Creglingen is a town in the Main-Tauber district of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It has around 4,700 inhabitants.

Geography

Subdivision

The town of Creglingen contains the following ''

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

s'' (since the municipal reform of 1972): Archshofen, Blumweiler, Craintal, Erdbach, Finsterlohr (together with the villages Schonach, Burgstall and Seldeneck), Frauental, Freudenbach, Münster, Niederrimbach, Oberrimbach, Lichtel, Reinsbronn (together with the village of Niedersteinach), Reutsachsen, Schirmbach, Schmerbach, Schön, Schwarzenbronn, Waldmannshofen (together with the village of Sechselbach and the hamlets Fuchshof und Seewiesenhof), Wolfsbuch, Weiler.

History

The

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

who founded the town between 200 and 100 B.C. also farmed the surrounding plateaus and valleys. In 1349, Creglingen received its town charter from Emperor Karl IV (Charles IV).

Attractions

Creglingen is known for the Herrgottskirche outside of the town. It contains a masterwork of late-Gothic sculpture by Tilman Riemenschneider, the ''Marienaltar''. The church is a pilgrimage chapel, established following a reported discovery of an undamaged

communion wafer Sacramental bread, also called Communion bread, Communion wafer, Sacred host, Eucharistic bread, the Lamb or simply the host (), is the bread used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist. Along with sacramental wine, it is one of two elements ...

by a peasant ploughing his field in 1384. This wafer was thought to be the cause of miracles and people flocked to the site. The local lords, Konrad and Gottfried von Hohenlohe-Brauneck, had a Gothic chapel built in 1386–96. At the pilgrimage's peak around 1500 a number of altars were ordered that remain in the church today. The central altar by Riemenschneider was built on the spot where the wafer was reportedly found. The figures are made from the wood of linden trees, the surrounding frames from pine trees. At a total height of 11 meters the altar dominated the small church. Although

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

reached the area in 1530, its iconoclasm spared the local church. The altar wings of the main altar were closed, however, as the depicted

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic Mariology#Dogmatic teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of w ...

was offensive to the Protestant congregations. Its good state of preservation is owed to the fact that the wings of the altar remained closed and the whole was covered by funeral wreaths until 1832.

Notable people

* Gustav Vorherr (1778-1847), architect and economist, Royal Bavarian Baurat * (1835-1896), member of the Reichstag * Wilhelm Michler (1846-1899), chemist * (1866-1933), Holocaust victim * Ernst Stuhlinger (1913-2008), rocket scientist * (born 1946), mayor, politician (CDU), Member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg * (born 1956), writer, literary critic and essayist

References

External links

* Main-Tauber-Kreis Historic Jewish communities {{MainTauber-geo-stub