Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude, Nivelles

The Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude of Nivelles, the parish church is today, was built in the first years after 1000, possibly from 1020 as a replacement of an even St. Peter consecrated earlier building. The consecration took place in 1046; at that time the building was but probably not yet complete.

The church represents the prototype of the monumental buildings in the Carolingian tradition is: two strictly separate components - connected through the nave, but - in contrast to Romanesque buildings - no access in the longitudinal axis.

The construction took place in two steps: First, a new West plant was built, which was replaced by the current West works in the 12th century. It was a cross-axis hall with three bays, a projecting apse and two West arranged in the West walls of the side rooms staircases. After a fire, then the rest of the church was rebuilt. Building owner was originally from the family of Ezzonen abbess Richeza, the building was in 1046 in the presence of King Henry III. consecrated.

Today's Collegiate Church is largely due to this construction. It is a three-nave pillar basilica with siebenjochige east and west transepts, which are much wider than the nave, where the Ostquerhaus is wider than the western. At the Ostquerhaus a transverse rectangular choir joins, which has a small, three-aisled hall to the underlying crypt open towards the apse. To the chorus running around low tunnels similar spaces that were accessible only by small, located slightly below the floor level of the rest of the church premises in the angle between Ostquerhaus and choir.

A profiled Horizontalgesims separates the nave walls into two equal- storeys high in a zone arcades and the clerestory. Half the nave height, floor height is now the width of the nave, the aisles have half the nave width. Floor plan and elevation relate to each other sternly. The Vierungsquadrat is the unit of measurement. Transepts and east choir ( the west choir was later changed ) to this system of units will not arrange a are " backward ".

The interior shows the beginning of a plastic molding through the walls. The nave increases the height compared to Hildesheim and Hersfeld.

The church was heavily damaged in World War II, but rebuilt after this in reconstructed form, namely from the original design, and not after the later modified pre-war state.