Franziskanerkloster St. Paul

The Franciscan monastery of St Paul once stood on the Pfarrberg slope in Eisenach, Thuringia. Landgravine Elisabeth gave the friars a wooded plot in 1224, and the first brothers arrived the following year. A small wooden building served as the first church, later replaced by a stone hall church dedicated to St Paul. The friars belonged to the Saxon Franciscan province and brought relics when they settled. Remains of the medieval economy wing’s ribbed vaults and a few gravestones are the only visible traces left in the ground. The monastery lasted until 1525, when Reformation riots destroyed it. During the ‘Pfaffensturm’ the buildings were plundered and the Georgenkirche so badly damaged that services moved into the Franciscan church. After a new Georgenkirche opened in 1561 the old church became redundant and was pulled down in 1599. Duke Johann Ernst ordered the demolition and used the stone for his castle extension. The site was levelled into a terraced pleasure garden called Charlottenburg, partly on the old cemetery ground, and later a garrison church was begun in 1732. Today the upper Marktschule and a hotel complex cover the slope where the monastery once stood. Excavations for the school revealed the foundations of the 57.6-metre-long Romanesque church with its three-aisled crypt. The nave was probably single-aisled, ending in a broad rectangular choir like those in Saalfeld, Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. The crypt’s layout mirrors the upper church, echoing the design of the mother church in Assisi.