Thedinga Monastery

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Memorial stone for the former monastery.

Monastery Thedinga (also Monastery Seyna ) was a double monastery of the Benedictine at Nüttermoor . It was consecrated to John the Baptist . Within the order it belonged to the monastery province of Cologne-Trier. Today the living space consists of individual houses. It belongs to the Nüttermoor district and is located on the northern edge of the city of Leer . The name Kloster Thedinga has been official since 1787.

history

Thedinga belonged with other branches of the Benedictine order to a monastery association, which probably goes back to the Holy Hatebrand († 1198). He was abbot of the Feldwirth monastery near Appingedam , which is considered the mother monastery of the East Frisian Benedictine monasteries. The exact date of foundation is not known.

The monastery was first mentioned in the person of de abt tho Thedinger Monniken in 1270. In 1475 it was referred to as Claustrum in Tedingha and today's spelling has been in use since 1787. The monastery buildings are said to have been fortified and surrounded by a moat.

In 1399 Widzeld tom Brok conquered Thedinga and, according to tradition, destroyed it completely. After that, monastery life lay idle for eight years. The initiative to rebuild is said to have come from the nun Pellica . It was Focko Ukena who in 1424, in the person of Commander Menno from the Coming Langholt , appointed a non-member of the convent as abbot for the first time. This became common in the period that followed. Under the care of Mennos, the new construction of the monastery church began in 1424.

On September 29, 1437, Pope Eugene IV approved the election of Hayungus von Emden as abbot of the Thedinga monastery. Hayungus von Emden, prior of the Cistercian monastery Ihlow, then agreed to take over the management of the Thedinga monastery, which had been badly damaged by war and floods. He is said to have commissioned the construction of a new dormitory, a vestibule and a chapel.

In 1448 the monastery fell victim to a fire. Church and abbey were spared. Occo von Emden had Thedinga rebuilt and donated a windmill near Jemgum and an oil mill near Emden . In the further course of the 15th and 16th centuries, Thedinga maintained good relations with the Count's House. The abbots served the Cirksena as envoys and councilors.

Memorial stone for the count's son Ulrich, who died in Kloster Thedinga. (Today in the gable of the north wing of the Luther Church in Leer)

It is not known when the Reformation entered Thedinga. The last abbot was Homerus Beninga, brother of the chronicler Eggerik Beninga , who was elected on July 22, 1502. The sick Ulrich (1499–1531), who had gone to Spain as a page with the later Emperor Charles V in 1517 , spent his last days in Thedinga under his care . He was buried there in 1531. After the death of Homerus in 1557, no new abbot was elected. From now on, monks are no longer detectable in Thedinga either. Nevertheless, the monastery still existed for decades. Andreas de Mare built another monastery organ around 1570. In 1573 there were ten, in 1604 five and 1605 three nuns in the monastery.

The last time an inmate was named in Thedinga was the prioress Frauke von Jemgum on January 20, 1616. After her death, Count Johann II had the archive secured. It then disappeared, so that only a few documents have survived. The buildings deteriorated more and more in the period that followed. After its final demolition in 1674, Christine Charlotte donated the stones from the monastery church to the Lutheran parish in Leer for the construction of the Luther Church (1675). Today no structural remains of the monastery have survived.

Economic activity

The monastery was richly endowed with land. In addition to the Thedingaer Vorwerk , it owned another in Timmel , as well as two mills and numerous land and hereditary leases. There were also several houses in Emden. After the Reformation, Count Edzard II placed high payment obligations on the monastery. For this Thedinga sold his mill in Jemgum in 1573. The Thedinga Monastery also came into the hands of the counts in the course of secularization in the middle of the 16th century . In 1605 these lands covered an area of ​​707 grasses . That corresponds to about 283 hectares.

Art historical features

The organ of the monastery is now in the St. Georg Christophorus Jodokus Church in Stellichte .

It is unclear what the monastery once looked like. Most of the objects have disappeared from its furnishings. Count Enno III. donated the organ to the Reformed parish in Leer in 1609. Some of the pipes formed the basis for the new organ of the Great Church , while the magnificent Renaissance case was possibly used for the organ of the St. Georg Christophorus Jodokus Church in Stellichte (1610) and is still preserved. The tombstones of Abbot Homerus Beninga and Prioress Etta von Oldersum have also been preserved. Today they are on the outer walls of a building on the deserted monastery. An octagonal memorial stone for the Count's son Ulrich, who died in Thedinga, was later installed in the gable of the north wing of the Luther Church in Leer.

Name interpretation

The name Thedinga is derived from the Frisian family name Thedinga , which possibly goes back to the first abbot who, according to an old tradition, was said to have been called Tede. The alternative name Seyna probably goes back to Mount Sinai, where, according to tradition, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c local chronicles of the East Frisian landscape : Nüttermoor, city of Leer, district of Leer (PDF; 40 kB), accessed on May 9, 2011.
  2. ↑ a b c d Walter Deeters: Benedictine double monasteries in East Friesland . In: Res Frisicae . Treatises and lectures on the history of Ostfriesland 59, 1978, pp. 73 ff.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Josef Dolle: Thedinga . In: Josef Dolle with the collaboration of Dennis Kniehauer (Ed.): Lower Saxony Monastery Book. Directory of the monasteries, monasteries, comedians and beguinages in Lower Saxony and Bremen from the beginnings to 1810 . Part 2, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 3-89534-958-5 , p. 1411 ff.
  4. ↑ See The Organ of the Stellichter Church ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 4, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kirchengemeinde-walsrode.de

Coordinates: 53 ° 16 '15.7 "  N , 7 ° 27' 2.5"  E