Koenigstein fortress

On a hilltop in the sandstone mountains of Saxony, in a region called the Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland, even though it's in Germany and not Switzerland), there is a hilltop fortress called Königstein. A literal translation of the name would be King's Stone, but the meaning is closer to "King's rocky hill". The king referred to in the name could have been King Wenceslas I, who was king of Bohemia from 1230 until 1253. Königstein passed to subsequent kings, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Karl VI, who was also king of Bohemia, stayed at Königstein in 1359. In 1408, the castle was captured by Margrave of Meissen. The principality of Meissen merged with the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1423, and joined the Saxon electorate (electors of the Holy Roman Emporer).
The hilltop had a castle until the 30-year war, when castles became obsolete due to technological advances in cannons. Since the 30-year war, Königstein has been a fortress on the hilltop. Saxon princes have considered Königstein unconquerable, so they have retreated to it from Wittenberg and later Dresden during times of crisis, and they have deposited the state treasure and many works of art from the famous Zwinger in Dresden here.

The photo of the outside wall of Königstein show why it was so formidable. The mesa already had rock spires, which are seen as the dark stone in the photo. Prince-Elector Christian I of Saxony had stone added to that in order to create the walls that are visible from miles away.

The entrance to the fortress is heavily guarded, of course. After passing through a gateway in the outer wall, a steep wooden drawbridge leads up to the entrance to the castle.

The entrance to the castle is a steep tunnel with multiple traps laid along the way up. At the top of the tunnel is a wench used for helping the horses and men to pull the heavy supply wagons up the incline.  Four or five wagons per day delivered supplies for not only the soldiers but also their families who lived in the fortress too. There were also the prisons to care for.

After entering the fortress, it is obvious that a small town once was here. There is a bakery and a garden, there is a church and a parade grounds, and in Magdelene's Castle there was the enormous Königstein Wine Barrel (Königsteiner Weinfass), which held 66,000 gallons, making it the largest wine barrel in the world.

The Schatzhaus (treasure hause) held barrels of money in its vaults. Each barrel weighed 185 kg (over 400 lbs), and they were  moved on rails. There is a story in the Schatzhaus about the Au
stro-Prussian war in 1866. Dresden belonged to the Austrian-lead part of Germany, and the Prussians invaded Dresden on the 18th of June. A couple hours before the Prussian army reached the treasury in Dresden, 200 barrels along with bars of gold and silver were loaded on to a train and send to Königstein. (In the end, Prussia won the war, which is why Austria is a separate country today).

There are beautiful views from every part of the fortress walls. On one corner is a fancy lookout tower called the Friedrichsburg. It was originally a simple lookout tower called Christiansburg when it was built in 1589. On the ground floor was the guard room, and the upper floor was small saloon for royal functions. On August 12th, 1675,  Johann Georg II,  the Elector of Saxony, gave a party for an English ambassador, William Swan. The event nearly turned deadly for one of the pages, Heinrich Carl von Grunau, who after too much wine crawled through an arrow slit and fell onto a narrow ledge in the cliff face. He stayed there until morning, sound asleep. When the party finally broke up at dawn, a young nobleman from Denmark, Knut Jarthen, noticed the sleeper on the cliff edge. An alarm went through the entire fortress, and even Johann Georg was soon at the site of the sleeping page on the ledge. The electoral prince ordered quiet and had ropes lowered for retrieving the page. When he was safe within the fortress again, the prince had the trumpets and drums sounded. The Prince Elector decreed that the ledge should henceforth be called the Pagenbett (page's bed).

A contemporary illustration of the event is historically significant for its portrayal of the people present.   

We too part in an evening tour, given by a guide named Schließkapitän (Gunnery Captain) Clemens, who was dressed in period costume. He had lots of interesting stories about life in the fortress, its dangers (e.g. lightning strikes, wagon transport up the tunnel, drowning in water cisterns) and its pleasures (e.g. vegetable gardens, bakery), along with its military aspects (the jail for spies, the military training for the boys). He ended the tour in the Friedrichsburg, where an eight-sided table sat in the middle.

  He invited us all to have a seat around the large table, which was installed by August der Starke (August the Strong) in 1731, when he made the Friedrichsburg fancier with a barock stairway and a "mechanized table“.

 Then Clemens said told us the tale of August, who would impress his guests with the magic words, "Tischlein deck dich" (Table, set yourself). When Clemens said the words, the boards in the well in the middle of the table opened up, and a table the size of the hole came slowly up through the floor. It was decked out with Saxon wine and orange juice, complete with a nice centerpiece.

The phrase "Tischlein deck dich" was used by August was probably known to all of his guests due to the fairy tale called "The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack", as recorded by the Brothers Grimm. It's the story of a tailor and his three sons, and their adventures involving a table that decks itself with the finest food and wine, a donkey that poops gold, and a club that beats bad guys.

Creglingen - medieval charm and rustic food, November 2019

We had a long weekend due to the All Saints Day holiday on Friday, so on Saturday we borrowed a friend's car and took a ride in the country.  The weather was cool and started out cloudy and a bit wet, and the trees on the hillsides were dressed in fall colors of mostly yellow and dull orange, with some green left over. As we drove further west, the sun came out. We drove about an hour and a half west past Bad Windsheim and Rothenburg ob der Tauber until we got to Creglingen.
https://goo.gl/maps/nGoo7oiv6DaKVPBYA
It's a small place on the Romantic Road that runs south from Wuerzburg. Our goal was to spend the day in a quiet little town with some cultural attraction.

We found it just outside of town in a little church built in 1389 called Herrgottskirche (the church of our lord God). Inside is one of the most important works by the late Gothic sculptor Tillman Riemenschneider.

Sometime between 1490 and 1510, Riemenschneider built a wooden altarpiece depicting the assumption of Mary into heaven. It was the first time that the assumption was the main subject in an altarpiece; previously the assumption had been depicted only in illustrations of books. The shrine sits on a stone altar, which sits on the spot where a farmer is said to have found an intact communion host while plowing his field. (An open arch into the stone base of the altar allows a view of the dirt where the host was found.)










The center of the shrine shows Mary being lifted by five angels into heaven. She is surrounded by the twelve apostles. The faces are very expressive, especially St. James the Elder, shown in the front row on the right.

Around the center, the altarpiece shows the seven joys of Mary:

• The Visitation, in the upper left panel
• The Annunciation, in the lower left panel
• The Nativity of Jesus, in the upper right panel
• The Presentation at the temple, in the lower right panel
• The Adoration of the Magi, in the lower left predella 
• The finding in the temple, in the lower right predella
• The Coronation of the Virgin in superstructure

All are masterpieces. Richard especially likes the annunciation, with the archangel Gabriel floating in from the left, and Mary twisting her head away from her book to greet him. And what is that vase doing on the floor?
The superstructure has a depiction of Mary being crowned by two angels, with God the Father and Jesus at her sides.

Along the bottom in the right niche of the predella is the scene of the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple. The scribe on the right is said to be a self-portrait of Riemenschneider.

There are more treasures in this little church. Richard especially likes the fresco of St. Christopher on the wall in the chancel.

The outside of the Gothic church had some intriguing features. The stone face below is definitely from an earlier era, judging by its primitive style. It could belong to the Romanesque style from the 9th century, when the pagan days were in the not-so-distant past.

In addition to the carved altar piece, the church also had 3 brightly painted altars from the late middle ages (1490-1510).

By the time we found the church (which was not yet open), we had been on the road for more than an hour and a half, our breakfast was about 5 hours in the past, and Kathy was very hungry. Across the road were a thimble museum and a small, homey restaurant that advertised that they welcomed bikers, complete with a small motorcycle mounted on top of the wall around the terrace. When we walked in, a tall, tattooed man in a black T-shirt with brush-cut hair, a couple of earrings and a bluetooth headset in his ear, was the only occupant of the small dining room, but we smelled cigarette smoke. Turns out that behind the door to the back room, designated as a smoking room, the place was full of regulars. He took our order, offering a choice of potato soup with sausage, or a goulash soup, which means a type of spicy beef stew (no macaroni), accompanied by sour dough bread. Two shallow, blue enamel bowls with matching enamel spoons arrived on the table, and the stew came out in a matching covered, enamel pot with a cover and a ladle. Besides the homey, attractive presentation, it hit the spot! This café probably gets some tourist business because of the church, because the woman who brought out the food spoke a bit of English. There were also funny signs in English posted around the walls, along with Bavarian and Wuerttemberg memorabilia.

This witty sign was posted inside, next to the door. "He is not drunk who from the floor/ Can rise again and drink some more; / But he is drunk who prostrate lies / And cannot drink and cannot rise"

On the way to Creglingen, we went through the small town of Detwang, https://goo.gl/maps/rYNgWubKcA5dg6ee8, which also claimed to have a Riemenschneider altar. An old water wheel was prominent at the road side. We were following the course of the Tauber river, and countless signs indicated old mills, including oil mills and grain mills.

 Detwang's Riemenschneider altar was in a small church, seen below, but visiting hours were only on Sunday after the 10:00 service so we didn't get to see it. The old church itself was surrounded by a wall with a gate tower. Relatively recent gravestones surrounded the church. Remember that grave plots in Germany are reused throughout the centuries, with the bones of past occupants removed and stored somewhere else in ossuaries on sacred ground, while the recently deceased are buried in the plots leased by new families, or even the same family for centuries or decades.

In Creglingen, along the river, this figure was holding court. Kathy is sure that the artist intended her to be a cheerful representation of a harvest goddess. Her breasts were equipped with pipes that would have sprayed water into the basin surrounding her. 

Leipzig: Battles and Bach

October 2017
We have an additional holiday in Germany this year, 2017; one that comes along once every half a millennium. The 500th anniversary of the Martin Luther pinning his 95 theses to the church door in Wittemberg is on October 31st, which falls on a Tuesday. And the 1st of November is a holiday every year, so we took vacation on the Monday before that to make a five-day weekend. We were already in Wittenberg earlier this year, so we decided to visit Leipzig for the first time.

Today is October 30, which is nearly the 204th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations, so we went to see the monument.

The Monument to the Battle of the Nations (called Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig in German) commemorates the battle between Napoleon and a coalition armies from Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden, fought from the 16th to the 19th of October in 1813, in which  Napoleon was decisively defeated for the first time in battle. Napoleon's defeat was the beginning of his downfall, because it forced him to return to France, and the Coalition invaded France early the next year, resulting in Napoleon's abdication and exile to Elba in May 1814.

A half-million soldiers battled at this site near Leipzig for the political future of Europe in the bloodiest battle of the 1800s.

Model of monument

A monument to the victory was erected on the site of battle. It was constructed by Bruno Schmitz and finished in 1913 in time for the 100th anniversary. The monument is really a huge building, as shown in this model of the monument's cross section. It is 300-ft high made from 26,500 granite blocks, and roughly pyramidal in shape. In front is a reflecting pool, which represents the tears of the mourning people. (It was being renovated when we were there.)

You can climb through spiral staircases and narrow passages inside the monument up to the top of the highest dome.












You enter the monument at the very bottom, underneath the relief of the archangel Michael.






















and then climb up through the base into the crypt, in which there are eight large statues of fallen warriors, each one next to two smaller statues called the Totenwächter (Guardians of the Dead).

Guardians of the Dead

The statues of the monument were sculpted by Christian Behrens and his apprentice Franz Metzner, who finished the remaining statues after Behrens's death in 1905. The style seems to be Jungendstil (art nouveau), most obviously in the semi-circular stained-glass windows and frames.

Willingness to Sacrifice

On the second story are four statues, each one over 30-ft tall, representing the four legendary historic qualities ascribed to the German people: Bravery, Steadfast Belief, Willingness to Sacrifice, and Ethnic Strength. (I think I got 3 of the 4 correctly labeled.) Metzner used the Colossi of Memnon as a model for the statues.

Steadfast Belief

Ethnic Strength

At the top are 12 knights, who are the protectors of freedom. (There are also  324 reliefs of knights on the inside surface of the dome.)















In one wing of the monument is a museum about the battle. The museum has weapons, uniforms, equipment, pictures, and personal keepsakes. I especially enjoyed the 15 square-meter (about 150 square-feet) model with its 3000 figures. It describes the strategies and troop movements throughout the battle.







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Leipzig has a huge musical tradition. Johann Sebastien Bach was appointed the Cantor of the Thomasschule at the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig, from 1723 until his death in 1750. During this time he was also responsible for providing music to the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) in Leipzig.  Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was named conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835, and he remained in Leipzig until his death in 1847. He also founded the Leipzig Conservatory. Robert Schumann went to Leipzig in 1830 at the age of 20 to take piano lessons from his old master Friedrich Wieck, and in 1831 he began a study of music theory under Heinrich Dorn, the conductor of the Leipzig Opera. In 1844 he left Leipzig for Dresden. But in the intervening years he jointly founded Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("New Journal for Music"), married Clara Wieck (the daughter of his old master), and composed many works (including 150 piano lieder in 1840 alone). Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813.

We went to the Bach Museum and Archive, which is near the Thomaskirche and the statue of Bach. It is a really good museum that has a nice collection of artifacts including musical manuscripts, letters, portraits, and historical instruments, including the organ console from St. John’s Church in Leipzig, which was played by Bach. The Archive has a research institute and a library, and one of its missions is to find lost works by Bach. As recent as 2005, an unknown composition by Johann Sebastian Bach was discovered by a classical music scholar and researcher at Leipzig's Bach Archive. An aria dated October 1713, when Bach was 28, was found  in a box of birthday cards in the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. The archive verified the piece as the work of Bach using various techniques described in the museum. There is an especially interesting exhibit on identifying Bach's handwriting, which changed over time as it does for all of us. His handwriting was different for his quick sketches than his neat final documents. Researchers also know what kind of ink he used and on which kind of paper he wrote.

Part of Bach's Family Tree

There was an interesting display on Bach's family and the many generations of musicians. Bach created the family tree himself, and so he is listed in the second column from the right in this photo. Not all of Bach's 20 children ( 7 with Maria Barbara Bach, who died in 1720, and 13 more with his second wife Anna Magdalena Wilcke) are listed; only the musically gifted ones! Bach started his family tree with his great-great grandfather, Hans Bach, who was the father of Veit Bach, "a white-bread baker", who in turn was the father of Johannes Bach I "der Spielmann" (the player). He at first was a baker, but became the first professional musician of the family when he became a piper.

 Bach is buried across the street from the museum in the Thomaskirche, where there is also a portrait of him in one of the stained-glass windows.

Statue of Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy

In front of the Thomaskirche is a statue of Felix Mendelsohn Bartoldy, who supported the church's Thomanerchor (the boys' choir founded in 1212) along with the opera and other musical institutions in Leipzig. We visited the Mendelssohn House, a museum in the house where Mendelssohn lived and died.

Mendelssohn's study with busts of Bach and Goethe

Naumburg Cathedral: Mysterious Master Sculptor

There is a new World Heritage Site north of us in Thuringen (Thuringia). Last year, UNESCO added the Cathedral at Naumburg to its list of World Heritage sites.

Naumburg Cathedral is known for its architecture, sculptures and images, and according to the supporting scientists, it is "a unique testimony to medieval art and liturgy. The harmonic connection between architecture,
sculpture and stained glass windows in the west choir of the cathedral counts among
the most impressive creations of human creativity in the Middle Ages at large.″

East Choir Screen

When Naumburg was nominated to the UNESCO list, the documents said that the choir screens were especially worth preserving.

West Choir Screen

"It is the only Cathedral illustrating in two almost completely preserved choir screen structures from the first half of the 13th century the profound changes in religious practice, perception, and in the reflection of nature and in science observation in the figurative arts. The workshop organization of sculptors and stonemasons which was likely established in the early 13th century and is known under the name of the “Naumburg Master” constitutes one of the decisive conveyors and pioneers of the ground-breaking innovations in architecture and sculpture of the Late Hohenstaufen period in the 2nd half of the 13th century that were first developed at Reims Cathedral and have been lost in other places. The quality of the Naumburg Master’s work has since justified Naumburg’s reputation far beyond its region."

The screen of the east choir is late  Romanesque, and the screen of the west choir is Gothic. The interior of the west choir and its screen were the work of the Naumburg Master, so-called because nobody today knows his name. But his artwork is among the most important of the European Middle Ages. He and his workshop traveled across Europe from Reims around 1225, to Metz in the Holy Roman Empire, and around 1230 he was in Mainz to work on the Cathedral. From there he traveled to Naumburg and worked from about 1245-1250 until construction was finished in 1257. Everywhere the Naumburg Master worked he left behind recognizable art. Other famous Gothic artists, like Tilman Riemenschneider, who lived later and worked around 1500, produced wonderful, but stylized, figures (see our blog). His wooden statue of St. Elisabeth in the Neuenburg Castle (see our blog) is very beautiful and also stylized.  But the Master of Naumburg made very realistic sculptures in the mid 1200s.

 The reliefs along the top of the west screen are more like statues; they are carved from one piece of stone. They depict scenes from the passion of Christ. At the passage through the west screen is a statue of Christ crucified.  On the sides of the passage are statues of Mary and John. The statue of St. John is especially expressive, as you can see in the photo.

Scenes from the passion of Christ

 

St. John on right side of passage

Entrance to west choir

Inside the west choir are the twelve monumental donor portraits that are considered his masterpieces. The most famous are the statues of Uta and her husband Ekkehard II of Meissen (today the city where the first porcelain was produced in Germany). Legend has it that the figure of Uta, with her high collar and medieval head covering, was an inspiration for the Disney portrayal of the evil queen in Snow White.

West choir screen from inside the choir 

Ekkehard II and Uta

Most churches, however old they are, no longer have choir, or "rood", screens. The "rood" refers to the cross that was typically depicted on the congregation side of the screen. Choir screens were meant to hide the altar from the lay person's view, making the ceremony of the mass even more mysterious. After the council of Trent ended in 1563, they were removed from Catholic churches as part of the Counter-Reformation. It is amazing that these screens survived. It is probably due in part to the neglect that churches suffered under the East German communist regime that such architecture survived.

Underneath the late-Romanesque nave is a high-Romanesque crypt, which
"is characterised by its high-quality architectural decoration. The palmette cushion capitals rank among the most beautiful examples of their kind in the Central European area. With the High Romanesque crucifix placed on the well preserved Godehard altar of the crypt (3rd quarter of the 12th century) an impressive furnishing piece complements the built Romanesque structure".
The crypt represents the oldest stone structure on the site.