Riemenschneider's Last Supper and Rothenburg

 It was a beautiful fall day on Halloween, so we made a day trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Galgentor (Gallows Gate)

We took the train and walked from the station to one of the city gates. The medieval town is surrounded by a city wall that you can climb and walk around the city on.

Walking the city wall

 

 

The city's history goes back to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, which included Konrad III, who ruled from 1138 until his death in Bamberg in 1152. Holy Roman Emperors did not collectively have a permanent residence; instead each had a home base. Konrad did not have a home base large enough for someone of his position, so he decided to build one on a hill overlooking the Tauber river.

Pilgrimage route

Konrad built his castle in 1142, and of course a village grew up around it. Konrad built his castle at the crossing of two important pan-European routes. Of the three most important pilgrimage destinations in Christendom (Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela) Rothenburg was along a north-south route to Rome, and also along one of the east-west routes called St. James' Way to Santiago de Compostela, where the tomb of St. James is located. The most important church in Rothenburg is St. Jakobskirche (St. James Church), built next to the north-south route. When the church was enlarged with an addition to its west end, the addition had to bridge over the pilgrimage route, because you know you don't change pilgrimage routes! 

Coat of Arms

Rothenburg obtained official market rights in 1172, which was a big deal because of the money that could be made. (Have you read Ken Follett's novel Pillars of the Earth?) Rothenburg gained in importance, and in 1274 the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf I, made Rothenburg a Free Imperial City, meaning that it did not belong to one of the Princes, Dukes, Counts or other rulers that made up the empire. Rather, it belonged to the emperor himself. As such, the city also obtained a Reichskammergericht, (Imperial Chamber of Justice), which is represented by the small building between the two towers in the city's coat of arms. By 1400, Rothenburg was second only to Cologne in size. The first fortress walls surrounding the city enclosed a relatively small area. Part of the original wall was made of a Spital, which was a combination hospital, old-folks home, and hotel for pilgrims. These people were associated with disease, and that is the reason for not letting them stay long inside the city. Monastic orders also put up pilgrims in the monasteries overnight, even though they were inside the city walls, but religious buildings were officially part of the Roman Church and did not fall under the jurisdiction of the city.  

Röderbogen (Markusturm in background)

One of the remaining towers from the old inner wall is the Markusturm (Markus tower), shown with its city gate (Röderbogen) in the photo. Another is the Weißer Turm (White tower). You can see some of the many business signs extending from the buildings and hanging over the street. They are very decorative, and original to the medieval situation when people were illiterate. So the signs had to show what business was located in the shops. A tour guide told us that the city fathers knew very well how important the signs were, and so imposed an "air tax" on the signs hanging over the street. The business people were clever, and they put the signs on hinges in order to bring them up against the buildings.

Weißer Turm

High Altar in the chancel of the church

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the first town wall is the Jakobskirche, mentioned earlier. The current church was started by the Teutonic Order of Knights in 1298. Only the chancel (the part occupied by the priest and monks) was built in the first of three stages. It was butted up against an older Romanesque church, and when the chancel was complete in 1322, the Romanesque church was torn down. 

The chancel contains a stone altar piece with an early depiction of the trinity as the Father, the Son, and a dove as the Holy Spirit all together. The beautiful colors must be older than 1544, because after the Reformation came to Rothenburg at the end of the Peasants' War, the church became protestant, and colored statues did not adhere to Martin Luther's ideas. One reference I read said that Friederich Herlin, the same person who made the altar, also painted the older stone altar. 

Early depiction of the trinity

Behind the high altar are scenes painted on the wood. There are several scenes of St. James, and in particular of the transport of his dead body to the church in Santiago de Compostela.  The painter of the scenes had never been there, so he used Rothenburg instead. The result is the first depiction of Rothenburg's market square and city hall and the first aerial view of a city to be achieved in southern Germany.

Rothenburg's market square above

 

Nave of St.Jakobskirche

 

 

The second part of the church was then constructed from 1372 until 1436: the part of the nave extending almost to the organ. Construction had to stop there, because the pilgrimage route was just outside. The third part of the church was constructed from 1453 until 1471, and it is the part that contains the organ and that bridges the pilgrimage route. It is also the part that contains Tilman Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar.

Riemenschneider carved the scenes in the altar from 1501 until 1504, and the main scene depicts the last supper. This is in keeping with the reliquary, which contains a piece of cloth with three drops of consecrated wine (hence, the blood of Christ). The reliquary is a piece of rock crystal mounted at the center of the crucifix.

The depiction of the last supper is unusual, because it depicts Judas in the center rather than Jesus, who is slightly to the left and higher. Judas is depicted with a back of money in his left hand. Notice that next to the bag is the face of the apostle John, who has collapsed onto Jesus's lap in distress.

 

Holy blood reliquary

 

 

Last supper by Riemenschneider

 

We had a wonderful day in Rothenburg, and we sat outdoors for a meal of venison cubes in a dark wine gravy with spaetzle and batter-fried carp, two traditional Frankonian dishes. The restaurant's outdoor seating was on the site of the former cemetery of St. Jakobskirche, and the former chapel building is still next door.

former cemetery chapel

The reason Rothenburg is so well preserved is that its significance waned after the destruction suffered from the Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648) that left 2/3 of its inhabitants dead. The city never recovered from this era. The medieval architecture remained frozen in time. That anything at all survived  the war is, according to folklore, due to the mayor Georg Nusch (Nu-sh). In 1631, the troops of Catholic General Tilly with his army of 40,000 troops laid siege to the protestant town. The town was therefore threatened with starvation, and so the town sent out women and children to plead for the town, but the General was not deterred. Finally, the mayor made a wager with the general. The mayor claimed to be able to drink over 3 liters of Franconian wine in one gulp, known as the Meistertrunk (Master Draught). A recreation can be seen every day in the glockenspiel next to the city hall at noon, and also every year the Meistertrunk is reenacted during the town festival.

What survived until the 1940s was seen even by the Germans as the ideal German town and for the Nazis it came to represent the ideal German home town. So it was occupied by German forces when the Allies bombed it on March 31, 1945. Because the U.S. Assistant secretary of war, John McCloy, was told of the town's beauty by his mother, he ordered that no artillery be used when the Americans took the town. Luckily, the American forces were able to convince the Germans to surrender without a fight (contrary to Hitler's orders), and the town was spared further damage. 

However, 40% of the town's buildings had already been damaged, mostly on the city's east side. To retain its charm, the damaged buildings were rebuilt in a style as close to the original medieval style as possible. McCloy was later made an honorary citizen.

Besides the charming lanes and streets and towers and houses in the old town, one of the most famous attractions is the Christmas museum associated with the Wohlfahrt family. Their famous store is called Käthe Wohlfahrt; open year round, it offers Christmas ornaments made in Germany and it is so crowded with tourists that in the store itself, visitors are guided through the store on one-way only paths. But you don't have to go to Rothenburg to see a Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. There's one in Nuremberg, a 20 minute train ride away from us. 

Another attraction is the "Criminal Museum", which includes shudder-inducing authentic examples of common medieval torture devices, all instruments of what passed for justice in those years. Kathy remembers how disturbing her first visit to this museum was, and does not want to go back there. However, the museum has since added exhibits about how justice was perceived in the middle ages up through today, and there is information about the witch persecutions of the 1600s and 1700s. 

Today, Rothenburg is indeed charming. It is well worth visiting in the off-season, when busloads of tourists from all over the world no longer throng the streets.

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.

Neuenburg Castle: one of the largest in Central Germany, the Wartburg's big brother

Wartburg Castle is very well known. Our blog from 2009 describes the connection with my favorite medieval Minnesinger (troubadour), Wolfram von Eschenbach; St. Elisabeth of Thuringen, who was brought to the Wartburg from Hungary when she was four years old; and most famous of all, Martin Luther, who translated the Bible into German there.

Not as well known is the Neuenburg Castle. It and the Wartburg were built by the same person, a Frankish Count called Ludwig der Springer (Louis the Jumper), at about the same time, around 1090. In spite of its obscurity, the supporting scientists writing about Naumburg Cathedral also found Neuenburg Castle  worthy of the designation World Heritage Site.

"Of the highest significance for the chivalric and courtly cultures of this time is Neuenburg Castle established by the landgraves of Thuringia. It counts among the greatest Romanesque Castle complexes worldwide and preserves one of the most impressive spiritual testimonies to the life of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia with its
exceptional two-storey chapel."

By the year 1100, Neuenburg Castle was the largest and most important fortification in central Germany. Still today, sections of the curtain walls in the north and east, part of the gate, the part of the castle on the lower part of the slope, and trenches in the east and in the south are open to visitors. The landmark is the castle keep, called "Dicker Wilhelm" (fat William), which today is outside of the castle on the high ground. It is visible from far away as a symbol of power.

Dicker Wilhelm

Visitor's entrance to the castle

The original castle was built in the Romanesque style, and the best evidence of that is the chapel.

 "the Chapel of Neuenburg displays the distinctive fusion of the Rhenanian and Saxon artistic styles as a masterpiece of the courtly art, strongly connected with the life of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia"
The chapel has two stories. The ground floor was for the peasants, and the upper floor for the nobles.

Upper floor of the chapel

Ground floor of the chapel

The ground floor has an opening in the ceiling. That opening met the liturgical requirements that the peasants have a view of the room with the altar and can hear the priest. The upper floor is very fancy, except for the hole in the floor. The four impressive columns in the middle of the room get their dark color from the  carboniferous limestone of which they are made.

Outside of the entrance to the upper floor is a statue of St. Elisabeth. This is the same woman we talked about in out blog "Poets and Thinkers". She was brought to the Wartburg when she was four years old, and married Ludwig IV, the Landgrave of Thuringia, when she was 14 and he was 20. After her husband's death when she was 20, and just a few weeks before the birth of her third child, Gertrude, she sent her children away and regained her dowry. She used the money to build a hospital in Marburg where she herself served the sick. In 1224 or 1225 she visited Neuenburg and is said to have cured a sick man.

Neuenburg Castle was a popular place. Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa visited Neuenburg Castle in 1172, and the legend of the “living wall” of soldiers providing the best military defense was born.  The most important poets of the 13th century, namely Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, also stayed at Neuenburg Castle. And this is where Heinrich von Weldecke, who was an inspiration to Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Straßburg, completed his AEneas novel, which was the first courtly romance in a Germanic language.

Easter in Munich (2019): Bavarian national splendor

We spent a beautiful day in Munich on Easter Sunday. We spent much of it in the parks of Munich. We had lunch in the Englischer Garten and walked through the east side of the Isar river in the afternoon.
We decided to do something new, and since we had never been in the Bavarian National Museum, we checked it out. You read that right. Bavaria was once an independent nation with its own royal family!

The museum is built around the collection of the Wittelsbacher family, the pre-eminent noble family in Bavaria. This family was given the kingship of Bavaria when Napoleon rearranged Germany. They were kings up until the last one abdicated during the First World War. One of them, loopy Louis (Ludwig II) built the famous Neuschwanstein castle.

Many of the beautiful things in the museum reflect how the nobles lived in the good old days, when decadence was good. We saw a room full of ivory carvings. It turns out that ivory turning was an acceptable past-time for the members of the Bavarian royal family.

Other exhibits covered the exquisite clothes, jewelry and tableware of the days when one dressed and dined to impress. 

The fine embroidery on the white silk dress kept Kathy staring. The necklace consisted of garnets and silver, and the painted stones depicted characters from a masked ball. The silver structure below, a table centerpiece, featured small musician figures in the center surrounded by curtains made of silver lacework. The whole thing was a platform that held the salt and pepper shakers and other seasonings. Can't imagine polishing the thing!

This beautiful museum emphasizes the decorative arts. The museum has several rooms of sculptures by Tilman Riemenschneider, an artist whose work graces many churches in our region of Franconia. Some were very familiar, and some were bizarre. An example of the latter is the Ascension of Mary Magdalene showing Mary covered only by her own hair. (Click on the pictures to see a larger version)

The more familiar ones include the 12 Apostles. Most figures have an attribute for the method of martyrdom for each of the them.  It seems to me that Judas Iscariot has been replaced by Paul the Apostle.




Matthew was originally holding a quill (not seen) used for writing the Gospel.

Four soldiers took Thomas to a nearby hill and speared him.

Andrew was crucified on an X, which is also where the design of the Scottish flag comes from.







This one is the easiest. Peter has the keys to heaven, of course.

This is the tricky one. Paul (not one of the 12 Apostles) is holding a scroll (symbolising the Scriptures).

Simon the Zealot was sawn in half.

Philip was crucified upside-down, in deference to Jesus.

Bartholomew is shown with the knife because he was skinned alive.

James, son of Zebedee, wears a pilgrim's hat, because he is thought to be buried at Santiago, the great pilgrimage site. He was the brother of John, the Beloved.




John, the Beloved, was challenged to drink a cup of poison to demonstrate the power of his faith.

Jude, or Judas Thaddaeus, should be holding a spear, but it looks more like a club to me, which is sometimes his attribute also.

James, the Younger and brother of Jesus according to one interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew, has a slim club with a wooden board attached at a right angle to one end used by fullers to clean wool.

There were also several green men and a couple of wild men.

These wild men and green men are commonly found in Romanesque churches, the first churches built in stone. The stone churches usually replaced wooden churches that were built by the early missionaries on the same site. The depiction of these pagan figures, which are unique to these early churches, is intriguing. We wonder what these figures imply about the way Christianity was practiced between 800 and 1000 C.E., shortly after Christianity was adopted or forced on the Germanic tribes. What remained of the early pagan beliefs? It seems that the pre-Christian belief systems persisted, because the representation of nature spirits is tacked on to the Christian imagery. The undercurrent of pagan respect for nature is something we notice repeatedly here in Germany, where trees are protected by requiring applications to be filed before they are felled in the season that makes the least impact on the birds that nest in them. Other evidence of this pre-Christian respect for nature is that the fountains in the rocky, water-poor regions to our northeast are cleaned and decorated each year around Easter time with evergreen boughs and painted eggshells.

In Spalt, hops is like gold

October 2014
Kathy and I went with my colleague Lisa Keim to the town of Spalt, in Franken, on Sunday.  The weather was beautiful, and the normally sleepy town was full of people for the harvest festival.  The first thing you notice about Spalt is all the tall gable ends on the buildings.

5-story roof above a beautiful garden.

The multiple floors under the roofs are living quarters today, but once they were full of hops. Back then, there were slats running the length of the roof in order to let air circulate through the hops, as seen in the photo below.

Hops barn with horizontal ventilation slats still visible

Home, hops barn, and animal barn (all in one)

Today, the ventilation slats are usually filled in.  But we found an interesting exception, shown in the photo below, where a single horizontal slat is still visible. This hops barn was part of a complex including a regular animal barn butted up against the right side (see the large barn door and the hay-mow window above it), and the living quarters butted up against the left. The orange color is typical in town.

Diebsturm

Hops was a very valuable crop in the middle ages. Growing them was allowed only by special permit, and only in designated plots. (This made sense, because the plants take so many nutrients out of the soil, that you could ruin a field by resituating the plot in it.) There was a special prison, called the Diebsturm (thief's tower) where workers were sent who pocketed any of the precious flowers.

Oberer Torturm

The high value of the hops drying in the buildings in town made it necessary to build a fortress wall. Much of the medieval wall still exists, like at the Upper Gate Tower (Oberer Torturm).

The city wall has houses built up against it, of course. What is unusual in Spalt is that the tall, thin construction was applied to houses on the walls as well. The result is a house that hangs out over the wall, and continues upward, as seen at the Schlenzger Haus.

Schlenzger-Haus

The Little Customs House (Zollhäuschen) was needed for the trade, and the building still stands at the northern gate to the town.













The wealth of the citizens made it worthwhile to build a large granary (Kornhaus) to collect the taxes: a 10% tithe. Farmers brought ten percent of their harvest to the town's granary.

Zollhäusche

Kornhaus for farmers' tithes

St. Emmeram

There is no sense in growing hops if you don't brew beer, and beer-making goes way back in Spalt. In the 800s there was once a Benedictine monastery called St. Salvator, with a church built in the Carolingian style on the site of today's church in Spalt. Undoubtedly, the monks brewed
beer. In the 1100s, a romanesque church called St. Emmeram was built on the site. Parts of that architecture are still visible in the church today, although the interior is largely baroque.

The brewery makes Spalter Bier, and we tried two kinds. One was a helles (light in color), which has a very nice hopsy flavor. The other is called "Saumarkt Bier", and it is a really good darker beer that Kathy is drinking at lunch as seen in the photo. Saumarkt is a funny name which means "Sow market", and Lisa says it refers to the day when the pigs are butchered. On that day, there is a big feast with a lot of food that could not be preserved and had to be eaten fresh, such as liver, blood sausage, other internal organs and parts like the snout and cheeks. Such rich food required a more robust beer and is the inspiration for "Saumarkt Bier".

Richard and Kathy in Spalt

Below are photos of more of the towers on the old city wall.

Oberer Torturm

Drechslerturm

Below are some more photos of converted hops barns in town.

Mühlreisighaus

open  artist's studio