The church
The church of Richbaldes
Whether the faith messenger Disibodus brought the Christianity into our closer homeland, can only be assumed. Probably however it already can assume that a church stood on the hill before the turn of the century. Here it must be reminded of the fact that our area since 750 belonged to the Frankish "Nahegau". Thus applies after Ernst Christmann a Franke as a name giver of Reipoltskirchen. Richbaldes is considered as a founder of the first church, which becomes from now on the quintessential point of the place Richbaldeskirchen. We can probably assume that this first church was established from wood . Stony buildings were reserved rich monasteries and wealthy commercial towns. Upon the time of origin can be speculated. It stands firmly that the Christianisierung of our area was finished after the Frankish colonization. Maybe the church of the Richbaldes existed already in 8. Jh.
The roman church
The wood church possibly had to give way for a builing of stones in 10. or 11. Jh. After a Soulbook of the abbey "Prüm" it existed anyhow in the year 1222. This Roman church was a small, compact hall construction. On the relatively strong tower a high helmet point sat. It was considered as the most beautiful in the whole environment, although it was only 20 meters high. This church exhibited a few characteristics. At the apse edges prop columns were attached. You could think thereby of a curvature of the Apsis. Another reason is many more probable. The church stood for right angle to the today's parish church, thus with the tower to the village. The choir stood thereby dangerously close at the slope, so that it had to be stabilized with props. A further strange thing was the lowered interior. From the tower the believers had to descend six stages to the nave. No miracle that the contemporaries deplored the wetness inside the church. It must have happened probably closely, particularly at holidays. That scarcely 10 meters long and 7 meters broad interior could not take up longer the strongly increased crowd of the believers. In the first half 19. Century the number of inhabitants had risen to more than the double. This circumstance and the desolate structural condition of the church let think now of a new building.
The "new" church 1848 - 1876
A collection in the whole Kingdom of Bavaria should furnish the starting capital for the new building. It may be reminded here of the fact, that since 1816 the palatine line of the "Wittelsbacher" as Bavarian kings was allowed to rank the new build palatinate among its rule area. The mentioned Kollekte thus, approves from Ludwig. 1., nevertheless brought the proud sum of 4964 fl. (fl.=Florin=Gulden). An exact comparison of the purchasing power of that time with the today's is hardly possible. Those almost 5000 guldens could correspond according to careful estimation between 60,000 and 90,000 euro.
The work began in February. In the Pfalz should the building admits be established after plans of the building advice of Munich "August von Voit" . Beside numerous churches and various buildings "August von Voit" as a civil's building supervisor in Speyer had also planned the "Fruchthalle" in Kaiserslautern. Voit preferred the round elbow style, also for our church. A few details clarify that particularly the stone mason works were quite fastidious. Through the beautiful portal of trimmed sandstone you arrived in the nave. The choir separated an elbow out smoothly hews right parallelepipeds of the nave. the building was just as complex from the outside. The base with large right parallelepipeds, heavy cornice from sandstone, trimmed round arches.
This important project for the church municipality and the village developed to a disaster, which will not have been caused of planning. The greed of the enterprises and the unsatisfactory construction supervision of the responsible authority with the commissariat at Kusel were debt to it, that the construction costses about 6000 guldens were literally set into the sand. The ministers of that time report in their notes of an endless chain of repairs. Flaws in the nave and in the choir, a defective roof, falling down finery, bad windows. During the inauguration of the church on 8 August 1849 by the Speyrer bishop "von Weis" no one suspected that the chruch had not granted long life. On 15 August 1876 the church was closed by the royally Bavarian board of works because of state of decay.
The parish church pc. Johannes Nepomuk
On 11 July 1878 the foundation-stone for the new church was put. The old plans from "August von Voit" were maintained. It proved now as stroke of luck that still no tower was established. The funds collected for the building of the tower could be used now for the building of the new church. The factory advice of the church municipality decided to place lime and sand and supervise the use. 118 years after the inauguration today you can still see the effectiveness of that measure. On 17 June 1880 the solemn consecration took place by the Speyrer bishop Ehrler. Since then the 35 meters high, well arranged tower beside the castle tower became the landmark of the village.
George Dehio appreciates the church in his "manual of the German art monuments".
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