Kirche Stapelage

The most impressive building in Stapelage is the church. Its origins date back to the Carolingian period. It is likely that a place of worship dedicated to the pagan gods once stood here. At the latest when the Carolingians transformed the Saxon court into a Carolingian curtis (manor), a small church dedicated to the Apostle Peter was built on the site of the place of worship.

Excavations and architectural research have revealed six periods of stone construction: First, a small hall church; then, a tower-like west wing with a Christian double grave. Shortly after 800, the west tower was demolished and the hall church was extended beyond the double grave. This created a Carolingian westwork with a narthex and a lord’s gallery. Around 1100, a Romanesque tower was erected in place of the westwork, with a baptistery on its ground floor. Above it was the noble gallery for the judge and district count of the Havergau.

Around 1321, the Romanesque church was converted into a Gothic church with pointed arches resting on wall piers. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the Apostle Peter, and Saint Urban. The tower remained Romanesque, even when, during the Baroque renovation in 1761, the vaults were removed from the church and the nave was widened toward the south. Today, the church features a Baroque, in the style of a Reformed preaching church, with a furnished nave and a Romanesque tower, whose south and west walls were built around 1100 on the foundations of the Carolingian church. This Carolingian masonry in the lower part of the tower is thus about 1,200 years old and is likely the oldest masonry in the region of Old Saxony.

The baptismal font in the church was crafted in 1100 from the material of the exterior stones and is one of the oldest baptismal fonts in East Westphalia. The age of the two linden trees by the tower is also astonishing; they are over 650 years old.