St. Christopher's Church (Reinhausen)

St. Christopher Church is the Protestant-Lutheran parish church located in the village of Reinhausen in the district of Göttingen, Lower Saxony. The church stands on the sandstone rock of the Kirchberg above the village center. It was originally built as a castle chapel by the Counts of Reinhausen in the 10th century and later served as a church for the collegiate monastery and the Benedictine monastery of Reinhausen that emerged from it in the 12th century. The church in Reinhausen, commonly known as the Reinhausen monastery church, has served as the parish church of the village of Reinhausen for many years. Following the introduction of the Reformation in 1542, the monastery was gradually dissolved, and the church was then solely used as a parish church, with brief interruptions. Today, it belongs to the Göttingen church district in the Hildesheim-Göttingen branch of the Hanoverian regional church.

Despite significant structural changes in the Gothic and Baroque styles, the overall appearance of the Romanesque monastery church remains prominent. This is especially evident in the west facade with its double tower. The building type underwent several construction phases, transforming from a Romanesque basilica to a hall church. The interior of the church contains several late medieval works of art, such as two late Gothic altars, extensive remains of wall paintings, and stone sculptures depicting St. Christopher, the patron saint of the church.

Location

The monastery church is situated at an altitude of approximately 210 meters above sea level on the Kirchberg. It is located about 30 meters north of a cliff edge that drops steeply down to the valley of the Wendebach stream and the village center of Reinhausen, which is situated in the valley to the southeast of the church. The church's location on a spur of the Knüll, which extends to the west and rises steeply above the village, makes it highly exposed. In contrast to the village center, the location is visible from the adjacent hills to the west and even from the western slope of the Leinetal valley.

Access to the church from the village was only possible on foot via three steps carved into the rock until the early 19th century. The road leading from the village to the church hill was built during this time. The steps are now very worn out.Peter Ferdinand Lufen: Landkreis Göttingen, Teil 2. Altkreis Duderstadt mit den Gemeinden Friedland und Gleichen und den Samtgemeinden Gieboldehausen und Radolfshausen (= Christiane Segers-Glocke [Ed.]: Denkmaltopographie Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Baudenkmale in Niedersachsen. Volume 5.3). CW Niemeyer Book Publishers Ltd., Hameln 1997, , p. 280. Carts could only access the church from the north-east via State ownership.Ulfrid Müller: Die Klosterkirche in Reinhausen. In: Harald Seiler (Ed.): Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte. Volume 9. German Art Publishers Ltd., Munich Berlin 1970, Kap. Der heutige bauliche Bestand der Klosterkirche, p. 13–14.

The church is oriented at an angle of approximately 23 degrees to the north, but its truthfulness is not relevant to this description.Online map on navigator.geolife.de, retrieved on August 22, 2017 The west wing of the church faces west-southwest and borders a paved parking lot where the current access road ends. The terrain slopes significantly to this side. To the west of the church, there is a former school and the village kindergarten located on a spur of the Kirchberg. The churchyard is enclosed, with the south and east sides bordering it, while the north side is not accessible to the public. It is adjacent to the former monastery grounds, which now house the Reinhausen forestry office in the former office building, separated from the churchyard by a sandstone wall. Unfortunately, the intermediate building that connected the west front of the church with the Amtshaus was destroyed by fire in 1955, leaving only the outer walls of the two massive basement levels.Historical photos of the Kirchberg in Reinhausen, including photos before and after the fire at the official residence, on the website www.unser-reinhausen.de by Christian and Karin Schade, accessed on March 27, 2020 The Reinhausen estate is located to the northeast of the cemetery.

History

Castle of the Counts of Reinhausen

The Reinhausen Kirchberg's oldest archaeological evidence of human activity is a fragment of a stone axe from the Neolithic period.It is included in the exhibition of archaeological finds in the church and is labeled accordingly. However, continuous settlement was not evident until the early Middle Ages. Beginning in the 9th century, the Counts of Reinhausen had a castle complex on the spur of the mountain above the village of Kirchberg, which was naturally protected by rockfalls towards the valley. Numerous archaeological discoveries from the vicinity of the monastery church have been dated to the 9th and 10th centuries.Klaus Grote: Burgen. Untersuchungen und Befunde im südniedersächsischen Bergland. Section 5: Reinhausen, Gleichen parish, Göttingen district: Early to high medieval count's castle. In: www.grote-archaeologie.de. Klaus Grote, retrieved on December 30, 2018. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the Counts of Reinhausen held the office of Count of Leinegau and were therefore of supra-regional importance.Entry by Stefan Eismann on Reinhausen in the scientific database "EBIDAT" of the European Castle Institute, retrieved on January 1, 2019. Their ancestral castle in Reinhausen was accordingly sizable. The residential area with the church in the west covered approximately 1.5 hectares, while the adjoining farmyard to the northeast covered an additional hectare. The current location of the church, churchyard, and adjoining areas were included. Since 1980, smaller areas of the castle grounds have undergone archaeological investigation through several individual excavations and surveys. A double-shell fortification wall, up to 3.30 meters thick, was discovered along a nine-meter stretch at the edge of the spur. The wall was demolished in the 12th century, as evidenced by small finds from the High Middle Ages in the building remains and demolition debris.Klaus Grote: Grabungen und größere Geländearbeiten der Kreisdenkmalpflege des Landkreises Göttingen im Jahre 1989. Chapter 2: Reinhausen: Kirchberg (early to high medieval castle wall). In: Göttingen Yearbook 38 (1990), p. 261-264. Towards the gently rising slope, the fortification comprised two section ditches and a three-meter-thick mortared wall. Reconstructing the interior of the castle is challenging due to the site being built over by the monastery in the High Middle Ages. Excavations inside the monastery church revealed remains of the castle church of the Counts of Reinhausen. However, the exact structural design of the castle church remains unknown.

Collegiate church At the end of the 11th century, the Counts Konrad, Heinrich, and Hermann von Reinhausen and their sister Mathilde converted their ancestral castle into a monastery.Tobias Ulbrich: Zur Geschichte der Klosterkirche Reinhausen. Ed.: Evangelical Lutheran parish of Reinhausen, church council. Reinhausen 1993, Chapter 3.1.7 Die Gründungsgeschichte des Klosters Reinhausen – Die Gründung des Klosters – Die Genealogie der Grafen von Reinhausen, p. 50–54. However, the dating of the conversion to a monastery to the year 1079 in older literatureUlfrid Müller: Klosterkirche Reinhausen (= Große Baudenkmäler. No. 257). German Art Publishers, Munich Berlin 1971, p. 3. is contradicted by more recent research. Instead, based on possible dates of death of one of the founders, Count Konrad von Reinhausen, the years 1089 or 1086 are assumed as the latest date of foundation.Peter Aufgebauer (Ed.): Burgenforschung in Südniedersachsen, Book publisher Göttinger Tageblatt, Göttingen 2001, . Chapter 2: Wolfgang Petke: Stiftung und Reform von Reinhausen und die Burgenpolitik der Grafen von Winzenburg im hochmittelalterlichen Sachsen, p. 65–71. According to the historical building research by Ulfrid Müller in the years 1963-1967, it is considered certain that the building substance of the private church was used for its church after the castle was converted into a collegiate church and later into a monastery. This is indicated, among other things, by the design of the southern choir wall.Tour of the church on the website of the church building association Reinhausen, accessed February 2, 2019 Thus, the layout of the castle church in the Ottonian period can be seen as the basic concept of the later collegiate church. The southern wall of the choir, with a still recognizable added arched window, its northern wall, the choir arch with imposts emphasizing the lower base of the arch, and the lower parts of the pillars in the nave are considered to be the remains of the castle church.Klaus Grote: Die mittelalterlichen Anlagen in Reinhausen. In: Führer zu archäologischen Denkmälern in Deutschland, Volume 17: Stadt und Landkreis Göttingen, Konrad Theiss Publisher, Stuttgart 1988, , p. 212–214 Ulfrid Müller assumed that the original church had a west portal, on the site of which the present tower front was later built.Ulfrid Müller: Die Klosterkirche in Reinhausen. In: Harald Seiler (Ed.): Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte. Volume 9. German Art Publishers Ltd., Munich Berlin 1970, Chapter Die Bauepochen der Klosterkirche, Section Bauperiode II, p. 35–38. Compared to other castle chapels in the region, the church is unusually large, reflecting the regional supremacy of the Counts of Reinhausen in the 10th and 11th centuries.Ulfrid Müller: Die Klosterkirche in Reinhausen. In: Harald Seiler (Ed.): Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte. Volume 9. German Kunstverlag GmbH, Munich Berlin 1970, chap. Die Bauepochen der Klosterkirche, Section Bauperiode I, p. 30–34.

The monastery church of Reinhausen thus goes back to a proprietary church in the noble castle of the Counts of Reinhausen, which has been archaeologically documented at this location since the 10th century.Tobias Ulbrich: Zur Geschichte der Klosterkirche Reinhausen. Ed.: Evangelical Lutheran parish of Reinhausen, church council. Reinhausen 1993, Chap. 1.1 Die Baugeschichte der ehemaligen Klosterkirche – Der ursprüngliche Kirchenbau (bis 1156), p. 2–8. Accordingly, the construction history of the church can be dated back to the 10th century.Klaus Grote: Churches and monasteries. Archaeological and architectural studies of medieval churches and monasteries in southern Lower Saxony. (Penultimate paragraph: Benedictine monastery and monastery church of St. Christopher). Retrieved December 20, 2013 Despite the lack of written evidence from the early period, it is almost certain that the church has a history of over a thousand years. Müller's research initially suggested that the castle church was built in the 11th century.

Monastery church