Jakobuskirche, Romanesque church in Altstadt, Tübingen, Germany.

The Jakobuskirche is a Romanesque church building in Tübingen's old town, defined by its rounded arches and solid stone construction typical of medieval religious structures. The building displays thick walls and sturdy pillars that remain visible both from inside and outside.

Built around 1200 on oak piles about 14 metres long, the Romanesque chapel was first documented in 1377. Spring floods in the Ammertal led to the church being raised by some 2.5 metres in 1500, when it gained its present form and an eastern choir; an inscription under the choir window records the laying of the first stone on 10 June 1500. Long used as a hospital church, it was shared by Catholics and Protestants from 1807 and became an independent parish church in 1918.

The name Jakobuskirche recalls the church's dedication to Saint James, whose figure with cloak, shell, staff and hat appears as the keystone of the choir's cross vault. Since 1807 the building has been shared by Catholics and Protestants, and the first Catholic Mass in Tübingen after the Reformation was read here on 15 February 1807. It is a station on the European Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela.

The church stands in the Unterstadt, the lower town, beside the Salzstadel, not in the upper old town around the Stiftskirche. Because the building was raised about 2.5 metres in 1500, the ground floor now sits noticeably above the surrounding street level. Look for the inscription on the outer choir wall beneath the window, which records the laying of the first stone on 10 June 1500.

On the exterior wall are stone blocks carved with concentric circles, called sun discs, some with bent, raised arms; their meaning is still unresolved. Inside, the keystone of the cross vault in the choir shows Saint James with cloak, shell, staff and hat, a reminder of the church's station on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.