St Michael’s at Hildesheim: Scripture Networks and the Perception of Sacred Space

The abbey of St Michael’s was founded by Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (993–1022) on a hill north of the cathedral immunity.1 The founder conceived it as a monastery following early medieval tradition, accomodating a convent of monks and clerics. This is indicated by the history of the foundation as well as by the architectural layout of the abbey church and the number of altars it housed, as Matthias Untermann has recently pointed out.2 The process of foundation began in 996 with the consecration, in the north-eastern corner of what was to become the abbey precinct, of a chapel (sacellum) dedicated to the Holy Cross in which canons were to do liturgical service under the conduct of a provost (fig. 1). According to the date given on the foundation stone found in 1908 under the south-western transept arm (fig. 16), the construction of the great abbey church was begun in 1010. In 1013, Bernward had a monastic community installed on the site (either in a preexisting residential building or in an already finished section of the monastic complex), in 1015 the crypt under the western sanctuary with the altar of St Mary was consecrated, and in 1022 the consecration of the church was celebrated, although the building was not yet finished. Both consecration ceremonies, in 1015 as well as in 1022, took place on September 29th, the feast day of St Michael, patron of the church, to whom the main altar in the western sanctuary was dedicated. In that same year 1022, Bernward appointed an abbot as head of the entire convent, thus bringing the process of foundation to an end, before he himself died on November 20th 1022. He was buried in the crypt, in a tomb in front of the altar of St Mary, which he had prepared for himself while still alive (fig. 2).