Fritzlar · around 1180
Fritzlar Cathedral
A late Romanesque basilica with a clerestory, that is, a zone of windows above the aisles. The model for our floor plan.
Wikipedia →Preface
A ruin, a tower of milk, and a name that keeps returning.
The Totenkirche, the “church of the dead” in Treysa, a district of Schwalmstadt, is older than its name suggests. It is properly called St Martin: begun in the closing years of the 12th century and completed around 1265, it stands at the threshold between Romanesque and Gothic. It is the last multi-nave basilica in northern Hesse, a church ruin since the 1830s, and a landmark of Treysa. And it owes its fame to a legend which, as the sorting of some old invoices would reveal, was not so far from the truth after all.
Section I · Origins
Older than St Elizabeth's Church in Marburg.
I
12th to 13th century
Begun as a late Romanesque pillar basilica with two towers, continued from about 1250 under the influence of St Elizabeth’s Church in Marburg with a single tower, and completed around 1265. That makes it the last multi-nave basilica in northern Hesse. In Marburg, Wetter and Haina, hall churches were already rising at the same time.
II
St Martin
The church’s patron was originally St Martin of Tours. Well into the 16th century it was the town parish church of Treysa and the centre of an ecclesiastical “Send” court district of more than thirty villages, subordinate to the deanery of Amöneburg, the archdeaconry of St Stephan in Mainz, and thus to the Archbishopric of Mainz.
III
Transitional style
In the church architecture of northern Hesse, the Totenkirche documents the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Compared with the finely articulated tracery of the nave, its forms still appear very simple, almost archaic, much like the collegiate church in Wetter.
Section II · Decline
From house of God to burial ground.
With the arrival of the Reformation in Hesse, everything changed. In 1531 Landgrave Philip granted a petition of the citizens of Treysa to use the church of St Mary, freed up by the dissolution of the local Dominican monastery and today the town church, as their parish church. From then on, the old church of St Martin served only for funeral services. Popular speech coined the name that stayed with it: Totenkirche, the church of the dead.
It fell visibly into decline. In 1830 its roof was said to have been severely damaged by lightning. Thus a legend was born. In truth the vaults had probably been too heavy from the very beginning; repeated repairs after only a short period of use bear witness to it. For reasons of safety, demolition was planned. In 1832 and 1833 the town’s magistrate and lower council protested. In vain: around 1835 the church was abandoned to decay, and the vaults were finally torn down.
The first rescue attempts in the early 20th century did more harm than good. In 1909, concrete cappings and sprayed cement mortar were used. Neither agreed with the medieval masonry of red sandstone. Repair turned into damage. A church that was not allowed to die was very nearly restored to death.
Section III · Legend
The Buttermilk Tower.
The church owes its fame to its bell tower, roughly 35 metres high: the Buttermilchturm, the Buttermilk Tower. Tradition has it that during a siege the citizens of Treysa, shut inside their walls, painted the tower with buttermilk to make the besiegers believe the town still had milk in abundance. The besiegers, so the legend goes, packed up and left with nothing to show for it.
Today the tower no longer wears a coat of white; after the structural conservation, the bare masonry remained.
Section IV · Restoration
A preservation society, the Ziegenhain window, a name restored.
I
1993 · Founding
Citizens of Treysa found the Förderkreis Totenkirche e.V., the Totenkirche preservation society, to secure the upkeep and structural conservation of the ruin. Several windows of the choir are financed directly through the society, among them the largest and finest: the Ziegenhain window.
II
2005 · Buttermilk Tower
With the final construction phase in 2005, the restoration of the Buttermilk Tower is completed, and with it, save for finishing works, the entire restoration. In all, more than €200,000 from the society flows into a total of around €2.1 million.
III
2006 · Name restored
Whit Sunday 2006: a Protestant service with Holy Communion in which the church is expressly given back its original name. The “Totenkirche” officially becomes “St Martin” once more. In everyday speech, the older name endures.
IV
2011 · Handover
With all its work concluded, the society formally disbands. Its assets pass to the Protestant parish of Franz von Roques, in whose care the ruin has been maintained ever since.
V
2015 · 750 years
The Protestant parish celebrates the church’s 750th anniversary.
Section V · Architecture
A pillar basilica between Romanesque and Gothic.
I
Floor plan
A central nave, two aisles, a choir with a five-eighths close, a tower to the south. In a basilica the central nave rises above the aisles and carries a zone of windows above them: the clerestory. Fritzlar Cathedral offers a comparison.
II
Capitals
Particularly finely worked capitals are found in the south aisle. They show kinship with the Maulbronn school of masons.
III
North side of the choir
Here lies the charnel house, above it a sacristy with a net vault of 1521, and above that in turn a vaulted storey that served as a treasury. Here are the oldest fired bricks recorded north of the Danube.
IV
Painting
In the choir, remnants of the original painting survive. Quiet testimony to how this church must once have looked.
Section VI · Kinship
Four buildings as a frame of reference.
The Totenkirche does not stand alone. Several buildings in Hesse and on the Upper Rhine explain where it belongs stylistically, what it quotes, and what it could no longer become.
Marburg · from 1235
St Elizabeth's Church
One of the first pure hall churches in Germany. From about 1250 its Gothic influence reaches the masons’ lodge in Treysa, and the plans are changed: one tower now instead of two.
Wikipedia →Wetter · 13th century
Collegiate Church, Wetter
It bears the same archaic early Gothic forms as our tracery. A sibling building in which the transitional vocabulary of northern Hesse remains visible.
Wikipedia →Maulbronn · from 1147
Maulbronn Monastery
A Cistercian monastery with a school of masons of its own. The finely worked capitals in the south aisle of the Totenkirche show kinship with capital forms at Maulbronn.
Wikipedia →Section VII · Bells
Three bells. One Latin verse.
Three bells from the early 15th century hang in the tower. To this day they form the peal of the Protestant parish of Treysa. The middle one, the prayer bell, carries an inscription running around its rim:
Do veniam menti,
do laudem cunctipotenti,
defunctos plango,
vivos voco,
fulgura frango.
Section VIII · Inscriptions
Witnesses in stone.
In the church and along its wall stand a number of grave slabs and heraldic stones from its centuries as a burial church. Three are particularly eloquent.
Anno
Christ is my life.
Christ is my life,
dying is my gain.
(Philippians 1)
A grave slab for one Anna, dated “9 June 1678”. At its centre the Chi-Rho Christogram, above it the dove of the Holy Spirit, framed by two columns. The central inscription is a shortened verse from the Letter to the Philippians: one of the most widely used burial texts of 17th-century Lutheran piety.
MDCCLXXXIII ·
The widow of a cavalry captain.
Endowed and set up
for Anna Margaretha, née …
being the surviving widow
of the cavalry captain
resting beneath this stone … the [.] Jan. MDCCLXXXIII.
A widow endows the grave slab for her late husband, a cavalry captain. The stone calls her a “Fraw Wittibe”, the old German form for widow; Anna Margaretha’s maiden name has weathered away. The date is written in Roman numerals: MDCCLXXXIII, that is 1783, a good two hundred and fifty years after the church had become a burial church.
Heraldic witnesses
Arms without words.
Two standing sandstone slabs against the wall. Neither carries a legible inscription any more, only their coats of arms: on the left a rich crest with shield and volutes, on the right a shield with ornamental surrounds. The dead have become anonymous. What remains is the form in which an entire class staked its claim to remembrance.
Four years, seven months.
The first little daughter, Maria Catharina,
born the … 1751,
died the 26th of August 1758,
whose whole age was
4 years, 7 months, 3 weeks and 6 days.
A collective memorial slab in florally framed sandstone, set into the masonry of the ruin. Several oval panels record the children of one family who died young. The middle one names Maria Catharina, the “first little daughter”, and measures her life in the units customary for it in the 18th century: years, months, weeks, days. That is not pedantry. It is the most precise form of tribute available to a family whose daughter lived with them for four years and a few weeks.
The spelling on the stone is Early New High German (“Töchtergen” for the little daughter, “gantzes Alter” for the whole age), the culture of remembrance Protestant and Pietist. The slab probably comes from inside the church or from a family burial plot and was set into the wall of the ruin during later conservation works.
Section IX · Today
Wine festival, concerts, Probtanz.
Since the restoration was completed, the church has stood open again. And it is filling up again. Twice a year a parish service is held here, at Ascension and on Christmas Eve. Alongside them the annual Weindorf, the wine festival, the St John’s festival, concerts, theatre evenings, open-air musicals. Until 2014 the Probtanz, the traditional opening dance of the Treysa Hutzelkirmes fair, was danced within the walls of the ruin.
In front of the west portal there stands today a fairy-tale statue by Elisabeth Wade. It fits: a church that twice came close to vanishing, was once torn down, was botched in repair, was rescued by its citizens, and whose best-known story turned out, in the end, to be true.
Plate II · Chronicle
Eight centuries at a glance.
-
Construction begins
Begun as a late Romanesque pillar basilica with two towers.
-
Marburg influence
Under the influence of St Elizabeth’s Church, building continues with a single tower.
-
Completion
The last multi-nave basilica in northern Hesse. Consecrated to St Martin.
-
Sacristy
The sacristy is added, with a net vault and the oldest fired bricks recorded north of the Danube.
-
Reformation
Landgrave Philip approves the move to the monastery church. St Martin becomes the “Totenkirche” of funerals.
-
Lightning strike
The roof is said to have been severely damaged by lightning.
-
Citizens’ protest
The town’s magistrate and lower council protest against the planned demolition.
-
Decay
The church is abandoned to decay, the vaults torn down.
-
Botched repairs
Concrete and sprayed cement mortar worsen the building’s condition.
-
Preservation society
The Förderkreis Totenkirche e.V. is founded to preserve the ruin.
-
Buttermilk Tower
Final phase of the restoration. Around €2.1 million in total.
-
Name restored
Whit Sunday: the “Totenkirche” officially becomes “St Martin” once more.
-
Handover
The preservation society disbands; its assets pass to the Franz von Roques parish.
-
750th anniversary
A festive service marks seven hundred and fifty years.
Plate III · Glossary
A small lexicon.
Terms that appear in the text, briefly explained.
- Pillar basilica
- A multi-nave church whose central nave rises above the aisles and rests on pillars rather than columns.
- Hall church
- A multi-nave church whose naves are all of equal height. St Elizabeth’s Church in Marburg is one of the first of its kind in Germany.
- Clerestory
- The window zone of a basilica’s central nave, above the aisle roofs. The source of daylight in the main space.
- Lesene
- A flat vertical strip of wall without base or capital. A Romanesque articulating element with no load-bearing function.
- Bay
- One vault unit. A church nave is composed of a succession of bays.
- Capital
- The uppermost, sculpturally flaring part of a column or pillar, mediating the load. Here often carved with foliage.
- Five-eighths close
- A polygonal choir termination in the form of a halved octagon. Characteristic of the Gothic period.
- Net vault
- A late Gothic vault with additional ribs forming a dense net pattern. Found here in the sacristy (1521).
- Charnel house
- A repository for bones. It was needed whenever the churchyard had to be reused and older graves were cleared.
- Send
- A medieval ecclesiastical synodal court. It heard offences against canon law. Treysa was the seat of a district of more than thirty villages.
Plate IV · Directions
Where it stands.
- Address
-
Kirchhof
34613 Schwalmstadt-Treysa
Hesse, Germany - Coordinates
-
50°54′47.9″ N
09°11′21.5″ E - Open map
- OpenStreetMap → Google Maps →
Plate V · Sources
Literature and web.
Literature
- Müller, Jutta (1998): Die Totenkirche St. Martin in Treysa. (K)ein Bau der Marburger Bauschule? Doctoral dissertation, Frankfurt am Main.
- Fowler, Angus (1986): Zur Geschichte von Kirchen und Kapellen in Treysa, insbesondere der heutigen Stadtkirche. In: Schwälmer Jahrbuch 1986, pp. 18–50.
- Warlich-Schenk, Brigitte / Böker, Hans Josef (1985): Denkmaltopographie Schwalm-Eder-Kreis. Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen. Vieweg, Braunschweig. pp. 385–386.
Web
- Wikipedia · Totenkirche Treysa Overview article, in German.
- HNA · 2011 On disbanding, the preservation society hands its assets to the parish.
- HNA · 2015 750 years of the Totenkirche · the anniversary festivities begin.
- Town of Schwalmstadt · Sights Tourist portal of the town of Schwalmstadt.
- Wikimedia Commons · Image collection Further photographs, freely licensed.
Image credits
Most of the photographs in the gallery come from a private archive. Twelve further images (HDR shots, interior details, bells, capitals, the north door, a panorama) are taken from Wikimedia Commons, where they are available under free licences (CC-BY / CC-BY-SA). Author and licence details for each image are given on its Commons file page.
Further content derives from the information panels of the Förderkreis Totenkirche, which were displayed in the ruin until the society disbanded in 2011.
Plates · 45 photographs
Gallery.
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Correspondence
Write to us.
This site is privately maintained: no institution, no commission, just a collection devoted to a church that twice came close to vanishing. If you have something to add, a photograph from a drawer, an anecdote from a Treysa family archive, a better date, a correction, or simply a greeting: write. Every letter is welcome.
kontakt@totenkirche.de →