850 Years of St. Godehard in Hildesheim

Interdisciplinary conference of the Hornemann Institute of the HAWK and the Klosterkammer Hannover
in cooperation with the diocese of Hildesheim in the context of the festive programme for 1000 years of Bishop Godehard


19th to 21st September 2022 | HAWK in Hildesheim, Aula, Hohnsen 2

On the 1000th anniversary of the inauguration of Bishop Godehard (1022-1038), the diocese of Hildesheim has organized a year of festivities. Together with Gerhard Lutz (former Hildesheim Cathedral Museum, now Cleveland Museum of Art), Angela Weyer, director of the Hornemann Institute at the HAWK in Hildesheim, used this anniversary year as an opportunity to design an interdisciplinary conference on the former Benedictine monastery church of St. Godehard.

The church celebrates its 850th anniversary of consecration in 2022. It is one of the most interesting sacred buildings of the 12th century: "St. Godehard is one of the best-preserved and, in a technical sense, most uniform Romanesque churches in Germany," wrote Georg Dehio as early as 1912. It also attracted much attention in the 19th century: The art and cultural historian Jakob Burckhardt visited St. Godehard and was so fascinated by the building that he recorded its architecture and furnishings in sketches.

Even today, the building history and furnishings, as well as their cultural-historical classification, raise numerous questions that will be clarified with experts from various disciplines, from art history, (church) history, conservation and architecture.

The conference in Bishop Godehard's jubilee year reviewed the history of the church and its important historical furnishings over the centuries. The focous was on four main aspects: The foundation of the monastery and the building of the church in the 12th century, the remodelling of the church and monastery in the course of the reforms in the 15th century, the remodelling of the church in the Baroque period and its historicist redesign in the 19th century.

All lectures were in German. Simultaneous translation could not be financed.

Supported
- from the funds of the "Niedersächsisches Vorab"
- by the Diocese Hildesheim.