Beschreibung
The Stiftskirche was probably built between 1350 and 1400 and is the oldest and most important church of Bretten. Its oldest part is the tower, supposed to be the tower or keep of a small town castle from the beginning of the High Middle Ages, which served as inner core of the city’s defenses. The tower is 61meters high.Initially the patron saints of the church were St. Stephen and St. Laurence. For a long time, this place of worship has been a church for both Catholics and reformed Protestants. The former screen, a wooden gate to separate the choir and the nave of a church, had been transformed into a partition wall for them. The destructions of 1689 did affect above all the tower but left the outer walls nearly undamaged. Around the Stiftskirche was the first cemetery of Bretten (a churchyard in the literal sense of the word). Both on the southern and south-eastern outer walls as well as inside the church, grave stones of spiritual and noble leaders of the former palatine district of Bretten are displayed. They often show old family and territorial coats of arms that date back to the 16th until the 18th century.On the south side the original figure of the Bretten doggy can be seen sitting in a niche. It is a former gargoyle.
