One day a long long time ago an impoverished serf paused and then shook the traces for his plow horse to stop. Something gleamed… Something gleamed below him in the furrow he had just cut. Could it be gold?
Furtively he looked around. The dark woods were right above him. Behind and out of sight was the River Tauber and the only village he had ever known – Creglingen. He carefully folded his tunic into his belt and knelt, exposing his privates to the wind. No matter. Pushing away the stoney ground he revealed the precious treasure… And franticly scrambled backward! It wasn’t gold! It was the Immaculate Host, unsullied by dirt and burning with a fire of silver! Above him the crepuscular clouds parted and a radiant Jesus surrounded by a host of angels gazed down upon him with compassion! Suddenly fearful he abandoned his horse and plow and ran as fast as he could for Creglingen!
Before long a church had been built to house The Host. It was called the Herrgottskirche (The Lord’s Chapel). But no one was surprised when, in 1404, the church received papal permission to sell indulgences. This is when all the trouble began.
Today, the Herrgottskirche is a small late Gothic chapel stuffed with four medieval altarpieces; one of which is a sublime example of the wood carver’s art. Externally, however, the church is bland, with frequent additions suggesting the dark history of the 16th century.
But it is the inside of the church that pilgrims flock to see. Front and center is the Virgin Mary’s retable, Tilman Riemenschneider’s masterpiece.
It’s really hard to put into words or to even describe this masterful late Gothic ensemble by Riemenschneider. Built of pinewood and lime wood the retable sits atop the stone altar that marks the legendary discovery of the communion host. Many comparisons with medieval altarpieces end here. Most earlier altarpieces (see left and right and in subsequent photos) are basically painted statues. In all of Riemenschneider extant altarpieces – The Holy Blood Altarpiece in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and the Magdalenen Altar in Muennerstadt- the lime wood is left raw with the grain exposed and used to advantage.
Moreover this piece, created between 1490 and 1510, simply looks Modern. Gone is the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. In fact, Jesus is nowhere to be seen in the main image of the retable. The Apostles look on with beatitude as the Mary is born aloft by a flock of tiny angles. Raptly she looks into the distance, the very image of Marian grace through intercession.
Unfortunately, this vision of the Divine Feminine didn’t play well with Martin Luther and the statue-breakers of the early Reformation. The only reason the Assumption of the Virgin Mary escaped destruction was that as the Reformation swept across Germany the two wings of the retable were firmly closed. They remained closed for more than 300 years, from 1530 until 1832!
Behind the Virgin Mary retable the Herrgottskirche opens up into a vision of color.
This small golden altar on the left side of the church was constructed around 1460 and is dedicated to John the Baptist and St. Leonard. The paintings were signed by Jakob Mulholzer in 1496, It’s the oldest altarpiece in the church.
At the top of the shrine St. Sebastian is menaced by an archer and a crossbow man loading his gun. Below, in the center shrine are stereotypical scenes from the life of Jesus: Mary’s wedding, birth, and the adoration of the Magi. The right panel illustrates the Presentation of Jesus in the temple.
The paintings in the predella below show Mark the Evangelist (to the left) and Matthew the Evangelist (to the right). In the center are the patron saints of the altar, John the Baptist (in the center) and St. Leonard (to the right).
On the church’s right is another exquisite altarpiece attributed to Mulholzer.
If we look upon a medieval altarpiece not as a work of art but as a teaching moment for the illiterate (which it most certainly was), what does this altarpiece teach us? First of all, the Herrgottskirche, (The Church of our Lord) was originally dedicated to a male deity; likewise the altar of the Assumption was originally called the Corpus Christi altarpiece. But somehow over the space of fifty years the Divine Feminine crept in. Mary sits at ease in her medieval chamber, reading a book. Her intricately depicted dress and shawl cascade around her. Perched on the edge of the seat a small bird points a wing at her in reverence. In the right hand panel the angel announcing the birth of Christ is likewise surrounded by the grace of the natural world: Lilies of the Valley and numerous tame birds.
Unfortunately, the two panels in the predella below somewhat muddy the waters.
In the left panel the ‘King and Priest’ Melchizedek, who is sometimes thought to be Jesus Christ pre-incarnate, offers bread and wine to Abraham. Meanwhile, in the right hand panel figures madly gather manna from heaven while horned Christ gestures with his staff! What does this all mean? Who knows? But it’s an awful lot for an illiterate peasant to take in!
Sadly, as one progresses deeper into the church one begins to see signs of the circumstances leading to the downfall of the Catholic Church in the 16th century. On the right hand wall, under an enormous 18th century mural of St. Christopher, is a small door surmounted with a mysterious face… Are those bat wings?
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Through the door a winding passageway led to a pulpit overlooking the exterior of the church (please see the photograph at the beginning of this article). This was the so called Tetzel Pulpit. From this pulpit the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel would rant at the dumbfounded peasants below, demanding they buy indulgences.
It’s hard to explain today how controversial the practice of the selling of indulgences was in the early 16th century. Tetzel and Martin Luther hotly debated the practice of their sale in 1518 and within half a dozen years Luther was nailing the 95 thesis’s on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. Tetzel is to have said “As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs!” It was like pouring gasoline onto flames when the accusation emerged that you could buy indulgences for sins you hadn’t yet committed! So it wasn’t very long before the Reformation and the wars it would engender altered the fate of the Herrgottskirche and Tilman Riemenschneider forever.
The high altar in the choir – by unknown artists – is perhaps the most didactic of all the pieces. Yet the fine paintings of Christ’s Passion harmonize well and reinforce the central depiction of Christ’s crucifixion. Saint Christopher, Saint Anne with the baby Mary and the baby Jesus, and Saint Andrew peer out from the predella below.
The years following the shuttering of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in 1530 were hard on the Herrgottskirche. It was a Catholic Church in Lutheran clothes after all. With its sources of pilgrimage funds cut off the church settled into poverty and a dour puritanism. Only now has Herrgottskirche resumed its role as a place of meditative contemplation, and the pilgrims have returned.
For Tilman Riemenschneider the effects of the Reformation were more personal. Over the years as his fame had grown so had his wealth. By the 1520s he employed over forty artisans in his wood carving workshop. Perhaps it was joining the city council of Wuerzburg that led to his demise. An apocryphal form of Christianity, popular with the peasants and championed by Thomas Muntzer, swept from Bohemia to the West. The city council threw in with the peasants, the nobles and the Church, needless to say, didn’t. 8,000 peasants were slaughtered outside the city gates of Wuerzburg. The entire city council was captured and put to the rack.
Riemenschneider never worked again after that. Some say his hands were broken in retaliation for joining the peasants revolution, others say that’s unlikely. What is without a doubt is that after being freed he settled into an obscurity that has lasted to this day.
