History
Between 1180 and the early 13th century, a commandry of the Order of St. John was established in Strzegom. In the 14th century, the Knights Hospitaller undertook the construction of a new parish church, erected on the site of an older, Romanesque church granted to them in 1203. These works were supported by the townspeople and likely by the Silesian princes. The exact date of commencement of construction work was not recorded in documents. It is known that the Przedbor bell was founded in 1318, but it may have still hung in the old church. In 1335, a “Johannes vitricus” was recorded, suggesting financial preparations for construction. The oldest surviving record of the city council selling rent for stonemasonry and church construction dates back to 1360. The construction fund was then bolstered by a certain Jutta Bessirschussil, after whom, in the same year, three more townswomen made donations to the church. Further donations were made in 1364, 1367, and 1368 (“ad opus lapidale seu fabricam parochialis ecclesie in Strigon”).
Construction of the Gothic church most likely began around the second quarter of the 14th century, perhaps in the 1330s. It was certainly carried out from west to east, so that the older Romanesque church could continue to serve its liturgical function for as long as possible. As work progressed, the old structure was demolished, completely dismantled during the construction of the new transept and chancel. The first phase of work lasted until approximately 1360-1370, involved the construction of the perimeter walls of the nave, the arcades between the aisles, the opened southern porch, the two lower stories of the northern tower, and the lower part of the outer walls of the southern transept. A characteristic feature of this phase was the presence of low pillar plinths and their distinctive flattened profile. The work was likely carried out by Wrocław’s artistic community of the first half of the 14th century.
The second phase of construction took place between approximately 1370 and 1388, when the northern transept, the pillars at thecrossing, the clerestory of the central nave, the vaults of the aisles, and the western bay between the towers with its impressive entrance portal were constructed. This phase was characterized by the distinctive, high pillar plinths and the more artistic form of the latter. The third phase of construction, led by Master James of Świdnica, took place around 1388-1396. In 1388, Witryk Konrad was to begin financing the construction of an aisled chancel (“inchoatum est fundae ecclesie”), and a year later, the sacristy was to be completed. In 1396, the roofing of the chancel was completed. Its layout, similar to that of the Świdnica parish church, confirmed Master Jame’s ties to his hometown. Witryk Konrad of Prussia died early in this phase, replaced by a certain Peter Sarau. At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, the western towers were built, but only the northern one was completed, for which a bell was purchased in 1405.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, finishing work was carried out on the church. In the second half of the 15th century, the nave and slightly raised transept were vaulted, and at the beginning of the following century, brick gables were erected. Work on covering the transept must have taken quite a while, as it acquired a variety of vault forms, from simple to highly elaborate. The last important construction event was in 1522, when by commander Siegmund von Keltsch a musical gallery located in the western bay of the central nave was added. At the same time, the northern porch was also built, while in the more unknown period of the late Middle Ages a non-existent chapel was erected at the southern transept. In later years it was transformed into a kind of covered porch connecting the church with the commandry.
In the mid-sixteenth century, protection of Knights Hospitaller over the church was interrupted by the Reformation. The first Evangelical service took place in 1525, and already in 1540 the church was taken over by Protestants. It is true that during the Thirty Years’ War, in 1629, Catholics regained the church thanks to Field Marshal Liechtenstein, but only for three years. Later, it served both religions, although the smaller Catholic community had to be content only with the sacristy. Until 1649, the patronage of the church was held by the city magistrate, which in the same year handed the church over to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
In 1718, a fire destroyed almost all the interior furnishings of the church, wrecking a restaurant carried out fourteen years earlier on the initiative of commander Carl Leopold von Herberstein. As the nave walls were violated at that time, the northern windows of the nave and transept were walled up to strengthen structure. Further destructions took place in 1814, when the lightning struck the roof of the tower, which probably accelerated the decision to install lightning conductors in 1827. A little earlier, during the Napoleonic Wars, the church’s interior was transformed into military stables. Although the horses were removed after some time, the church was not used for a long time because of persistent stench.
In 1810, the Prussian authorities secularized the Silesian commandry, the patronage passed to the Prussian government and church began to function as a Catholic parish. A year later, burying at the church cemetery was banned, and 10 years later the temple’s surroundings were transformed into a park. In the nineteenth century, several major church renovations took place, the most important of which was carried out in 1869-1872, forced by damage caused by gusty wind. Further renovation works took place in 1900-1901, 1948-1953 and after 1970.
Architecture
The church was built of unworked stone, basalt and granite, while sandstone was used to make architectural details, and the gables of the transept and the nave were built of bricks. The building received the form of a basilica with a central vave and two aisles, of maximum length of 76 meters, with a transept, with five bays in the nave and with three bays in the chancel. The aisles and the central nave from the east were three sides ended. The west facade was to be two-tower, but ultimately it was not completed. The higher north tower with five storeys reached the height of the roof top of the central nave, the lower south tower with two floors only reached the roof above the aisle. Both towers from the east were equipped with octagonal towers with staircases. From the north and south of the nave, on opposite sides, porches were added at the same line, and to the southern aisle of the nave and the chancel, two chapels were inserted between the buttresses. A two-bay sacristy was located in the northern corner at the transept and chancel. The whole central nave and transept were covered with steep gable roofs reaching 34.2 meters, the side aisles with mono-pitched roofs, while the north tower with a hip roof.
Outside the walls of central nave were supported with stone flying buttresses over the roofs of the aisles, while the chancel was reinforced with buttresses in the aisles and pilasters in the central nave. The less prominent flying buttresses of the chancel have already been hidden under the roofs of the aisles. The gables of the transept and the western façade were decorated with blendes from the beginning of the 16th century, while the decoration of the western gable, characteristic of the Silesian Gothic architecture, formed blendes in the shape of blind, rectangular windows. Strip cornices have also become a characteristic element of the western facade. In addition, the external façades of the entire church were placed on a plinth, surrounded with a drip cornice and a crowning cornice, the latter at the chancel being decorated with sculptural decorations. The windows of the church were splayed on both sides, closed with ogival arches, divided by traceries into two-light, three-light and four-light. The jambs in the nave and transept were moulded. Among the sculptural elements of the external façade, one can distinguish the coat of arms of Strzegom on the southern side of the chancel, supported by a pair of angels in the form of a crossed key with a sword, then a heraldic shield in the northeast corner of the transept and the remains of a gargoyle with visible claws and the lower part of the body in the north-west aisle. An impressive gargoyle in the form of a fantastic creature was also placed near the southern entrance to the church.
A richly carved three portals with tympanums constituting a collection of rare medieval iconographic types led to the nave of the church. The northern portal was enclosed with a porch to which two twin ogival portals with jambs decorated with carved figures of saints lead. A monumental ogival portal decorated with Gothic crockets and topped with a small gable was placed in the porch, as well as flanked with consoles with pinnacle canopies. The portal’s tympanum was filled with three biblical scenes in which all characters are characterized by slender proportions and small physique, as well as robes with soft and gently falling folds. The southern portal was also preceded by a porch, but an open one, constituting an integral part of the aisles. The entrance to it was created in a magnificent ogival arcade supported by polygonal half-pillars with leafy capitals, articulated with two-colored stone blocks. The inside of the porch has cross-rib vault with support on corbels decorated with fantastic masks. The southern portal itself received a form analogous to the northern one, though with more stepps. The tympanum shows the scene of the Dormition of Mary supported by two corbels with the image of a lion and an eagle. The main entrance in the western facade is enclosed in a monumental portal in the form of wide, moulded jambs that turn into an archivolt. On both sides it was decorated with three columns crowned with leafy chalice capitals, which also function as consoles for statues. Above the consoles, canopies topped with slender pinnacles were hung, while the tympanum showed two bas-carved scenes from the life of Saint Paul. Tympanum was supported by corbels with the image of a phoenix rising from the ashes and a lion reviving its little ones. The portal was crowned with a magnificent gable filled with sculptural decoration (the only such gable in Silesia), ornamented with crockets and pinnacles, placed on the background of the panel decorated with slender, trefoil tracery. A much more modest and smaller saddle portal led to the southern chancel aisle, similar portals were also used inside the church at the sacristy and staircases.
The interior of the church was marked by two levels: ogival arcades and a zone of windows, between which there was an extensive plane of smooth walls separated only by pilaster strips running from the base of the vaults to the floor. The slender, fragmented arcades were based on inter-nave pillars with a cross-section close to the elongated octagon. They were separated by bundles of shafts and semicircular concaves, with the pillars mouldings transitioning to arcade mouldings without the use of capitals. In the central nave with a height of 26.2 meters and in the aisles, the ribs of the vaults were based on highly suspended corbels, thanks to which a varied vaulted zone was distinguished, without distinct wall divisions.
The interior of the church was covered with various vaults: stellar in the chapels, under the gallery, in the chancel and at the nave crossing, cross-rib naults in the aisles, northern transept, sacristy and porch, and a net vault with a rhomboidal drawing in the central nave. In the southern transept a stellar vault with an asymmetrical arrangement of ribs was established, and an undertower bay in the aisle was covered by stellar vault with a complicated, decorative structure of the composition with ribs fastened with bosses in the shape of heraldic shields and trefoils, additionally varied with floral motifs. Ribs of basilica vaults were based on wall corbels, some of which, especially in the aisles of the nave, received figural forms (on the southern side there were depictions of Parable of the Ten Virgins, a stripping jester, or a man with a dagger). Vault bosses took the form of plant rosettes in the aisles and shields in the central nave and transept, though some were also formed into human figures (e.g. blessing bishop, Saint Paul with a sword and Saint Peter with a key). The vault of the Strzegom basilica most likely repeated the forms of covering of the St. Vitus’ Cathedral chancel in Prague, founded by the outstanding and influential architect of the second half of the 14th century – Petr Parler.
Current state
Strzegom’s basilica is one of the greatest achievements of Silesian Gothic. The outstanding architectural qualities of the church, its spatial and stylistic uniformity and impressive size make it a work of special importance for cultural heritage. The use of basalt-granite building materials is noteworthy, and especially the presence of the transept, characteristic of Western European cathedrals, in Silesia present only in the collegiate church of Holy Cross in Wrocław. Stone and architectural sculptural details implementing a coherent iconographic program are also impressive. Among them, the western portal can be considered one of the greatest works of Gothic, not only in Silesia but also throughout Poland, showing many similarities with the Portal of the Singers of the cathedral of St. Stephen’s in Vienna. Of the oldest monuments in the church, a stone sedilia in the chancel with openwork, trefoil traceries, a tower-shaped sacramentary made by Wolfgang from Vienna in the first half of the 15th century, and a stone, late-Gothic baptismal font from the 16th century have been preserved.
bibliography:
Architektura gotycka w Polsce, red. M.Arszyński, T.Mroczko, Warszawa 1995.
Atlas historyczny miast polskich. Tom IV Śląsk, red. R.Czaja, R.Młynarska-Kaletynowa, R.Eysymontt, zeszyt 6 Strzegom, Wrocław 2015.
Mikołajczyk T., Bazylika w Strzegomiu. Gotycki pomnik historii, Wrocław 2018.
Pilch J., Leksykon zabytków architektury Dolnego Śląska, Warszawa 2005.
Walczak M., Kościoły gotyckie w Polsce, Kraków 2015.