Rixtel / Aarle-Rixtel

A communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 19 March 2022) includes a number of items related to the disappeared medieval church of St Margaret at Rixtel and its baptismal font. Old Saint-Margareth church. In 1178 there was already a church in Rixtel. The church in Rixtel was a "own church (eigenkerk)", that is to say, founded by the landowner, who also guaranteed sufficient means for its maintenance. As early as 1173 or shortly afterwards, Didradis, Lady of Rixtel, donated the patronage of the united churches of Helmond and Rixtel to the Floreffe Abbey in Belgium. The medieval church of Rixtel honored St. Margaret as her patroness. During the siege of Helmond in 1587, the count of Hohenlohe had his soldiers loot and burn the church of Rixtel. The original nave was subsequently replaced by a square temporary building. After the power had passed to the reformed States in 1629, the church was closed for the celebration of Mass in 1631. In 1648 the old Catholic M ariakerk passed to the Reformed, from then on, the deterioration of the building set in. In 1798 the Catholics were offered to get their old church back, but they turned down the proposal because of the dilapidated building. They continued to use their originally clandestine barn church on Dorpsstraat instead. Rixtel's church and its tower were demolished in 1818. In 1846 a new roman catholic parish church on the other side of the road was completed and the barn church was abandoned. Source : GESCHIEDENIS VAN NOORDBRABANT Door Peter Norbertus Panken te Bergeik, vernieuwd en gerangschikt, 1898, Stichting Cultureel Brabant (CuBra), gedigitaliseerd door Johan Biemans. This ancient place, now reduced to a hamlet of Aarle, was already a seigniory in the twelfth century. The castle bore the name of the Golden House. In this there was a house chapel, but without a permanent priest. Rixtel had a parish church which was looted and burned in 1588. The church had a baptismal font, there was a cemetery and a chaplain was sometimes appointed. Until 1648 the somewhat rebuilt church was used by the Catholics and in 1818 the tower was demolished.