Monastery mountains

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The Monastery of St. John the Baptist on the Mountain was an important Benedictine abbey near the city of Magdeburg , near Buckau . In 1565 it was converted into a Protestant pen . It existed as a Protestant monastery school until the beginning of the 19th century.

Berge monastery from the northwest, 1780

founding

The exact year of foundation of the Berge monastery is not known, but the year 955 is assumed in connection with the beginning of the new construction begun by Otto I - the later Magdeburg Cathedral . The planned conversion of the Moritzkloster, founded in 937, into the Archdiocese of Magdeburg, which was planned and carried out in 968, made it necessary to set up a spiritual body to which the monks who were not to join the cathedral monastery could move. The first documentary mention of the monastery is dated April 12, 965. The authenticity of this document, it contains the donation of the tithe from some East Elbian villages to the "flourishing monastery" of John the Baptist by Emperor Otto I, is doubted. However, Otto I's documents from January 14th and 17th, 970 are undisputed. With the first, the monastery is granted free election as abbot, the second deals with donations to the monastery.

Due to the location of the new monastery on a slight elevation near the Elbe , the name Kloster Berge became established. This designation is first documented in 1363.

The monastery church was completed around 1010. In a fire in 1017, however, parts of the monastery complex were destroyed again. In 1082 a new church, built in Romanesque style, was consecrated. The Berge Abbey was of considerable importance for the spiritual life of the region and may also have taken on missionary tasks for the East Elbe regions.

While the Peasants' War was raging in the Prince Diocese of Halberstadt , the monastery was plundered in May 1525 by a mob of Magdeburg and Sudenburg citizens.

Demolition in the Schmalkaldic War

Since the Protestant Magdeburg , which belongs to the Schmalkaldic League , saw a war against the Catholic Emperor as inevitable, on July 1, 1546 at around 9 p.m., 200 Magdeburg citizens occupied the Catholic monastery at the gates of the city by a resolution of the city council. In order to prevent the Berge monastery from being occupied to the disadvantage of Magdeburg in the event of a possible siege, it was completely demolished. All buildings, the monastery church and the walls were completely demolished. The timber, seven beautiful bells, a new clockwork, the precious church vessels, the documents of the monastery and other inventory were brought to Magdeburg. Abbot Heinrich and the convent were quartered in the Pauline monastery. The fears of the Magdeburg citizens should come true. After the devastating defeat of the Schmalkald Army (1547), the feared siege of the city by imperial troops under Moritz von Sachsen took place in 1550, which ended in 1551 with a negotiated settlement. After the war ended, the abbey filed a claim for damages against the city. Magdeburg refused to make payments.

Reconstruction / Protestantism

Peter Ulner
Berge monastery around 1580

After Peter Ulner von Gladenbach succeeded the late abbot Heinrich Zierow in 1559 , the reconstruction of the monastery and the establishment of a new library began. A new abbey building, a new abbey church and a massive gate were built.

In 1565 the Berge monastery confessed to Protestantism and thereby left the Benedictine order. The convent now served to train Protestant theologians. In addition, 12 children were accepted as alumni , who received accommodation and lessons free of charge. Abbot Ulner married a Magdeburg bourgeois daughter in 1573. In 1577 the formula of the Concord (the Bergische Buch ) was promulgated to end the disputes between the various Lutheran currents. In the Bergisch Treaty of 1585 the dispute between the Magdeburg council and the archbishopric was settled.

Destruction of the monastery and Magdeburg in the Thirty Years War

Berge monastery also suffered badly during the Thirty Years War . In 1623 the school was closed. A little later, the imperial general Wallenstein occupied the monastery and in 1628 drove out the Protestant abbot Crusius in order to reinstate a Catholic abbot with Benedictines. After the temporary withdrawal of the imperial troops , Christian Wilhelm von Brandenburg , the Lutheran administrator of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg, had most of the monastery buildings covered and made uninhabitable. Shortly afterwards, with the conquest and destruction of Magdeburg by the imperial troops under Tilly , the monastery was so destroyed that only outer walls were left.

Crusius' successor Sebastian Göbel had important buildings rebuilt from 1660 and from 1664 started taking in small numbers of free students again.

The Klosterberg Treaty was concluded here in 1666 . The city of Magdeburg, which was badly destroyed in the Thirty Years' War in 1631, gave up its old claim to imperial freedom , submitted to the Duchy of Magdeburg , which emerged from the archbishopric in 1648 under August of Saxony , which was to pass to the "Great Elector" Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg after his death . In anticipation of this transition, the city accepted a Kurbrandenburg garrison .

Bloom of the monastery school

The monastery school became more important and was expanded from 1686 by Abbot Simon Friedrich Wolfhardt . In the 18th century the pedagogy increasingly took on paying students. The school achieved its greatest importance under Abbot Johann Adam Steinmetz . Under his leadership, 1732–1762, a total of 930 students passed through the school, including Christoph Martin Wieland , Carl Friedrich Fasch and Friedrich von Matthison . The institution had developed into a center of Pietism . There was a close connection to the Francke Foundations in Halle (Saale) . In 1735 a country school teacher seminar was set up.

Scientific work was also carried out at Berge Monastery. In June 1761 Georg Christoph Silberschlag discovered the atmosphere of Venus together with Heinrich Wilhelm Bachmann from the monastery observatory .

The decline of the school began when Abbot Johann Friedrich Hähn took office in 1762. After Hähn's suspension in 1771, Erhard Andreas Frommann took over the office, followed by Friedrich Gabriel Resewitz in 1774 . However, even he did not succeed in restoring the first-class reputation that had originally been achieved during the Pietism phase . Resewitz did introduce innovations, such as the introduction of the subject of technology around 1777 and the employment of the subject teacher Johann Gottlieb Cunradi , but could not enforce his reform approaches in school operations. After various disputes and a school visit, Christian Friedrich Schewe became the new senior director of the education department at the end of 1796 . Johann Gottfried Gurlitt becomes the second director . However, Resewitz remained abbot and resigned from this office in 1805.

Closure in favor of the University of Halle

After the Prussian defeat by Napoleon near Jena and Auerstedt , the last chapter of the Berge monastery began. In 1806, by order of the Prussian governorate, the school was cleared on October 17th and the old trees of the so-called Poetengang (300-year-old elms and oaks ) were cut down for strategic reasons. The Magdeburg fortress then surrendered to the French army without a fight. Under Marshal Ney and then in the Kingdom of Westphalia , schools were initially resumed, but the number of students continued to decline. In 1810 the government of the Kingdom of Westphalia issued a decree to close the monastery school and to allow its material equipment to be used by the University of Halle . The monastery library and the natural history collection were given directly to the university, the school library auctioned for the benefit of a study fund.

Final demolition

From September 1811 the Berge Monastery served as a hospital for the survivors of the French Russian campaign. Napoleon himself gave the order in February 1812 to demolish all buildings that were in the firing range of the Magdeburg fortress. This affected the entire suburb of Sudenburg (1812) and about 2/3 of the suburb of Neustadt (1812/13). The demolition order also affected the village of Buckau and the Berge monastery, as they were in the field of fire of the upstream Sternschanze . The demolition of the monastery began on December 20, 1813. It was no longer rebuilt.

In 1816 a Kloster-Berge-Stiftung was established. The monastery mountain garden was later built on the site of the monastery .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ George Adalbert von Mülverstedt : Regesta Archiepiscopatus Magdeburgensis Vol. 1. Collection of excerpts from documents and annalists on the history of the Archbishopric and Duchy of Magdeburg. First part. Until the death of Archbishop Wichmann (1192). Baensch, 1886, digitized, original from Harvard College Library, No. 170, p. 65, online.
  2. ↑ George Adalbert von Mülverstedt: Regesta Archiepiscopatus Magdeburgensis Vol. 1. Collection of excerpts from documents and annalists on the history of the Archbishopric and Duchy of Magdeburg. First part. Until the death of Archbishop Wichmann (1192). Baensch, 1886, digitized, original from Harvard College Library, No. 242, 243, p. 104, online.
  3. ^ Hugo Holstein : Peter Ulner, first Protestant abbot of the Berge monastery near Magdeburg , in the Magdeburger Geschichtsbl Blätter, 8th year 1873, p. 386 ff.
  4. ^ Heinrich Rathmann : History of the City of Magdeburg from its first emergence up to the present times , Volume 3, Creutz, 1801, original from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digitized September 2, 2008, p. 256f, online.
  5. ↑ Adolph Bock: "The poor system, the mild foundations and other charities in Magdeburg", L. Schäfer (A. Rüdiger), 1860, original from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digitized October 14, 2008, page 125 ONLINE

literature

Web links

Commons : Kloster Berge  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 6 ′ 46.9 ″  N , 11 ° 37 ′ 59.2 ″  E