Ecclesiastical Hamburg

Piousness played a decisive role in peoples' lives in the Middle Ages. Thus, the development of the city was inseparably connected to the construction of churches, monasteries and hospitals. These sacred buildings distinctly determined the face of the city; even outside the city's walls. They were centres in the city and the city quarters. Although the few church buildings showed a distinct centralism during the 9th to 12th centuries, a differentiated, decentralised sacral topography developed later on.
It is clear that the number of churches increased as new areas of the city were developed; even church newbuildings gave decisive impulses for the foundation of new parishes. The size of each parish church grew as the population increased.
Each of the various sacred buildings had its own structural form, artistic furnishings and function. Thus, the cathedral was of importance for the northern German region, the mendicant orders' monasteries and churches for the entire city, the parish churches for the parishes, the small monasteries and hospitals for those who turned towards them, and the smaller churches and places of pilgrimage for those who supported them financially and visited them.

- From a Saxon Village to a Fortified Mission and Trading Post
- Ecclesiastical Hamburg
- Hamburg as a Hanseatic City
- The Cog - A Cargo-carrying Vessel of the Middle Ages