The Liebfrauenkirche (, "Church of Our Lady") in the Thuringian town of Arnstadt, Germany, is a Lutheran parish church. The basilica, which was essentially erected in the 12th and 13th centuries, is considered, along with Naumburg Cathedral (now in Saxony-Anhalt), to be the most important church building of the transitional phase from Romanesque to Gothic architecture in Thuringia.
History
Construction phase
Historians assume that the site where the Liebfrauenkirche stands today corresponds to the location mentioned in the deed of gift from the Thuringian Duke Hedan II to the Anglo-Saxon Bishop Willibrord of Utrecht in 704, and that Arnstadt's first church also stood here. In 726, the bishop bequeathed his share ("Portio") of the "Villa" Arnstadt to the Abbey of Echternach in his will. In the 12th century at the latest, the imperial Hersfeld Abbey took over the landlordship on site and moved the Walpurgis nunnery to the Liebfrauenkirche around 1307. Remains of foundation walls of various predecessor buildings have been archaeologically proven.
The present church building is inconsistent and contains medieval components from different construction phases. It is assumed that the building was constructed in the last quarter of the 12th century. This includes the eastern central nave bay, above which the rectangular east tower rises today. The unusual position of the tower above a nave bay is striking, which is why it has been suspected that it could be a former choir tower, as occurs in the region.
Around 1200, the church was fundamentally renovated as a basilica with galleries. The "false galleries" above the side aisles bear witness to this. Alongside the much earlier ones in Gernrode and the slightly younger choir galleries of Magdeburg Cathedral, they are the only ones of their kind in Central Germany. The west rail belongs to this period as well.
In the second quarter of the 13th century, parts of the side aisles, the clerestory, the vaults of the central nave and the portals in the west and in the side aisles were built. Due to its characteristic building forms, this building phase is counted among the group of buildings that were created in stylistic dependence on the Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn and are often referred to in research as "Maulbronn School buildings". A designation which, as Ernst Badstübner writes, "is not entirely appropriate for the buildings in Thuringia", "because on the one hand the dependence on the Black Forest monastery is not a direct one, and on the other hand because far more elements than can be explained by an influence from Cistercian architecture determine their character." The two polygonal decorative towers on the west rail, which statically did not harmonise optimally with the older substructure and are unsuitable to accommodate mighty bells, belong to this construction phase, too. Their stylistic similarity to the church buildings in Mühlhausen, especially those of St Mary's and Divi Blasii, was noticed early on. The stylistic development from the Late Romanesque south tower to the Gothic north tower in the middle of the 13th century can be seen in Arnstadt as a model for Thuringia.
In the last quarter of the 13th century, the Romanesque choir was replaced by the High Gothic east building consisting of a transept and a staggered hall. As early as the 19th century, the ground plan analogy with Regensburg Cathedral, whose foundation stone was laid in 1275, was noticed without research having a satisfactory explanation so far. Weber assumes that in Arnstadt, too, a basilical solution was initially aimed at. Probably under the impression of the hall buildings taking place in succession to St Elisabeth's Church in Marburg, there was also a change of plan in Arnstadt and the execution of the present hall building. Stylistic references also seem to exist to French Rayonnant buildings, such as the choir solution of the of Chambly or the tracery of Beauvais Cathedral. Since a gallery (which was removed again in the 19th century) was built in the southern part of the east building for the incorporated nunnery, it can be assumed that the interior work extended into the twenties of the 14th century. In 1333, the Liebfrauenkirche was designated as "Ecclesia parochialis" and thus as the main parish church of the town. In addition, the north choir accommodated the burial place and memoria of the Counts of Schwarzburg. The three-aisled structure of the choir building corresponded to the shared use of the space at that time.