Rolduc Abbey

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The monastery church with cloister (2012)
Floor plan of the abbey church as it was in 1865, still with the Gothic high choir
View into the choir of the abbey church

Rolduc is the name of the largest surviving monastery complex in the Netherlands . It stands above the Wurmtal on the edge of Kerkrade in the province of Limburg , right on the German-Dutch border between Kerkrade and Herzogenrath . The building complex is recognized as a Rijksmonument .

The name Rolduc is derived from the French name for Herzogenrath, Rode-le-Duc. The German name of the monastery is Klosterrath.

history

The Rolduc monastery was founded in 1104 by the canon Ailbert von Antoing , who had left his previous monastery because he found compliance with the rules of the order not strict enough there. It became an abbey of the Augustinian Canons . Rolduc received the secular patronage of the Dukes of Limburg as early as 1136 . Some dukes were buried in the crypt of the abbey church.

The Annales Rodenses are available from the 12th century, which were significantly revised and continued by the abbot Nikolaus Heyendal at the beginning of the 18th century and which were published by one of the last canons, Simon Peter Ernst . Many places in the Rhineland and Limburg are mentioned for the first time in these records .

As early as the construction of the monastery, Rode Castle was built a few hundred meters east to protect it . Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the monastery and castle have been in two different countries.

The abbey founded several subsidiary monasteries, including the Marienthal monastery in the town of the same name on the Ahr , which has only survived as a ruin . The first heyday lasted until around 1250.

After slow decline, with the devastation of the Eighty Years' War as a low point, the monastery was restored in 1680. In this era, the new one was born Abts apartment, and soon after Rolduc flourished economically through the exploitation of coal in the first coal mine in the area of today's Netherlands.

The Moretti grand piano , named after the Aachen baroque architect Joseph Moretti, was also built in the 18th century . 1754 also valuable was monastery library in the Rococo style completed.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Kerkrade and Rolduc fell to the Limburg Province of the United Netherlands , with the border with Prussia being established immediately east of the abbey. After the Belgian Revolution in 1830, half of Limburg joined the newly formed Kingdom of Belgium . In 1831 the seminary of the Liège diocese was established in Rolduc. In 1839 the eastern part of Limburg fell back to the Netherlands as the Duchy of Limburg , within the German Confederation , and the Diocese of Roermond took over the monastery.

Monastery church

The cruciform basilica , which was erected in place of a previous building, dates mainly from the 12th century and was finally consecrated in 1209. The westwork of the church is dominated by a central tower with a rectangular floor plan, which is flanked by two considerably lower stair towers, also with a rectangular floor plan. Originally the church had no access to the west. In addition to the actual transept , the first and third yokes of the ship are designed as pseudo transepts up to the height of the central nave; these do not extend beyond the outer alignment of the aisles. The other two aisle bays have a pair of heavy pillars and a central column position and are designed in accordance with a basilica lower than the central nave. With the exception of the side aisles of the pseudo transepts, which are vaulted transversely to the church axis, the transept and main aisles are vaulted with beltless groin vaults .

Under the crossing and the choir is the crypt supported by richly designed columns . The trefoil-shaped three-cone choir was built in the 19th century on the site of a previous Gothic building.

A repair carried out in 1859 was one of the first major restoration orders from the Roermond architect Pierre Cuypers .

Present function

Most of the monastery complex is used as a hotel and congress center. A smaller part still serves as the Catholic seminary Groot-Seminarie of the priestly formation of the diocese of Roermond.

The monastery church can be visited regularly. The library can be visited (only after registration) for scientific research.

Another part of the monastery houses a secondary school with the courses HAVO (Hoger Algemeen Voortgezet Onderwijs) and VWO (Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs) .

Since 1965 the Abdijcross has been held annually on the abbey grounds.

literature

  • Klaus Hardering: The Abbey Church of Klosterrath. Building history and importance. = De Abdijkerk te Rolduc (= Clavis art historical monographs , 18). Clavis - Stichting Publicaties Middeleeuwse Kunst, Utrecht 1998, ISBN 90-75616-06-6 .
  • Hans G. Schönen: Matthias Goebbels' picture Bible in Rolduc (Kerkrade), Oekoven (Rommerskirchen), Marienborn (Zülpich-Hoven). Edition St. Briktius, Rommerskirchen-Oekoven 2002, ISBN 3-926765-94-1 .
  • Consuetudines canonicorum regularium Rodenses. The order of life of the Regular Canon Monastery of Klosterrath (= Fontes Christiani , 11). Text created by Stefan Weinfurter . Translated and introduced by Helmut Deutz. 2 volumes. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-451-22114-4 (part 1), ISBN 3-451-22115-2 (part 2).
  • Helmut Deutz: Spiritual and spiritual life in the Canon Regular Monastery of Klosterrath in the 12th and 13th centuries. Siegburg 1990, ISBN 3-87710-201-8 .
  • Wolfgang Gärtner: The canons monastery council in the canon reform of the 12th century. In: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein 97 (1991), pp. 33–220.
  • Klaus Hardering: Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade (Rheinische Kunststätten issue 567). Media Cologne Communication Media, Hürth 2018, ISBN 978-3-86526-122-9 .
  • Günter Krieger : Rolduc - Stories about an abbey. Ammianus-Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-945025-67-3 .

Web links

Commons : Rolduc Abbey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elizabeth den Hartog: Romanesque Architecture and Sculpture in the Meuse Valley. Eisma BV, Leuwaarden / Mechelen 1992, ISBN 90-74252-04-4 , p. 17 ff. P. 84 ff., 96 ff.
  2. ↑ Ileen Montijn: Pierre Cuypers, 1827-1921. Schoonheid as Hartstocht. Immerc et al., Wormer 2007, ISBN 978-90-6611-636-8 , p. 35 ff.

Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 5 ″  N , 6 ° 4 ′ 55.6 ″  E