My Travel and History Blog, Focussing mostly on Roman and Mediaeval Times
30 Dec 2020
A Piece of Norway in the Harz – the Stave Church in Hahnenklee
It's not exactly a sight you'll expect when driving or hiking in the Harz area, but there it is.
The Stave Church in Hahnenklee
This Scandinavian looking stave church is located in the outskirts of Hahnenklee, a borough of Goslar. Hahnenklee became popular as spa town in the 19th century, so that a larger church was needed for the visitors to be able to attend service; the parish church had become too small.
The church seen from the south-east
The church was designed by Karl Mohrmann (1857-1927), an architect and university teacher, later headmaster of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, and architect of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hannover. Prior to these occupations he had been a teacher for architecture in Riga and did a lot of traveling in Scandinavia and the UK; but also Africa and the US.
The belfry
Mohrmann was a representative of the historicist school which started in the 1850ies and imitated old styles of architecture, painting and such. The Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic with its extra turrets and oriels are typical for that style (like the Neo-Romanesque palace in Schwerin which mixes some Classicist elements into the overdecorated fun).
The church seen from the north
In that context, it comes as no surprise that Mohrman would take his inspiration from Mediaeval stave churches in Norway, in particular the one in Borgund which he had seen in person. It dates to the 12th century though it had been enlarged during the Middle Ages. Mohrmann considerably expanded his model; the average stave church would allow room for some 50 parishioners, the one in Hahnenklee can seat 240 and accomodate 350 people.
And from the south
The German empeor Wilhelm II was fond of Norway and spent several holidays there, mostly traveling the fjords with his yacht. He also donated to the rebuilding of the town of Ålesund which was destroyed by a fire in January 1904. His interest in Norway and in history overall created a bit of a fashion which may have played into the idea to use a stave church as model.
One of the doors
The church is officially called Gustav Adolf Stave Church. I suppose it's named for King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, of Thirty Years fame (who led a Protestant amry into Germany and fell at the Battle of Lützen in 1632). Construction of the church began in 1907; the consecration was held on June 28, 1908.
Details of ornaments
The short period of only ten months was mostly due to the material used. At first, the plans had been for a brick construction in the Neo-Gothic style, but when the plans were changed into the imitation of a stave church, locally harvested spruce trunks were used which sped up the process and were cheaper as well.
The interior of the stave church, view to the altar
Mohrmann thought that stave churches had once been common in Germany as well, and thus the one in Hahnenklee a genuine revival of the ancient architecture of the country. He was wrong, of course, stave churches stand in a different cultural context than the churches built in Germany after the Christianisation. There are no archaeological finds that point at the specific stave style ever to have been used here.
Interior, the other side
The windows are larger than in the traditional stave churches, thus allowing more light to stream into the interior – which, as said above, is larger than most stave churches in the first place. The Gustav Adolf church is more like a grand hall when you enter it.
The gallery
The style takes up elements of the Scandinavian stave churches like the carved dragon and snake ornaments and other elements inspired by viking ships (like the shape of the roofs that look like Viking ships turned upside down), and a number of 'Norse' ornaments and carvings in the interior of the church.
Detail of the gallery
The great chandelier at the ceiling is inspired by a ship's steering wheel – which was not in use on Viking ships that had a rudder. But it's quite impressive.
The great chandelier
Another nautic feature that is definitely not Mediaeval Scandinavian are the bullseye windows on the gallery.
View to the bullseye windows above the gallery
In other decorative elements – carvings and paintings – the style gets mixed up with Art Nouveau designs and inspirations from the Byzantine mosaic art (see also the altar below with the 'Byzantine' figures), according to the fashion of the early 20th century when the Art Nouvau became popular.
The chancel
And below we get a bird of prey inspired by the Norse carvings at the foot of the chancel.
Detail of the chancel ornaments
The church has been constructed in the traditional way without nails and screws. All main elements like planks, boards, poles have been set up vertically. That too, is the traditonal way that gives those churches their name: stave churches (from Old Norse stafr).
Closeup of the altar
The church in Hahnenklee has an organ and a carillon, a set of tuned bells that are played with a keyboard and pedals that set int motion levers and wires attached to the bells. The first smaller carillon (1975) was situated in the roof turret, but moved to the belfry in 2002 and expanded to a total of 49 bells encompassing a range of four octaves.
Another view of the interior
The church has been renovated several times; the last one took place in 2000 - 2006. The church is still used for services and weddings and remains a popular tourist destination. I was lucky that there were not many people around when I visited in early March some years ago.
Harz landscape near Hahnenklee in late winter
And now I wish everyone a Happy New Year!
Read more! ¶ December 30, 2020 4 comments
It's not exactly a sight you'll expect when driving or hiking in the Harz area, but there it is.
This Scandinavian looking stave church is located in the outskirts of Hahnenklee, a borough of Goslar. Hahnenklee became popular as spa town in the 19th century, so that a larger church was needed for the visitors to be able to attend service; the parish church had become too small.
The church was designed by Karl Mohrmann (1857-1927), an architect and university teacher, later headmaster of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, and architect of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hannover. Prior to these occupations he had been a teacher for architecture in Riga and did a lot of traveling in Scandinavia and the UK; but also Africa and the US.
Mohrmann was a representative of the historicist school which started in the 1850ies and imitated old styles of architecture, painting and such. The Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic with its extra turrets and oriels are typical for that style (like the Neo-Romanesque palace in Schwerin which mixes some Classicist elements into the overdecorated fun).
In that context, it comes as no surprise that Mohrman would take his inspiration from Mediaeval stave churches in Norway, in particular the one in Borgund which he had seen in person. It dates to the 12th century though it had been enlarged during the Middle Ages. Mohrmann considerably expanded his model; the average stave church would allow room for some 50 parishioners, the one in Hahnenklee can seat 240 and accomodate 350 people.
The German empeor Wilhelm II was fond of Norway and spent several holidays there, mostly traveling the fjords with his yacht. He also donated to the rebuilding of the town of Ålesund which was destroyed by a fire in January 1904. His interest in Norway and in history overall created a bit of a fashion which may have played into the idea to use a stave church as model.
The church is officially called Gustav Adolf Stave Church. I suppose it's named for King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, of Thirty Years fame (who led a Protestant amry into Germany and fell at the Battle of Lützen in 1632). Construction of the church began in 1907; the consecration was held on June 28, 1908.
The short period of only ten months was mostly due to the material used. At first, the plans had been for a brick construction in the Neo-Gothic style, but when the plans were changed into the imitation of a stave church, locally harvested spruce trunks were used which sped up the process and were cheaper as well.
Mohrmann thought that stave churches had once been common in Germany as well, and thus the one in Hahnenklee a genuine revival of the ancient architecture of the country. He was wrong, of course, stave churches stand in a different cultural context than the churches built in Germany after the Christianisation. There are no archaeological finds that point at the specific stave style ever to have been used here.
The windows are larger than in the traditional stave churches, thus allowing more light to stream into the interior – which, as said above, is larger than most stave churches in the first place. The Gustav Adolf church is more like a grand hall when you enter it.
The style takes up elements of the Scandinavian stave churches like the carved dragon and snake ornaments and other elements inspired by viking ships (like the shape of the roofs that look like Viking ships turned upside down), and a number of 'Norse' ornaments and carvings in the interior of the church.
The great chandelier at the ceiling is inspired by a ship's steering wheel – which was not in use on Viking ships that had a rudder. But it's quite impressive.
Another nautic feature that is definitely not Mediaeval Scandinavian are the bullseye windows on the gallery.
In other decorative elements – carvings and paintings – the style gets mixed up with Art Nouveau designs and inspirations from the Byzantine mosaic art (see also the altar below with the 'Byzantine' figures), according to the fashion of the early 20th century when the Art Nouvau became popular.
And below we get a bird of prey inspired by the Norse carvings at the foot of the chancel.
The church has been constructed in the traditional way without nails and screws. All main elements like planks, boards, poles have been set up vertically. That too, is the traditonal way that gives those churches their name: stave churches (from Old Norse stafr).
The church in Hahnenklee has an organ and a carillon, a set of tuned bells that are played with a keyboard and pedals that set int motion levers and wires attached to the bells. The first smaller carillon (1975) was situated in the roof turret, but moved to the belfry in 2002 and expanded to a total of 49 bells encompassing a range of four octaves.
The church has been renovated several times; the last one took place in 2000 - 2006. The church is still used for services and weddings and remains a popular tourist destination. I was lucky that there were not many people around when I visited in early March some years ago.
And now I wish everyone a Happy New Year!
Read more! ¶ December 30, 2020 4 comments
20 Dec 2020
A Holy Rock – The Klusfelsen in Goslar
The Klusfelsen rock formation is a little known landmark in Goslar, usually relegated to the footnotes in travel guide books. After some initial signposts, I had to ask the locals for directions to get there. And then, passing a small path between some suburban houses, a meadow opened and on its farther edge I found this.
The Klus Rock in the evening sun
The Klusfelsen (Klus Rock) is a sandstone rock of about 20 metres height and 50 metres length, dating to the Lower Cretaceous 110 million years ago. The area had been a shallow sea at that time, the result of an inflow of sea water into the Norddeutsche Tiefebene . When the Harz mountains rose during the following Saxon Orogeny, those sandstone layers were pushed into a vertical position (about the geology of the northern Harz see also this post).
The rock seen from the north
The coastline of that shallow sea was only a few miles south of the present day rock formations which include not only the Klus Rock but several other formations in the northern Harz foothills all the way to the Teufelsmauer (Devil's Wall) near Quedlinburg in the east. Along the fault line of the Saxon orogeny in the northern Harz, the lithologic sequence of rocks have been brought to the surface in a mostly vertical or semi-vertical position: the older Triassic buntsandstein, musselkalk and keuper as well as the younger Cretaceous sandstone.
View to the upper part of the rock
The sandstone is a rather coarse and porous variant, originally of a yellow shade, but now more brownish due to weathering - though it still looks more a soft orange in the evening sun. The rock formation also contains several caves of various size washed out of the material. The sandstone is kown as Hils sandstone after a former quarry. That sandstone layer can be as thick as a hundred metres in some places. The stone has been used in construction, esp. for elements that included decorative carvings, during the Middle Ages.
The way up and the bridge
Rocks in such an elevated position and including caves, like the Klus Rock, may indeed have been used as places of worship, for ritual purposes, tribal gatherings and such, but I could not find sufficient proof for a Megalithic cult centre at the Klus Rock that is mentioned online. There is a man made niche in the base of the wall, but if it indeed contained images of pagan deities that were destroyed by Christian missionaries cannot be proven, either.
Halfway to the chapel grotto and the terrace
What we do know is that the rock has been used as hermitage that included a chapel dedicated to St.Mary since at least 1167 (for the dating see also below; though I stick with this date). That hermitage gave its name to the rock: Dialectal Klus, high German Klause means a hermit's abode.
View to the rock with the niche at its base
The hermit – who also took care of the chapel – lived in the cave at the rock base close to the above mentioned niche. The use of that cave predates the establishment of the chapel in the smaller cave in the upper part of the rock, though how far back its use dates is difficult to tell, since both caves have been altered by man in the Middle Ages.
Entrance of the chapel
The chapel in the upper grotto is protected by a locked grille (to prevent people from using the site for parties and leaving the trash behind), but I was lucky to meet a gentleman who had a key to the door and openend the little cave for me, so I could photograph the altar dedicated to St.Mary.
Altar of St.Mary in the chapel grotto
Not far from the rock once stood the chapter church St.Peter, dating to ~1050; a foundation of Agnes of Poitou (1025-1077, daughter of Guillaume V of Aquitaine), second wife of the emperor Heinrich III and mother of Heinrich IV, acting as her son's regent from 1056 to 1062. The church was completely destroyed in 1527.
The chapel windows with signs of masonry
It is unclear whether Agnes used the chapel prior to the building of the church. It would predate the other first official mention of the existence of the chapel in a charte from 1167 which I could find. Agnes was known for her piety, but she had a chapel in the palatine seat, so there was not good motive why she should climb a rock (it had no stairs then) to pray – though she may have done so for exactly for that reason.
Entrance to the chapel from a different angle
The chapel was in use until the Reformation, though the hermitage had been abandoned earlier. Afterwards the chapel served as dwelling place. In the early 19th century it was restored as chapel with an alter dedicated to St.Mary in the wake of the Romanticistic revival, but fell in disuse again in the 1960ies. The chapel was renovated in 1983.
The terrace in front of the chapel
The cave in the rock base served as the hermit's abode, as mentioned above, and was later used as stable and as storage cellar. There had been an inn named 'Zur Clus' on the meadow in front of the cave since the 19th century, which was demolished in 1968. The innkeeper stored his provisions in the cave – the beer would keep cool there.
The peak ridge
Besides the hermit's cave and the chapel grotto there are several more caves in the rock, some of them connected. They have beeen walled shut during the restoration work done by the Rotay Club in the 1980ies to prevent vandalism.
View to the rock from the south
There are legends and fairy tales connected with the Klus Rock. Unfortunately, I could not find any of those online; I'd have liked to share a story or two with my readers like I did for other such places.
Another view of the Klus Rock
Instead, I'll leave you with another final view of the rock.
Read more! ¶ December 20, 2020 0 comments
The Klusfelsen rock formation is a little known landmark in Goslar, usually relegated to the footnotes in travel guide books. After some initial signposts, I had to ask the locals for directions to get there. And then, passing a small path between some suburban houses, a meadow opened and on its farther edge I found this.
The Klusfelsen (Klus Rock) is a sandstone rock of about 20 metres height and 50 metres length, dating to the Lower Cretaceous 110 million years ago. The area had been a shallow sea at that time, the result of an inflow of sea water into the Norddeutsche Tiefebene . When the Harz mountains rose during the following Saxon Orogeny, those sandstone layers were pushed into a vertical position (about the geology of the northern Harz see also this post).
The coastline of that shallow sea was only a few miles south of the present day rock formations which include not only the Klus Rock but several other formations in the northern Harz foothills all the way to the Teufelsmauer (Devil's Wall) near Quedlinburg in the east. Along the fault line of the Saxon orogeny in the northern Harz, the lithologic sequence of rocks have been brought to the surface in a mostly vertical or semi-vertical position: the older Triassic buntsandstein, musselkalk and keuper as well as the younger Cretaceous sandstone.
The sandstone is a rather coarse and porous variant, originally of a yellow shade, but now more brownish due to weathering - though it still looks more a soft orange in the evening sun. The rock formation also contains several caves of various size washed out of the material. The sandstone is kown as Hils sandstone after a former quarry. That sandstone layer can be as thick as a hundred metres in some places. The stone has been used in construction, esp. for elements that included decorative carvings, during the Middle Ages.
Rocks in such an elevated position and including caves, like the Klus Rock, may indeed have been used as places of worship, for ritual purposes, tribal gatherings and such, but I could not find sufficient proof for a Megalithic cult centre at the Klus Rock that is mentioned online. There is a man made niche in the base of the wall, but if it indeed contained images of pagan deities that were destroyed by Christian missionaries cannot be proven, either.
What we do know is that the rock has been used as hermitage that included a chapel dedicated to St.Mary since at least 1167 (for the dating see also below; though I stick with this date). That hermitage gave its name to the rock: Dialectal Klus, high German Klause means a hermit's abode.
The hermit – who also took care of the chapel – lived in the cave at the rock base close to the above mentioned niche. The use of that cave predates the establishment of the chapel in the smaller cave in the upper part of the rock, though how far back its use dates is difficult to tell, since both caves have been altered by man in the Middle Ages.
The chapel in the upper grotto is protected by a locked grille (to prevent people from using the site for parties and leaving the trash behind), but I was lucky to meet a gentleman who had a key to the door and openend the little cave for me, so I could photograph the altar dedicated to St.Mary.
Not far from the rock once stood the chapter church St.Peter, dating to ~1050; a foundation of Agnes of Poitou (1025-1077, daughter of Guillaume V of Aquitaine), second wife of the emperor Heinrich III and mother of Heinrich IV, acting as her son's regent from 1056 to 1062. The church was completely destroyed in 1527.
It is unclear whether Agnes used the chapel prior to the building of the church. It would predate the other first official mention of the existence of the chapel in a charte from 1167 which I could find. Agnes was known for her piety, but she had a chapel in the palatine seat, so there was not good motive why she should climb a rock (it had no stairs then) to pray – though she may have done so for exactly for that reason.
The chapel was in use until the Reformation, though the hermitage had been abandoned earlier. Afterwards the chapel served as dwelling place. In the early 19th century it was restored as chapel with an alter dedicated to St.Mary in the wake of the Romanticistic revival, but fell in disuse again in the 1960ies. The chapel was renovated in 1983.
The cave in the rock base served as the hermit's abode, as mentioned above, and was later used as stable and as storage cellar. There had been an inn named 'Zur Clus' on the meadow in front of the cave since the 19th century, which was demolished in 1968. The innkeeper stored his provisions in the cave – the beer would keep cool there.
Besides the hermit's cave and the chapel grotto there are several more caves in the rock, some of them connected. They have beeen walled shut during the restoration work done by the Rotay Club in the 1980ies to prevent vandalism.
There are legends and fairy tales connected with the Klus Rock. Unfortunately, I could not find any of those online; I'd have liked to share a story or two with my readers like I did for other such places.
Instead, I'll leave you with another final view of the rock.
Read more! ¶ December 20, 2020 0 comments
