fifth and final church was the Basilica of St. Sola, which was built some time in the first half of the ninth century, although this date is not certain.  The construction was directed by Rabanus Maurus, the Abbot of the cloister at Fulda, and sponsored by Ludwig the Pious. The three-nave basilica was christened in 819 by Bishop Agan von Eichstätt.  At about the same time, the church complex was elevated by the Royal Chaplain of Ludwig the Pious to a Provost. In 833, Sola was made a saint, and his remains were laid in a new tomb made of the local sandstone. An early Romanesque bell tower was constructed on the south wall in the eleventh century, although nothing remains of it today. In 1720 an altar with a depiction of the Wonder of St. Sola was installed, but it was removed during a renovation in 1734.  The building was partly torn down in 1782 and 1783, and a protestant church, St. Veit Church, was built partly on the foundations and consecrated in 1785. The tomb of St. Sola was opened on September 14, 1828, but no corpse was found. Excavation was carried out by the University of Heidelberg from 1961 until 1966 and again from 1974 until 1979.  The round columns were taken in 1977 to the Archaeological Museum in Munich, where the Sola Medallion, a round relief with the figure of a torch bearer, was found. The basilica was renovated from 1991 until 1996.  The broken east wing of the cloister is marked in 1997 with a outline in the ground.

Gothic tomb behind the columns

Due to the destruction in 1782 and 1783, only the western part of the north nave remains.  A gallery crypt two meters deep houses the empty tomb of St. Sola.  The nave is 28.28 meters long and 13.3 meters wide. The three-part choir was elevated, but only the approach can be seen.  The location of the middle nave is marked by arcades.  Of the twelve remaining columns, six have been replaced. The three remaining capitals are among the best Carolingian carvings in Germany.  

After visiting the ruins, we had lunch at Hotel Adler.  We had some great Frankish food.  Kathy had smoked trout and Richard had a pork tenderloin with a spicy curry sauce on the side.  They were served on wooden boards, which was fun. The beer and wine were excellent, too.
A retired pastor sat at the table next to ours. He really wanted to practise his English, so he talked to us about anything and everything.  When our food arrived and I commented on how unusual the presentation was, he explained that the presentation was culture.  There is a bigger difference in Germany than in America between culture and civilization, he said.  In Germany, a subway is civilization, but the traditional Frankish food we were eating was culture.