Networks of Patronage: The Civic Building Projects at St. S

The municipal large-scale civil building projects, St. Stephen and St. Michael, were the central locations of the city and were interrelated in terms of building and church operations. As parish churches, they were of great importance in the life of every person and, in contrast to the monasteries, were freely accessible to all social groups of the most diverse gender - clerical dignitaries, royal families, craftsmen, merchants, citizens, brotherhoods, etc. They provided the ideal framework for building donations and for donations of sculptures and cult objects. Spiritual and secular people as well as their families immortalized themselves with their investments in the churches under construction. The aim of this research project is to reconstruct, collate and compare the diverse furnishing concepts and donor ambitions of the different individuals, groups and institutions in the parish churches of the city. The project looks at the medieval parish church system of the city in terms of its mediality. The interactions are considered as well as the period in which church furnishings have emerged. It pertains to the importance of the spatial structure, the content-related development of the foundation objects and an in-depth presentation of the donor culture on the civic building projects of the city of Vienna. Were there similarities in the architectural concept, in the internal spatial structure or in the cult objects? Are there any interrelationships in the liturgy during a church year? And how did this network of patronage, which is made up of all the people involved in the foundation process, spread over the two major civil building projects?

For the first time the project examined the parish church system in medieval Vienna and analyzed the complex relationships between the main parish of St Stephen's and its subsidiary parish of St Michael's, particularly regarding patronage and building culture. St. Stephen's and St. Michael's were the central locations of the city in the Middle Ages. As parish churches, they held great significance in the life of every person - they accompanied medieval people from baptism to death. Unlike monasteries, parish churches were freely accessible to all social groups of every gender and thus offered an ideal platform for self-representation. Depending on financial means, people supported the construction process, donated works of art, devotional objects, altar furnishings, Masses, and perpetual light, thereby contributing to their own salvation. The many donors thus essentially determined the architectural and thematic design of the churches and more generally, the scale of the construction effort. St. Stephen's Church underwent numerous upgrades over course of the Middle Ages - in 1365, the main parish also became a collegiate church and housed the Habsburg burial vault; in 1469 it was designated the bishop's seat. St. Michael's Church, on the other hand, remained in constant canonical dependence on the main parish St. Stephen; it was a vicariate and was not permitted to fully exercise parish rights. This imbalance was reflected significantly in the number and size of the endowments. There was little ambition to invest in the subsidiary parish. While St. Stephen's was supported by financially powerful "Who's Who" of medieval Viennese society through endowments, St. Michael's network of benefactors consisted of members from less privileged social classes. As a result, the daughter parish had scarcely sufficient financial resources to comprehensively expand the church or enhance it architecturally or in terms of its interior. Nevertheless, St. Michael made efforts not to fall behind the elite building culture of St. Stephen's, or indeed the surrounding buildings in general. This is evident in the efforts to modernize the 13thcentury church during the late Middle Ages, in the design of the main parish - albeit with extremely limited resources: They built a new choir, though with brick walls; the old nave was extended with additions, the roof truss was raised, and the interior was modernized with paintings and a Holy-Spirit-oculus, rather than with an elaborate vaulting design typical of the period. The single tower was gradually raised to rival the surrounding buildings. It was not until the 17th century that the long-awaited elevation in status was achieved through a marketing ploy, when St. Michael's Church, located next to the imperial residence, was designated the "Hofpfarrkirche". From that point on - not in the Middle Ages - St. Michael's received correspondingly more attention.