The Andreasstift was a building complex in

Worms, Germany Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had about 82,000 inhabitants . A pre-Roman foundation, Worms is one of the oldest cities in northern Europe. It wa ...

, now housing Worms City Museum. It is located near

Worms Cathedral St Peter's Cathedral (German: ''Wormser Dom'') is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral in Worms, southern Germany. The cathedral is located on the highest point of the inner city of Worms and is the most important building of the Roma ...

and the Magnuskirche. The community it housed was founded before 1000 as a mountain-top community but was moved to a new building within Worms' city walls in 1020 by order of bishop

Burchard of Worms Burchard of Worms ( 950/965 – August 20, 1025) was the bishop of the Imperial City of Worms, in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the author of a canon law collection of twenty books known as the '' Decretum'', ''Decretum Burchardi'', or ''Decreto ...

. He also ordered the building of the cathedral and of two churches dedicated to St Paul and St Martin. He supported the election of his pupil Henry II and thus became sole ruler of Worms. The complex now centres on the former Andreaskirche, founded between 1180 and 1200 as a three-aisled Romanesque church. The church's north door shows similarities to the west choir of

, suggesting it was built at the same time. Two wings of its cloister survive and are now used as a

lapidarium A lapidarium is a place where stone (Latin: ) monuments and fragments of archaeological interest are exhibited. They can include stone epigraphy, epigraphs; statues; architectural elements such as columns, cornices, and acroterions; bas reliefs ...

. The church's windows were replaced with

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

ones after a fire in 1200. The humanist Peter Anton von Clapis became its provost in 1470. The church and monastery were destroyed in 1689 during the

Nine Years' War The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarch ...

and only restored in 1761. The final provost was Clemens August von Stefne. In 1800 the monastery and church were

secularized In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...

and desanctified by

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

, seeing use as a barracks, a hay barn, a fruit yard, a fire station and the base for the town's official carriages. It was restored again from 1928 to 1930 thanks to a legacy of 200,000 gold marks from Baron Maximilian von Heyl, the younger brother of the Worms industrialist Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl. The area was occupied by France from November 1918 onwards. The end of the occupation was marked on 1 July 1930 by a procession from the city museum (then in the Paulusstift) to the Andreasstift - this also marked the museum's transfer to the Andreasstift. The complex was almost completely destroyed by Allied air raids in the final months of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was restored between 1945 and 1947 during the second French occupation of the area and again in 2007.

External links

* *https://web.archive.org/web/20150928023218/http://www.klosterlexikon-rlp.de/rheinhessen/worms-kollegiatstift-st-andreas.html {{coord, 49.6282, N, 8.3575, E, source:wikidata, display=title, format=dms Roman Catholic churches in Rhineland-Palatinate Churches in Worms, Germany Romanesque architecture in Germany