Around the church
The hospital of the Holy Spirit
The hospital of the Holy Spirit in Blaubeuren, a former nursing home, was founded in 1420. As a place of care the hospital played an important role in the medieval town: it was an old people's home, orphanage, poor house, homeless shelter and hospice all in one. For a very long time it was one of the most important buildings in the town, beside the church and the town hall. The oldest part of the complex is the northern wing with the hospital chapel, which still shows original frescoes from 1430. The adjacent buildings were gradually added and bear witness to the success of the institution. For centuries, there was a saying in Blaubeuren: “Thank God, our hospital is making gains every day”. It actually served as the municipal retirement home until 2008, when it was replaced as such by a newly erected nursing home, which was built in the vicinity of the local hospital.
The tactile model
Nestled on the southern edge of the Swabian Alb and embedded in the ancient Danube valley, Blaubeuren's old town lies on an alluvial fan that slopes down to the Ach. From a bird's eye view you can clearly see the immediate proximity to the monastery and the Blautopf, but also the clear separation between the monastery compound and the town. The old town's urban structure has largely been preserved as it was in the Middle Ages. The market square with the mighty town hall formed the center of the town. Coming from Ulm, the long-distance trade route led through the Lower Gate into the town and up to the town hall, where it turned west and continued along Marktstrasse through the Upper Gate onto the plateau of the Swabian Jura towards Urach and via Tübingen to Strasbourg. The medieval town walls, gates and towers were demolished around 1830.
Church square and cemetery chapel
In the Middle Ages the church was surrounded by a cemetery, the so-called churchyard. The gravestones leaning against the outer wall of the choir, the former cemetery chapel and the inscription "Beinhaus", meaning ossuary, on the wall of the Holy Ghost hospital are reminders of that time. Due to a lack of space and for reasons of hygiene the churchyard was abandoned around 1600 and a new cemetery was opened outside the town walls . Since the cemetery chapel was therefore no longer needed in this place, it was converted into the hospital's archive. Its roof was removed and a new floor added where the hospital administrator set up his office, which was accessible via a footbridge from the hospital. Thanks to the two bay windows he had an excellent view of the entire street from the Lower Gate up to the town hall.
Peter and Paul Parish Church
The church, built in the late Gothic style, has been used as the Protestant parish church since the Reformation. The single-nave building dates back to the beginning of the 15th century. The choir and western facade were completed around 1495, thus simultaneously with the erection of the monastery church. A lantern was added to the church tower in the 17th century. Not only the frescoes from the 15th century but also the Neubronner Altar, which shows the German reformer Martin Luther standing under the cross, deserve a closer look.
Stone and fountain
Until 1983, all traffic on the B 28 squeezed through Blaubeuren's old town. With the construction of the local bypass, this burden on the town center was lifted and a refurbishment of the old town improved the reclaimed space. The church square was finally redesigned with a modern fountain. The black and green banded stone is a serpentinite from the Hohentauern in the Austrian Alps. A five-jet fountain head made of cement is a reminder of Blaubeuren's former cement industry which had provided sought-after jobs for about two centuries, but it also stands for the town's abundance of water.
History of Blaubeuren
The earliest traces of humans in the Blautal and Achtal date back to the Paleolithic period. Finds from the Neanderthals (up to around 50,000 BC) as well as from early modern humans (from around 40,000 BC) have been found in the Hohle Fels and the Große Grotte. The Rusenschloß and Ruck castle were built in the 11th century. At that time there were already mills along the Ach and Blau and there was a tiny chapel close to the Blautopf. The monastery was founded on this site in 1085. In order to provide supply for the construction of the monastery, a market was created, which massively boosted the development of the settlement which at the time was nothing but a small hamlet. Blaubeuren was first mentioned as a town in a document written in 1267. The “Blaumännle” has been Blaubeuren's coat of arms since 1471.
