St. Mary's Cathedral

About

Saint Mary's Cathedral in Hamburg (German: Sankt Mariendom, also Mariendom, or simply Dom or Domkirche, or Hamburger Dom) was the cathedral of the ancient Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hamburg (not to be confused with Hamburg's modern Archdiocese, est. 1994), which was merged in personal union with the Diocese of Bremen in 847, and later in real union to form the Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, as of 1027. In 1180 the cathedral compound turned into the cathedral close (German: Domfreiheit; i.e. cathedral immunity district), forming an exclave of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen within the city of Hamburg. By the Reformation the concathedral was converted into a Lutheran church. The cathedral immunity district, since 1648 an exclave of the Duchy of Bremen, was seized by Hamburg in 1803. The city then prompted the demolition of the proto-cathedral between 1804 and 1807.

The cathedral, in common Italo-Nordic tradition simply called Dom ( Italian : Duomo ), which is the synecdoche, used – pars pro toto – for most existing or former collegiate churches and cathedrals in Germany alike. The cathedral was situated in the section of the earliest settlement of Hamburg on a geest hill between the rivers Alster and Elbe near Speersort [ de ] street. Today's St. Peter's Church was erected right north of the Dom, today's Domstraße crosses through the former site of the cathedral. Curienstraße recalls the location of the canons' courts.

The early history of the Hamburg See and its first cathedral buildings is somewhat obscured. In different struggles on competences and privileges plenty of documents have been completely forged or counterfeited or backdated, in order to corroborate arguments. "These forgeries have drawn a veil before the early history of the [archbishopric of] Hamburg-Bremen." Results of archeological excavations could not clarify the succession of early cathedral buildings before 1035.

A wooden mission church is reported for 831. Pope Gregory IV appointed the Benedictine monk Ansgar as first archbishop as of 834. After the looting of Hamburg and the destruction of the church by Vikings under Horik I in 845 the archdiocese was united with the Diocese of Bremen in 847. Hamburg remained the archiepiscopal seat.

The deposed Pope Benedict V was carried off to Hamburg in 964 and placed under the care of Archbishop Adaldag. He became a deacon then but died in 965 or 966 and was buried in the cathedral. In 983 Prince Mstivoj of the Obodrites destroyed city and church. In 988 Benedict's remains were presumably transferred to Rome. Archbishop Unwan started reconstructing a fortified cathedral. Under Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg (1043–1072) Hamburg-Bremen attained its greatest prosperity and later had its deepest troubles. Adalbert was after Hamburg-Bremen's upgrade to the rank of a Patriarchate of the North and failed completely. Hamburg was even dropped as part of the diocesan name.

With the investiture of Archbishop Liemar the seat definitely moved to Bremen. However, the cathedral chapter of Hamburg persisted with several special rights. Around 1035 Archbishop Adalbrand of Bremen [ de ] prompted the construction of a first cathedral from brick and his castle. In the same century St. Peter's Parish Church was established north of the cathedral compound.

However, starting in 1245 Adalbrand's structure was replaced by a new early Gothic three-naved hall church erected by chapter and Prince-Archbishop Gebhard of Lippe [ de ], one of the few incumbents of the united see looking for a balanced performance in Bremen and Hamburg, preferring the title Bishop of Hamburg when staying in the diocesan territory right of the Elbe, as is known from seals and documents. Prince-Archbishop Burchard Grelle consecrated the church as archdiocesan concathedral on 18 June 1329.

By the end of the 14th century the concathedral was extended by two more naves. After this, the concathedral remained mostly unchanged until its demolition by 1807. The tower was completed in 1443. In the early 16th century an additional hall, first mentioned as the Nige Gebuwte ( Low Saxon for new building) in 1520, was erected closing the adjacent cloister towards the north. This hall was presumably used for sermons, the actual cathedral for masses. The hall was later colloquially called Schappendom after the cupboards ( Low Saxon : Schapp[en] [pl.] [ de ] ), which carpenters of Hamburg exhibited there. The traditional fayre at Christmas, recorded for the square in front of the cathedral since the 14th century, and continued as today's funfayre Hamburger Dom (literally in Hamburg Cathedral ), then used to take place within the Schappendom hall.

Starting in 1522 Lutheranism spread among the burghers of Hamburg, gaining their vast majority by 1526, while most canons of the cathedral chapter rather clung to Catholicism, enjoying their extraterritorial status. Hamburg's Senate (city government) accounted for the new facts and adopted the new denomination in 1528. So when in October 1529, the senate – wielding its advowson – appointed Johannes Aepinus (d. 1553) as Lutheran pastor at the neighbouring St. Peter's Church, in order to introduce Johannes Bugenhagen 's Lutheran Church Order in the city, Aepinus contested with the prevailingly Catholic cathedral chapter.

The extraterritorial status and the denominational opposition strengthened the perception of cathedral, chapter, and immunity district as alien element within the city. While almost all inhabitants outside the immunity district had become parishioners of the now Lutheran parish churches, the huge cathedral lacked a congregation. Between the Feast of the Assumption of Mary and December 1529 the city's militia barred churchgoers from access to the cathedral, given up after imperial protests. Furthermore, the capitular estates in Hamburg and spread all over the North Elbian diocesan area, forming the endowment to maintain canons and cathedral, were increasingly withheld by the respective territorial rulers. Thus in May 1531 the chapter closed the cathedral and its maintenance was neglected.

Meanwhile, the majority of the capitular canons had adopted Lutheranism and elected fellow faithful to eventual vacancies. The cathedral reopened as Lutheran place of worship in 1540. The disputes on capitular estates were regulated by the Bremen Settlement in 1561. The church turned into a Lutheran proto-cathedral and the remaining endowment allowed financing excellent ecclesiastical music, making the proto-cathedral a frequented venue for Lutheran services accompanied by music. The incumbents of the Bremen See used to be themselves Lutherans since the accession of Administrator Henry of Saxe-Lauenburg in 1569. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 transformed the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, an elective monarchy, into the hereditary monarchy of the Duchy of Bremen, in personal union with Sweden until 1712/15, since 1715 with the House of Hanover. Thus the immunity district turned into a ducal Bremian enclave in the city.

The architect Ernst Georg Sonnin [ de ] carried out maintenance works in 1759/1760. Due to the weak, unstable subsoil the cathedral tower was leaning, so Sonnin straightened the tower, as he had done with other church towers in Hamburg, he even demonstrated the gathered public his new technique by reversing it to leaning and again straightening it. Since 1772 the city of Hamburg considered to buy the immunity district, however, not effectuating any changes by then. On the instigation of the ducal Bremian government the cathedral chapter sold its valuable library by the end of the 18th century. Since 1790 the pastorate of the proto-cathedral remained vacant.

By the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803, the Duchy of Bremen ceded its cathedral immunity districts in Bremen [ de ] and Hamburg ( Domfreiheit ), to these free imperial cities. With the neglect of the proto-cathedral by the ducal government it had dropped out of Hamburg's cultural life again. Hamburg's Senate, then holding the ius patronatus to all other Lutheran parish churches had no usage for an additional church, which did not even have the parishioners to maintain it. So in 1802, the Senate, always upholding the city's vital mercantile interests, ordered Hamburg's Gothic proto-cathedral to be pulled down, a decision which aroused no serious opposition within the city and which was carried out between 1804 and 1807.

The stones were sold off or used to reinforce the sea defenses along the Elbe; the funerary sculptures and monuments were broken up and used in the reconstruction of the city's rudimentary sewage system. The Senate was partly motivated by the desire to rid the city of an extraterritorial institution, but it is more than possible that the rise in rents and the high demand for housing at the time also played a role. In any case, the incident was typical of the celebrated Philistinism of the Hamburg authorities. Five more medieval churches in the city were pulled down between 1807 and 1837.

Hamburg Altar : Main cathedral altar consecrated to Mary of Nazareth, a panel depicting Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, National Museum, Warsaw. Hamburg Altar: Panel depicting the Nativity of Jesus, National Museum, Warsaw. There was little interest in the valuable furnishings of the proto-cathedral. Few enthusiasts with interest in the history of art did not prevail as to rescuing the building. In order to make the biggest bargain not only the structures above earth have been demolished and sold as construction material but even the grave slabs and most of the fundaments have been dug out to be sold alike. The more than 370 slabs of sandstone have mostly been built in hydraulic structures along the many waterways in Hamburg, broken stones and rubble were used for dikes in Ochsenwerder and Spadenland. So archeological excavations in recent years could not even uncover the exact groundplan.

The rescue of some furnishings we owe to Philipp Otto Runge, prevailing in the merchant republic of Hamburg with the argument, that they could be sold as well. So the Late Gothic cathedral altarpiece, created by Hamburg's famous artists Absolon Stumme and his stepson Hinrik Bornemann, however, only finished, after their deaths in 1499, by Wilm Dedeke were rescued and sold to East Prussia. In 1946 the altarpiece was nationalised and is now shown in the National Museum, Warsaw.

The congregation of Hamburg's St. James the Greater Church acquired the St. Luke Altar from the furnishings of the proto-cathedral, now presented in the second southern nave of St. James. Several 15th-century stained glass windows of the apostles were sold to the Catholic congregation of Ludwigslust and are now built in the quire of Ss. Helena and Andrew Church [ de ], erected 1803–1809.

One of the cathedral bells survived. The Celsa, founded by the bell founder Gerhard van Wou in his workshop on Glockengießerwall in 1487, was bought in 1804 by the Lutheran congregation of St. Nicholas Church [ de ] in Altengamme, now a part of Hamburg.

Remnants of Pope Benedict V 's cenotaph, which was erected around 1330, but removed in 1782, have been found, besides other findings, in the excavation campaigns (1947–1957, 1980–1987 and 2005–2007).

A fair held in or in front of the cathedral was first recorded in 1329, at the beginning only at special feasts like Christmas, thus being one of the predecessors of today's Christmas markets. With the Reformation in the 16th century the fair was also held on other occasions. After the demolition of the cathedral (1804–1807), the fair, still named Hamburger Dom (literally in English: Hamburg Cathedral ) moved to Gänsemarkt square (geese market) in 1804, and takes place on Heiligengeistfeld since 1892.