Church Monuments Society

Standing upright against the south wall of the south aisle of the Afrakirche in the historic city of Meissen is the sandstone cadaver slab to Wolfgang von Schleinitz zu Ragewitz, who died in 1523. It is one of several fifteenth- and sixteenth-century memorials to members of the Von Schleinitz family in the church, but probably the most striking one.

The Afrakirche (fig. 1) was founded in 1205 as an Augustinian collegiate church on the site of an earlier church dedicated to St Aphra. It is located on the so-called Afraberg, a hill on the west side of the river Elbe inside the city of Meissen. The foundation underwent several changes in the course of history. It was first secularised during the Reformation to become Saxony’s first Fürsten- und Landesschule (princely and state school) in 1543 but since 1991 it houses the Evangelische Akademie der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Landeskirche Sachsens (EvLKS or Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony, founded in 1949). The church itself became a became a parish church as well as the school church until 1943.

An addition to the medieval church is the Schleinitzkapelle, a burial chapel founded in 1408 by Hugold von Schleinitz and consecrated to the Holy Blood of Christ. Around 1470 it was extended with another bay to the west to house yet more family memorials: some 30 to 40 family members are believed to have been buried here.The Schleinitz family were an important Saxon knightly dynasty  first mentioned in 1255.  Their family seat – Schloss Schleinitz, a late gothic former moated castle – survives to this day in the Ketzerbach valley some 13 km to the west of Meissen.

Wolfgang von Schleinitz was born around 1475 to Georg von Schleinitz and his wife Maria von Maltitz. Like his father and many other members of his family, Wolfgang entered the service of the Wettin dynasty and became a counsellor to George the Bearded (1471-1539), duke of Saxony and a fierce opponent of the Reformation. Wolfgang’s older brother Johann was bishop of Meissen from 1518 until his death in 1537 and likewise a bitter enemy of Martin Luther.

Wolfgang’s main claim to fame is his truly monumental tomb slab (fig. 2), 275 cm high and 113 cm wide. Its size reinforces the impact of its gruesome imagery. It shows a near-skeletal cadaver standing in a niche that is flanked by two columns, each surmounted by an escutcheon (fig. 3). Its skull is turned towards the left and the hands are crossed on the abdomen. A loose shroud swirls around the figure, covering the genitals but exposing part of the gaping stomach cavity.

Perhaps the most macabre aspect are the large serpents slithering around the figure’s neck, arms and legs. Two more serpents reach out to each other from the spandrels of the niche above. Furthermore, a toad squats between the figure’s feet as a stark contrast to the knightly accoutrements on the floor on either side of the figure (fig. 4-5). Typical renaissance details are the illusionistic niche, the volutes, the floral motifs, and the three cherubs on the tympanum, but the cadaver seems to sag a bit and the rib cage is anatomically unconvincing.

The classically inspired Latin inscription on the tympanum is brief but sophisticated in its wording, even if the lettering looks a bit wobbly. The text reads:

D(EO) . O(PTIMO) . M(AXIMO) . S(ACRVM).
FRATER . M(A)ER
E(N)S . B(E)NEMERENTI . F(RAT)RI .
WOLFGANGO . D(OMINO) . SLEIN
ICZ . MONVMENTVM . POSVIT
MORTVVS . AN(N)O . 1523 . X . OCTOBRIS

(Sacred to God, the best and greatest. A grieving brother has placed this monument to (his) richly deserving brother Lord Wolfgang (von) Schleinitz (who) died in the year 1523 on the 10th (day) of October.)

It must have been Johann VII von Schleinitz, bishop of Meissen (whose  own tomb slab with brass inlays can still be seen in Meissen Cathedral), who commissioned this monument to his brother in the family chapel. Such a large stone monument would have been a prestigious commission and quite expensive.

The sculptor is believed to have been Christoph Walther I, born c.1493 to a family of artists in Wrocław (Silesia, now Poland). Christoph settled in Meissen where he executed at least one other memorial for the Schleinitz family before moving his workshop to Dresden. There he would work for George the Bearded on the Georgentor (George Gate) and create for it the nearly 12.5 m long Dance of Death frieze (fig. 7, now displayed in the Dreikönigskirche in Dresden). Christoph Walther I died in 1546 but his sons Hans II and Christoph II  would continue the Walther dynasty of sculptors.

Yet why would Johann have chosen such a macabre memorial for his late brother? According to a legend that emerged as early as the sixteenth century, Wolfgang had been so handsome that he was generally known as ‘der Schöne [Junker] von Schleinitz’ (the handsome [squire] Von Schleinitz). In order to avoid the deadly sin of pride, and with his salvation in mind, Wolfgang himself is supposed to have expressed the wish not to be memorialised with an effigy that depicted his handsome looks. Instead he stipulated that his body should be dug up a few weeks after burial and that his effigy should be based on this posthumous appearance to demonstrate thus the ephemeral nature of earthly beauty.

It is an unlikely story, but then this is an unusual monument that has fortunately survived the ravages of time and war. After 1671 the Schleinitzkapelle became neglected and many family memorials disappeared; the chapel only narrowly escaped demolition in 1854.

Sophie Oosterwijk

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Bildarchiv Foto Marburg for the photograph of Wolfgang von Schleinitz’s tomb and permission to use it, and to Stephen Freeth for his help with the Latin inscription and translation.

Some further reading:

Entry in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek at https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/WMXV64RFKPPN5XA3KDZP2X5ZSBBDYXFX

Arndt Kiesewetter, ‘Der Dresdner Totentanz. Herkunft und Idee‘, in Dresdner Totentanz. Das Relief in der Dreikönigskirche Dresden, ed. Marius Winzeler (Halle: Jonas Stekovic, 2001), 4-17.

Sophie Oosterwijk, ‘Food for Worms – Food for Thought: The Appearance and Interpretation of the “Verminous” Cadaver in Britain and Europe’, Church Monuments, 20 (2005), 40-80, 133-140, esp. p. 64-65 and fig. 16-17.

Gallery

• Fig. 1. The Afraberg today with a view of the Afrakirche, Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo: Jörg Blobelt at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20030610200DR_Mei%C3%9Fen_Augustiner_Chorherrenstift_St_Afra.jpg?uselang=de.
• Fig. 2. Tomb slab of Wolfgang von Schleinitz (d. 1523), south aisle of the Afrakirche (St Afra’s church), Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo credit: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Thomas Scheidt.
• Fig. 3. Epitaph on the tomb slab of Wolfgang von Schleinitz (d. 1523), Afrakirche (St Afra’s church), Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo credit: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Thomas Scheidt.
• Fig. 4. Upper part of the effigy of Wolfgang von Schleinitz (d. 1523), Afrakirche (St Afra’s church), Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo credit: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Thomas Scheidt.
• Fig. 5. Lower part of the effigy of Wolfgang von Schleinitz (d. 1523), Afrakirche (St Afra’s church), Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo credit: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Thomas Scheidt.
• Fig. 6. Detail of the toad between the feet of the effigy of Wolfgang von Schleinitz (d. 1523), Afrakirche (St Afra’s church), Meissen (Saxony, Germany). Photo credit: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Thomas Scheidt.
• Fig. 7. The Dresdner Totentanz or Dance of Death, sandstone relief carved around 1534 by Christoph Walther I, nearly 12.50 m long and originally placed on the Georgentor (George Gate), now displayed in the Dreikönigskirche in Dresden. Illustration of the relief when located on the cemetery wall of the Innere Neustädter Friedhof, published in the journal Die Gartenlaube (1881).