Die mittelalterliche Baugeschichte der Marienkirche zu Stargard in Pommern

Ein Spiegel des wachsenden Repräsentationswillens der Bürgerschaft einer Hansestadt

Abstract

The St. Mary’s Church in the Pomeranian Hanseatic city of Stargard aroused the interest of scholars early on. Nevertheless, some source material containing information on its history has remained uncharted until now. Together with recent dendrochronological and archaeological research results, this material provides new insights into the medieval building history of St. Mary’s Church and allows a more precise dating.

Wall relics discovered during recent archaeological excavations in the side aisle of today’s St. Mary’s suggest that the predecessor building – erected on the market square after the town-foundation around the middle of the 13th century – was a granite ashlar structure. In the late 13th century – in connection with the change in town law in 1292 and the settlement of Neu-Stargard under Lübeck law – this was replaced by a stately new brick building. Both written sources and the result of a dendrochronological examination prove that in the 1320s, the choir and the nave had been completed so far, that the church could be used for liturgy. The construction work on the monumental tower block, on the other hand, was still protracted. Around 1365, the ground floor of the northwest tower could already be used liturgically, which means that the high tower hall adjoining the north aisle in the west must have been vaulted at that time and the northwest tower must have been completed up to the vault height of the nave.

In the 1380s – probably in connection with Stargard’s successful participation in the Hanseatic wars against King Waldemar of Denmark – an imposing basilican choir with ambulatory began to be built instead of the old simple retracted choir. Around 1388, the enclosing walls of the choir ambulatory must already have been completed, as the first ambulatory chapels were given to the donors and a people’s altar was donated in the eastern nave bay. The creation of a new mass order in 1397 marks the completion of the choir. Around 1400, two annexes between the choir ambulatory and the nave were built – the representative north porch (Lady Chapel; completed before 1418) and the two-storey Angel Chapel with sacristy and library on the south side (already completed in 1404).

Written sources reveal a lack of free altars soon after the completion of the choir. Therefore, the latest the addition of nave chapels began in the 1440s. Presumably around 1450, the nave was also rebuilt in basilican form, and the central nave was adapted to the height of the new choir.

The author links the efforts of the lay rectors of the church fabric to fill the church coffers, which can be traced for the 1470s and 1480s, with the continuation of the construction work on the west block – the erection of the south tower and the middle section of the façade. The ground floor of the south tower was already in liturgical use in 1473. The completion of the construction work on the south tower and thus on the entire western part marks the time of the production of the large bell for St. Mary’s Church, which was cast in 1499.