Kenzingen

Last Saturday, Red Baron took part in an excursion organized by the Alemannisches Institut to Kenzingen, Kirnhalden, and Muckental.

   

Rudolf II von Üsenberg

Kenzingen was built like a Zähringen city at a crossroads, but it was founded in 1249 by Rudolf II von Üsenberg. The Lords of Üsenberg were an important noble family in Breisgau and Markgräflerland. Today, a 1824 fountain with a statue of the town's founder marks the intersection.

The medieval town of 1249 developed around the long market street and the parish Church, dedicated to St. Laurentius (Lawrence), first mentioned in 1275.

In the crypt: 13th-century frescoes

A sensational find

I had to ask ChatGPT: The icon depicts Jesus Christ together with Saint Menas (ΑΠΑ ΜΗΝΑ), an Egyptian martyr saint. Iēsous Christos (IC XC) holds the Gospel book in his left hand and places his arm around the saint's shoulder in a gesture of friendship. This motif symbolizes Christ's spiritual friendship and protection for the saint.

This Coptic icon dates from the 6th–7th century, was found in the Egyptian monastery of Bawit, and is now in the Louvre in Paris. It is one of the oldest surviving icons and was discovered only at the beginning of the 20th century, so it is not among the works Napoleon looted during his Egyptian campaign.

Kenzingen was first mentioned in a document in 712.
Rudolf II von Üsenberg founded the town of Kenzingen in 1249.

Kenzigen's history is carved into the four sides of two stacked sandstone cubes in the churchyard.

In 1352, Heinrich IV, margrave of Hachberg, bought the lordship of Üsenberg, which included Kenzingen and the Kirnburg castle. However, the Üsenberg territories were technically held as fiefs from the House of Austria. So, the Habsburgs claimed that the sale violated their feudal rights.

In 1358, Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, obtained an imperial judgment recognizing Austrian rights over the territories that Heinrich IV refused to comply with. He continued to rule Kenzingen as his possession. So an imperial ban (Reichsacht) was declared in 1366 against Heinrich IV and the town of Kenzingen. 

In 1369, the ban was lifted, and Kenzingen came under the rule of the House of Habsburg, being part of Further Austria.

Through an alliance with several Upper Rhine cities, Kenzingen obtained the status of an imperial city in 1415, though in practice, the Habsburg influence remained strong.

On the left is the Kenzingen town hall, built around 1520 in the Renaissance style; on the right, a stately home of a wealthy citizen.

In 1522, Kenzingen's city council appointed the Lutheran preacher Jakob Otter, who held services in German, administered communion in both forms, and enjoyed great popularity.

The Lutherans were a thorn in the side of the Catholic town of Freiburg, which sent troops to Kenzingen in 1524. To avoid punishment, Otter went to Strasbourg, accompanied by around 200 citizens. But it was to no avail. The Old Believers held a strict court. The mayor was arrested, the citizens who had left were refused re-entry to the town, and the town clerk was beheaded.

In 1814, 88 houses burned down.

In the Peace of Pressburg, Napoleon reorganized the German territories on the upper Rhine. Kenzingen became part of the Grand Duchy of Baden in December 1805.

In 1971 and 1974, Bombach, Nordweil, and Hecklingen were incorporated into the town of Kenzingen.

Inside St. Laurentius church, I searched for a picture of the patron saint of barbecuers. Nope, but here are some photos of my favorite saint.

One of the buildings surrounding the Kirchplatz is known as the Epstein House.

In 1574, Jews were expelled from Further Austria for nearly 300 years. They returned to Kenzingen only after the Grand Duchy of Baden granted Jews full civil rights in 1862, allowing them to settle freely. Their number in town oscillated between 20 and 30 persons.

The Epstein family in Kenzingen was well known. It included Alfred Epstein, a merchant with a shop at Kirchplatz; Leo Epstein, an accountant/bookkeeper; and Michael Epstein, a cattle trader and respected member of the town's civic committee. The three Epsteins were well integrated into local society, exercising typical Jewish occupations. The cattle trade, in particular, connected Jewish merchants with farmers throughout the region.

Under the Nazis, some members of the Epstein family were able to emigrate to South America. Others were deported to Gurs as part of the Wagner-Bürckel Aktion. Alfred joined the French Resistance, was captured, and executed as a partisan.

Our group moved on and passed the townhouse of the Benedictine monastery of Andlau in Alsace, which was built in the 13th century. Large monasteries owned houses in towns that served as lodgings for their abbot and his envoys.

The inscription above the door reads, "Porta patens esto nulli claudaris amico (Let the door stand open; be closed to no friend). This saying reminds us of the important social tasks performed by religious orders in the Middle Ages. Anyone in need who knocked on a monastery door was given warm soup. The sick were cared for in hospitals. The monks ran Latin schools, thus maintaining a certain level of education.

Kenzingen had a whole series of monasteries. As our group approached the former Franciscan monastery, Saint Lawrence suddenly stood on a high pillar in front of the church, holding his grill. The Franciscans, who had been documented in Kenzingen since the late Middle Ages, rebuilt their monastery after the Thirty Years' War between 1659 and 1662. 

Inside the monastery church, a painting of Saint Francis with a well-fed baby Jesus.

The church, also built in the 17th century and featuring a 16th-century crucifix, has served as a place of worship for the Protestant parish since 1891.

©Stadt Kenzingen

The Johanniter monastery existed from the beginning of the 15th century until secularisation in 1806, when the municipal prison was built on the site.

Kirnhalden in 1872

After lunch, the group went by car to Kirnhalden, where the Pauline monastery "Zum Heiligen Kreuz" (Holy Cross) has been documented since 1360. It was secularized in 1806. 

Spa in 1910

After that, "Kirnhalden moved from the Paulines to a sanatorium to a sustainable residential and cultural project." 

When the facility ceased to be used as a nursing and retirement home in 2017, the buildings stood empty. A group of young people took over the site and, in 2022, founded the Kirnhalden residential and cultural project as a cooperative. The plan is to renovate the buildings for experiencing, living, learning, and working. 

Experiencing Kirnhalden means running a café, learning comprises a seminar facility with rooms and overnight accommodations for 40 guests, and working includes various workshops and studios. The gradually renovated rooms in the buildings designated as historic monuments are available as living spaces and will be expanded to meet residents' needs.

The current facility from a bird's eye view.

Mostly young people are working hard to get their projects off the ground.

Our last stop was the water-powered forge in Muckental.

The agricultural and horticultural tools forged and on display were in big demand, especially at the beginning of the 20th century.

The master explained the art of blacksmithing to us laymen.

Thank you, organizers, for an informative and inspiring excursion.

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Augustinermuseum

German wordplay: Everyone wants to come vs Everyone [is] welcome

Last Friday, the "new" Augustinermuseum was opened.

In a document dated December 16, 1278, Count Egino II transferred ownership of a site in the narrow old town between Salzstraße and the southern city wall to the mendicant order Ordo Sancti Augustini (OSA), the Augustinian hermits.  

At the bottom of the excerpt from the Sickinger Plan, the Augustinian monastery along Salzstraße. At the top, in the middle, is Oberlinden; along the northern city wall is Konviktstraße; and on the right is the heavily elevated Schwabentor. Note the Bächle that run down the middle of the street.

Until 1912, the nave of the former monastery served as the municipal theater.

The renovation began in 2004 and was expected to take eight years. The initial cost for the Augustinremuseum was estimated at 23 million euros. Due to many structural surprises and mishaps, the renovation ultimately lasted until 2026 and cost 95 million euros.

       

It was worth it. Take a look at the renovated cloister.

Yesterday morning, I paid a quick visit and went to, where else?, the newly designed section on Freiburg's history.

The eye-catcher when entering the historical exhibition is the model of the Minster Church construction.

Here are more first impressions.

August von Bayer: The Master Builder (Erwin von Steinbach?) Contemplating His Work on the Steeple.

Freiburg as a fortress in 1693. South side

Sebastian Vauban had transformed the Medeval city, which at that time belonged to the French crown, into a Baroque fortress with mighty walls and bastions as part of the belt of fortifications protecting France's borders.

This house is in God's hands. It is named after the image of Mary.

House sign "To the Virgin Mary." Before house numbers were introduced in Freiburg in 1760, signs like these helped people find their way around.

Soldiers of the Freiburg militia

When French revolutionary troops pushed across the Rhine after 1789, citizen militias formed in Baden to defend the country. From left to right: members of the artillery, Freiburg citizen infantry, and cavalry corps.

In evil times. Advertising enamel panel for “Der Alemanne,” the Nazi newspaper that, toward the end of the war, remained, due to paper shortages, the only daily in Freiburg.

Pharmacy bottles from the Löwenapotheke at Bertoldsbrunnen. They melted and deformed in the fire after the RAF bombed Freiburg on November 27, 1944.

After the war ended, the US organization CARE sent food parcels to Europe. This parcel contained, among other things, cans of coffee and powdered milk.

The playground at the Augustiner Museum in early March sunshine, where Red Baraön spent many hours with his grandchildren

Men at work

Not everything is finished yet. Here, stonemasons are paving one of the museum's inner courtyards.

 
Red Baron is looking forward to his next visit to the Augustinermuseum

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Black Diamond or Death Star

©Taxiarchos228/Wikipedia

Schwarzer Diamant oder Todesstern was the title of a lecture by Dr. Markus Schröter, Head of the Historical Collections, Digitization, and Preservation Department at Freiburg's university library.

On April 20, 1455, on the day of his accession to the throne, Pope Calixtus III gave Archduke Albrecht IV permission to establish a studium generale in his city of Freiburg, in quo aeris viget temperies, victualium ubertas ceterarumque rerum ad usum vitae humanae pertinentium copia reperitur.*

*where the air is mild, food is plentiful, and there are large supplies of other things that are useful to man. 

 Initially, seven professors taught 214 students in the four faculties customary at the time: Artes (the seven liberal arts), Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine. Theology, which deals with the salvation of the soul, took first place, while medicine, which deals with the health of the mortal body, took last place among the faculties. 

At that time, professors lectured* on the subject matter in Latin using the few available books and put forward theses, which the students then had to write down and debate.

*They read aloud. In German, a university lecture is still called Vorlesung

The motto of the Collegium Sapientiae was 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'
The building was destroyed in the air raid of November 27, 1944.
Spolia of the burse were integrated into the new construction (©Andreas Schwarzkopf†/Wikipedia).

The students lived in burses (boarding houses) under strict rules. A well-known burse was the Sapientia that, in 1400, issued the rules in a book: Statuta collegii sapientiae Friburgensis (The Statutes of the College of Wisdom of Freiburg). These rules are illustrated with many colorful engravings.

 One of them informs about De Claue liberarye et eius custode (the key to the library and its guardian).  The Bursa Sapaetia had its own library, and since books were expensive, these treasures were kept under lock and key. Above the entrance door to the library is written "alpha io" (I am the beginning [of all knowledge]).

 
Red Baron was annoyed by the speaker, who kept moving his head back and forth in front of the colored engraving. To illustrate my blog with a perfect photo, I asked ChatGPT to produce an image without the head.

Here is the remarkable result. Now, five bookworm colleagues of the custodes sit in the library. The latter enters the library with a book in his hand to join his peers. Above the entrance door is written: Admonitio (admonition).

Amazing, since the inscription has also been changed to De Claritate litterrarum et eius custode (On the clarity of scriptures and its guardian). It's all my fault. You must ask ChatGPT the right question.

Latin school on Herrenstraße next to the Bursa Sapentiae
©Andreas Schwarzkopf†/Wikipedia

Latin was the language of instruction, and students were required to communicate in Cicero's language even in private. Local Latin schools tried to provide the necessary language skills, which were frequently inadequate.

Gymnasium Academicum on Bertoldstraße

In 1572, Freiburg sought to raise the educational level of its first-year students by establishing a Gymnasium Academicum, as a precursor to university studies.

In the following years, the Jesuits frequently tried to take over Freiburg's university. On the eve of the Thirty Years' War, their demand became more urgent, especially since the neighboring universities of Basel, Tübingen, and Strasbourg had become Protestant.

On February 6, 1618, Archduke Maximilian III sent a government delegation to the University of Freiburg and wrote from Innsbruck about the Jesuits that it should not only believe these gentlemen, but also promote their values, both as a whole and each of its individual members, as their zeal for the propagation of the true, only saving religion would naturally inspire them. As usual, the university senate refused to accept the takeover, arguing that Freiburg was sufficiently Catholic and that there was no need for further religious planting.

When Maximilian suddenly died in November 1618, all resistance was futile in view of the insistence of his fanatical successor, Archduke Leopold V.

The Jesuits' certificate of introduction dated November 16, 1620 reads: With the current school year, the fathers of the “Society” will begin in the late autumn to fill all the lower schools and the Faculty of Philosophy at the university, as well as three of the five positions in theology with their teachers, in order to teach the true faith in Freiburg.

The Jesuit University. Left the Jesuit Church, which is now the Catholic University Church.
In the cartouche, a picture of the Gymnasium Academicum

After Louis XIV's troops conquered Freiburg in 1677, the city became part of France. The French crown provided financial support to the Jesuits for the establishment of a Studium Gallicum. In 1682, les Frères began construction of a college along Bertoldstraße opposite the Gymnasium Academicum. On the upper floor, they set up a Jesuit library with 6000 books in two rooms.

In 1773, Emperor Joseph II abolished the Jesuit Order in his territories. In the period following, all books were concentrated in the Old University building on Rathausplatz. The building is now part of Freiburg's town hall.

©Wikipedia

The premises soon became too small. So in 1783, the Gymnasium Academicum was converted into the university library. In 1825, historian Heinrich Schreiber described the interior as follows: "On the lower floor, there are two spacious, high, and bright halls on the right and left, whose ceilings are supported by columns. A wide staircase leads to the main hall above them and the front hall, which extends over two floors and is decorated with a row of columns running along all the walls and a gallery above. Adjacent to these are two smaller halls, furnished in the same manner, which are connected to the main hall by high, vaulted passageways."

With the number of books increasing, the University planned a new building.

The library was built on Rempartstraße and opened in 1902. Following the construction of Kollegiengebäude I in 1911, the Rempartstraße formed a small campus between the library and the faculty building. Indeed, the president of Harvard University, Charles William Eliot, once described a university library as the heart of the university. Admire the rare female student at that time.

In 1972, the students had to leave the building in a hurry because the library was in danger of collapsing due to being overloaded with books. 

©Stadtarchiv Freiburg

Fortunately, construction of a new library had already started. The building on Werthmannplatz was erected in the Brutalist style and became operational in 1978.

Major defects, such as refurbishment costs and asbestos contamination, led in 2006 to the decision to build a new library. The intention was to preserve parts of the old, which meant that only the three underground cellars, i.e., the book storage areas and the elevator shafts of the old building, were retained from the superstructure.

The new UB opened on July 23, 2015. Extra 3, the satirical program on Norddeutscher Rundfunk, gave the building the title "The craziest university library in Germany." One deficiency was the blinding effect due to reflected sunlight.

The other reason for the "crazy" title was that, with 10,000 students per day, the reading rooms proved too cramped. Students stood in line before the library opened at 7 AM, then rushed to the reading rooms and blocked a seat for the whole day.

Would you like to take a break?
Please use the break timers. Reserved workspaces without break timers may be occupied by others.
After use, please return them here (©NDR).

But where there's a problem, there's also a solution: German inventiveness created the break timer.

Red Baron likes the building

Dr. Schröter spoke pro domo when he cited Andrew McDonald, "The library is the central academic focus of the university and plays a strong social role in the learning, teaching, and research processes in the institution."

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