The Hospital of the Five Wounds is a

half-timbered Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

house in the city of

Hildesheim Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the Lei ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It is in the southern part of the old city center, opposite

St. Godehard Gotthard (or Godehard) (960 – 5 May 1038 AD; la, Gotthardus, Godehardus), also known as ''Gothard'' or ''Godehard the Bishop'', was a German bishop venerated as a saint. Life Gotthard was born in 960 near Niederalteich, Niederaltaich in the ...

and behind St. Nicolai's Chapel.

History

In 1770, a large half-timbered house was built in Hildesheim to house two different hospitals which had already been founded several centuries before. The ground floor was given to the ''Hospital zu den Fünf Wunden (Hospital of the Five Wounds)'' and the upper floors to the ''Hospital Sankt Nicolai (Hospital St. Nicolai)''. Later, both hospitals were united to form the ''Vereinigte Hospitäler (United Hospitals)''. The building, however, kept the name ''Hospital zu den Fünf Wunden''. The name derives from devotion to the

holy wounds In Catholic tradition, the Five Holy Wounds, also known as the Five Sacred Wounds or the Five Precious Wounds, are the five piercing wounds that Jesus Christ suffered during his crucifixion. The wounds have been the focus of particular devotions, ...

inflicted on Jesus during the crucifixion, a pious practice traditionally associated with works of mercy and social justice (in reformation England the ''

Pilgrimage of Grace The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular revolt beginning in Yorkshire in October 1536, before spreading to other parts of Northern England including Cumberland, Northumberland, and north Lancashire, under the leadership of Robert Aske. The "most ...

'' was undertaken by Catholics protesting their loss of charitable institutions and religious freedoms, under a similar patronage). From the 19th century on, the building was used by a nearby Catholic hospital which still exists today. During

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 ...

, the Hospital of the Five Wounds was only slightly damaged by bombs on 22 February 1945 and on 22 March 1945, and the damage could be repaired very soon. The building was renovated in 1981. Today it is used as a training college for nurses.

Architecture

The Hospital of the Five Wounds is one of the largest half-timbered houses in Hildesheim. The address is Godehardsplatz 9–11 which is a large square in front of the Romanesque

, but actually it is in a small and rather steep side lane. The building has four floors and a half-hip roof. The ground floor which was built of rubblestones has a representative

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

portal above which the year of construction (1770) is indicated in Latin in a noteworthy

chronogram A chronogram is a sentence or inscription in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals (such as Roman numerals), stand for a particular date when rearranged. The word, meaning "time writing", derives from the Greek words ''chronos'' (χ� ...

: CVra BonIfaCII, prIMo, qVo praefVIt Anno Abbas SpeCtatos CoLLoCat HosCe Lares. One M = 1000, six C = 6 x 100 = 600, three L = 3 x 50 = 150, three V = 3 x 5 = 15, five I = 5 x 1 = 5, 1770 altogether.H. Th. Wenner: ''Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Hildesheim'', p. 102. Osnabrück 1979 Above the portal, which was the main entrance of the building, the coat of arms of an

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

can be seen as well. The upper floors, which housed the St. Nicolai Hospital, were built in a half-timbered style. This hospital had its own entrance in the east of the building where a statue of the patron saint can be seen.

References

{{coord missing, Lower Saxony Buildings and structures in Hildesheim Infrastructure completed in 1770 1770 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire Tourist attractions in Hildesheim