Marienberg Abbey
The Marienberg Abbey ( Latin Abbatia Mariae Montana in valle Venusta ) is a Benedictine monastery (OSB) in Vinschgau in South Tyrol , Italy .
location
The Marienberg Monastery, visible from afar as a whitewashed fortress-like structure, is located in a hollow above Burgeis on the orographically right valley slope of the upper Vinschgau . At an altitude of around 1350 m slm , it is the highest Benedictine abbey in Europe . In terms of traffic, it is developed through a well-developed mountain road that connects Burgeis with the hamlets of Amberg and Prämajur and with the village of Schlinig in the Schlinigtal .
museum
During the renovation of the former farm wing, the old walls were cleaned and strengthened, largely left in their original condition and supplemented by a second contemporary level. So you can see the structural changes from the end of the 13th century until today. The extension made it possible to equip the entire building for wheelchair access. All showrooms in the museum are air-conditioned. The museum, which opened in 2007, is located on the ground floor. A film and various objects provide an insight into everyday life behind the monastery walls. Some works of art from the Wilhelminian era are shown to the public for the first time. Short texts and matching objects refer to important events in the course of 900 years of history. The Romanesque frescoes of the Marienberg crypt can be seen in the film.
history
Foundation in the Engadine
The foundation of the monastery can be traced back to the initiative of a Churrätischen noble family , the lords of Tarasp . Her endeavor was to build a house monastery near her castle Tarasp near Schuls . In the period between 1087 and 1095 the brothers Eberhard and Ulrich II. Von Tarasp - the latter was Bishop of Chur - founded a first monastery and equipped it with extensive endowments . The existence of the young monastery in the Engadine was not made easy; There is talk of adverse circumstances, a hostile population and a fire, so that the founding family finally withdrew from the Engadin and tried a new beginning in the Vinschgau . Ulrich III. von Tarasp, the founder's great-nephew, brought in with the first abbot of the monastery, Albert von Ronsberg , from Pope Eugene III. granted permission to relocate the monastery to St. Stephan above Burgeis , on land that belonged to the Tarasp.
Relocation to the Vinschgau
The resettlement took place in 1146. However, the new location turned out to be unfavorable: St. Stephan is located on a windy and dry hillside, far away from springs or watercourses. Another permission from the Pope was necessary in order to be able to carry out the final relocation further north to the current location. There on the Almeinabach already stood a Lady Chapel of the same name, whose patronage passed to the monastery after the move in 1149/1150. A large part of the building material came from Kastellaz Castle further up on the mountainside, which belonged to the founding family and which they had grinded for this purpose.
Start-up help from Ottobeuren
The first monks came from the Ottobeuren Benedictine monastery . This is because the Ottobeuren monastery was the house monastery of the Counts Ursin-Ronsberg , who were related to the nobles of Tarasp. In addition, Uta, the wife of the founder Ulrich III., Was probably a sister of Abbot Albert von Ronsberg. The monks first built a crypt at the new location , which was built on July 13, 1160 by Chur Bishop Adalgott in honor of St. Trinity, the Blessed Mother Mary and all saints. The monastery church will probably have been tackled next because the choir side chapels were consecrated in 1180 by Bishop Heinrich II of Chur. On October 28, 1201, the monastery church was opened by Bishop Reinher della Torre St. Trinity, St. Cross and consecrated to the Virgin Mary. Secondary patrons were those saints whose relics were from Ulrich III. had been transferred from Tarasp from Cologne to Marienberg: St. Bishop Sebastian and St. Climaria and St. Panafreta, who both belonged to the 11,000 virgins who lived in Cologne with St. Ursula had been martyred. As a result of these efforts, "Marie Berg was as Memorial Foundation of Tarasp ... a place of Memoria , the cultic remembrance and reached in liturgical prayer community of the living and the dead. In this 'house monastery' function, the desire for the nobility to be timeless is manifested. «The connection to Ottobeuren remained intact for centuries.
The Bailiwick
Because the only son of the couple, Ulrich IV., Entered the monastery himself, the rights of the bailiwick were in 1160 from Ulrich III. transferred to his cousin Egino I. von Matsch . The relationship of the monastery to these "nobles of mud" was ambivalent. There were representatives of the family who took good care of the monastery. The chronicler Goswin von Marienberg narrates the generous gestures of Bailiff Hartwig II, who like a good uncle never came to Marienberg without bringing some good bite for the monks. Others were rude, greedy and eager to squeeze as much as possible out of the monastery. Their contentiousness brought the monastery into situations that threatened its economic viability. A feud between the Matscher and the Reichenberg family led to the plundering of the monastery by Schweighard von Reichenberg in 1274. Under Ulrich II the clashes between the monastery and its governors culminated in the murder of Abbot Hermann von Schönstein, who is said to have been beheaded at the Prälatenstein in Schlinig in 1304. Although the Vogteirechte passed to the Dukes of Austria in 1313 , the Matschern managed to get them back into their hands as an after fief . It was not until 1421, after a 30-year power struggle with the Chur bishops , that the Matscher lost all of their bailiwick rights to the Tyrolean sovereign.
The chronicler Goswin
Goswin von Marienberg was a monk of the monastery, whose work mainly falls into the second half of the 14th century. In 1393 all references to his activity end, so that it can be assumed that he died then or a little later. What little that is known about him comes from his own records. Posterity owes him an extensive written estate. He wrote musical manuscripts, created land records and document copies (so-called rescripts ) for the monastery and with his historical records passed on extremely important details of the history of Tyrol and Graubünden , for example on the effects of the plague epidemic in the middle of the 14th century. His main work is the Registrum monasterii Montis sancti Marie , a story of Marienberg from its beginnings in Schuls, from the relocation to Marienberg, from the times under the various abbots and from the expansion of rights and possessions until 1393. In it he has documents from popes and sovereigns compiled and verbatim contract texts recorded in order - which he also clearly states - to make the rights of the monastery inviolable.
Time to cancel
The monastery had to suffer countless conflicts, not just because of its governors, the Matscher . After the construction of the Fürstenburg by Bishop Konrad von Chur (1272–1281) at the foot of the slope below the monastery, it was also the bishops of Chur who tried to interfere massively in monastery life. The dispute over the question of whether the monastery was subordinate to the bishop or only directly to the pope ( exempt ) was only settled in 1659. Until the beginning of the 17th century, the monastery had to struggle with catastrophes, religious turmoil, economic decline and signs of disintegration: In 1418 a devastating fire made it necessary to rebuild the monastery. The award of the pontificals in 1440 by the Pope also had no effect. In the Engadine War of 1499, the monastery escaped pillage because the Grisons recognized it as the Engadine foundation. During the peasant uprisings under Michael Gaismair in 1525, the monastery was heavily looted and many of its archive items were robbed. In 1606 the abolition of the monastery was even considered because at times only one monk lived there.
A change came under the abbot Matthias Lang (1615-1640), who came from the Weingarten monastery in the Vinschgau and is considered the second founder of the monastery. He initiated an internal renovation and had renovations carried out. There were no personal problems because many monks from Germany, where the Thirty Years War raged, sought refuge in Marienberg. Under Abbot Jakob Grafinger (1640–1653) the Romanesque collegiate church was redesigned in Baroque style (1642–1647). In addition to their pastoral work, the monks had dedicated themselves to school activities since the Middle Ages . It was Latin and music teaching. In 1724 a humanistic grammar school was founded by the monastery in Merano , in which the male youth could learn Latin and Greek and were instructed in good morals. The monastery narrowly escaped the dissolution under Joseph II , precisely thanks to its teaching activities. However, under the Bavarian administration, the monastery suffered this fate in 1807. In a night and fog action, the monastery was seized, the monks instructed in the Fiecht Abbey near Schwaz and the inventory thrown away. The high school in Merano was also closed.
New beginning after the Napoleonic era
Emperor Franz I of Austria ordered the re-establishment of the Marienberg Abbey in 1816, on the condition that teaching was to resume in Merano. Abbot Karl Mayr (1816–1855) succeeded in doing this under the most difficult of circumstances. The grammar school developed into an important and recognized educational institution. Under fascism , the grammar school in Merano was closed in 1928 due to political pressure. After the Second World War , a five-class private high school was established in the monastery, which finally ceased operations in the 1985/86 school year.
Today the monks concentrate on pastoral activities in the surrounding villages, look after monastery pilgrims and organize seminars for reflection. In 2007, a museum was opened in the former farm buildings - facing the mountain slope - in which the religious and art-historical legacy of the monastery is shown to visitors on 300 square meters of exhibition space.
The Romanesque frescoes in Marienberg
The crypt contains a cycle of frescoes from 1175 to 1180, which is a unique monument to Romanesque art . The frescoes were partially rediscovered as early as 1887 and completely uncovered in 1980 after crypt fixtures from the Baroque era had been removed. The paintings are of excellent quality and are in a good state of preservation. At the beginning of the 13th century, the collegiate church was also decorated with strongly Byzantine influenced paintings, of which only fragments have survived.
Marienberg's frescoes were exemplary and based on them, artists have repainted numerous churches in Vinschgau in just a few decades : St. Nikolaus in Burgeis , St. Jakob in Söles , St. Veit am Bichl . One can speak of a painting school that begins in Marienberg, but can be followed up to the Burggrafenamt (Maria Trost in Meran , St. Margarethen in Lana , St. Jakob in Grissian) and beyond that into Überetsch ( Hocheppan Castle Chapel , St. Jakob in Kastelaz in Tramin ) and in the nearby Nonsberg (St. Romedius, Church of the Holy Martyrs in Sanzeno, San Tommaso and San Bartolomeo).
Abbots
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Organs of the collegiate church
Marienberg Abbey has the earliest mention of an organ in Tyrol: the chronicler Goswin mentions an "organum" in close proximity to St. Michael's altar (former south apse / today's abbotoratory) when describing the collegiate church; this is said to have received her consecration on July 11, 1185. The prelate picture of Abbot John III. Harter (1464–1472) in the cloister shows a schematic representation of an organ in the background, the existence of which cannot be further proven in writing.
Hans Schwarzenbach († around 1606), organ maker from Füssen , was hired on April 10, 1595 for a whole year "for 140 florins plus a free station for the master and his wife to build the great organ". Its organ was dismantled at the beginning of the baroque renovation work in the collegiate church around 1646 and later sold to Burgeis . From there it was sold on to Laatsch a few decades later , where a repair is still documented in 1723.
Around 1662 Carlo Prati (* 1617; † 1700) built a small organ with 9 registers as a preliminary work for the planned large monastery organ . Around 1677/78 this instrument was finally built, with the pipe material from the older work being integrated. This organ was also sold to the incorporated parish of Burgeis when the monastery was dissolved in 1812 and has been preserved there in a modified form. This organ with its splendid case was long considered the most outstanding organ in a wide area and represented a rare link between the organ cultures of Italy and southern Germany.
A choir organ with 8 registers from the 17th century, however, was brought to Tartsch during the secularization of the monastery, where it is still named in 1864 and attributed to Prati. Since then, no more choir organs have been purchased.
After the re-establishment of the convent in 1816, Franz Josef Holzhay (Ottobeuren) installed a used organ from him from 1797 in 1818/20, which may have come from another closed monastery in southern Germany. In the following years this was changed over and over again and in the end had 28 registers on 2 manuals and pedal .
In 1865 Joseph Aigner (organ builder) (Schwaz) built today's monastery organ with 32 registers on 3 manuals and pedal. In 2001 it was restored by Martin Vier (Friesenheim, D). The case is based on the Prati organ with an Italian prospectus structure.
Disposition:
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- Coupling : Pedal coupler as interchangeable coupler II / P (automatic), III / P
- Playing aids : Tutti Organo (I / II / III), Tutti Positiv (I / II), Basstutti (shut-off valve for tongues and mixture in the pedals)
literature
- Leo Andergassen : The collegiate church of Marienberg. Kunstverlag Josef Fink , Lindenberg im Allgäu 2017, ISBN 978-3-95976-056-0 .
- Ulrich Faust : Marienberg. Tarasper Hauskloster und Hirsauer Reformabtei , in: Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches 121 (2010), pp. 203-214.
- Ulrich Faust. Marienberg Benedictine Abbey. From its beginnings to the present. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg im Allgäu 2014, ISBN 978-3-89870-863-0 .
- Josef Joos: Marienberg. In: Helvetia Sacra . III / 2, Bern 1986, pp. 856-871.
- Josef Joos: Marienberg. In: Germania Benedictina . III / 2, St. Ottilien 2001, ISBN 3-8306-7072-9 , pp. 449-484.
- Matthias Mayr, Maria Gapp: Experience the monastery - The Marienberg Benedictine Abbey . Edition Raetia, Bozen 2018, ISBN 978-88-7283-588-3 .
- Rainer Loose : 900 years of Marienberg Benedictine Abbey: 1096–1996. Tappeiner, Lana 1996, ISBN 88-7073-215-0 .
- Daniela Sadgorski: Marienberg. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 .
- Helmut Stampfer : Romanesque wall painting in Vinschgau: the frescoes of the Marienberg crypt and its surroundings. Athesia, Bozen 2018, ISBN 978-88-6839-347-2 .
- Urban Stillhard, Hannes Torggler: South Tyrolean organ landscape from Reschen to Innichen. Verlag A. Weger, Brixen 2011, ISBN 978-88-6563-014-3 .
Web links
- Website of the Marienberg Abbey
- Entry in the monument browser on the website of the South Tyrolean Monuments Office
- Collegiate Church & Crypt Current information, accessed on July 11, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hannes Obermair : Power, rule, culture in the Tyrolean Alpine region of the 12th and 13th centuries. In: Helmut Stampfer (Hrsg.): Romanesque wall painting in the Alpine region. Scientific conference, October 16-20, 2001, Bildungshaus Schloss Goldrain (= publications of the South Tyrolean Cultural Institute , vol. 4). Athesia-Tappeiner, Bozen 2004, ISBN 88-7073-353-X , pp. 11–24, here p. 17.
- ↑ Jeremias Schröder : Nobody is an island. Monasteries between autonomy and networking . In: Erbe und Einsatz , vol. 95 (2019), pp. 32–44, here p. 35.
- ^ New abbot at Marienberg Monastery , Order online from November 21, 2011
Coordinates: 46 ° 42 ′ 22.2 " N , 10 ° 31 ′ 14.4" E