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Old St. Nicholas Church

church building in Altstadt (Frankfurt/Main), Germany

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ436054 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Old St. Nicholas Church (in German: Alte Nikolaikirche) in Frankfurt, Germany, is a medieval Lutheran church. It is located near the Römer city hall in Frankfurt's old town called Altstadt. It has 51 bells; 4 are used for peals and 47 are used for carillons. The first chapel on its site was built in the mid-12th century, the current in the mid-15th. Its congregation forms part of today's Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, comprising Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant congregations.

Despite major destruction in the surrounding old town owing to the bombing of Frankfurt am Main in World War II, the Old St Nicholas Church had only minor damage. Nearby, the Dom-Römer Project aims to bring back parts of the old town between the Römerberg square and Frankfurt Cathedral.

Editorial summary

“Old St. Nicholas Church” enters the record as church building in Altstadt (Frankfurt/Main), Germany. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nicholas, Church and church can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current 131-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1467. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Nicholas, Church and church.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Old St. Nicholas Church” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Nicholas, Church and church provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q436054. VIAF identifies the subject as 242666233. The Library of Congress control number is n92115245. Authority coordinates are 50.110, 8.682. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Old St. Nicholas Church”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Old St. Nicholas Church primary sources, Old St. Nicholas Church archive and Nicholas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Old St. Nicholas Church”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Old St. Nicholas Church” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.