Antonite Order

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Antoniterkreuz in Frankfurt-Höchst
Antonite crosses in the Gothic rose window of the Monastery of San Antón
The Isenheim Altarpiece - it was created by Matthias Grünewald for the Antoniterkloster in Isenheim.
The Antoniterkloster in Memmingen from the side out of town
Antonite pig at the feet of St. Anthony, Cologne Cathedral, north portal

The Antoniter Order ( Canonici Regulares Sancti Antonii , abbreviation : CRSAnt ; also Antonius Order , Antonians , Antonite Order or Antonianer ) was a Christian hospital order .

history

The order was founded in 1095 as a lay brotherhood in St.-Didier-la-Mothe (also St-Didier-de-la-Motte or La-Motte-Saint-Didier, today: Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye ) in the Dauphiné in south-eastern France founded and confirmed by Pope Urban II in the same year. It is named after Antony the Great (around 251–356). The task of the order was the care and treatment of those suffering from the Antonius fire, a disease that was widespread in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The order's ancestral monastery is located in Saint Antoine l'Abbaye ( Dept. Isère , France ). There the French nobleman Gaston is said to have donated the order as thanks for the healing of his son from the Antonius fire with the help of the miraculous relics of Saint Anthony located there. Originally dedicated to caring for returning pilgrims , from 1217 onwards the Antonites concentrated primarily on nursing the sick.

From 1247 the brothers lived according to the rules of the order of St. Augustine , and in 1298 the brotherhood of Pope Boniface VIII was converted into an order of canons . Due to its success in healing the Antonius fire, the order spread beyond France in the following years. In the 15th century , the Antonites maintained almost 370 hospitals across Europe.

The order lived mainly on foundations and donations, but as a result of the Reformation , funds fell sharply. With the discovery of the connection between ergot infected grain and the Antonius fire in 1597 by the Medical Faculty of the University of Marburg , the number of diseases also fell noticeably. As a result of these developments, the importance of the order declined sharply. By papal decree, the last 33 houses still remaining in Germany were incorporated into the Order of Malta in 1777 . Only the convent in Cologne with his 300 acre large estate in Kriel , who served the wheat, and the monastery in maximum eluded the decree and were both in 1803 secularized .

Attributes

The sign of the order of the Antonites was an Antonius cross with a small bell hanging from it.

The order of the Antonites was a black choir dress , over it a black cloak with a light blue Antonius cross.

Today the Antonite pig is best known. The Antonites received piglets from the population, to which they hung a bell (to distinguish them from the animals of the butchers, bakers and millers) and brought them to their begging areas. There they were fed by the population throughout the year. In autumn the Antonites came to pick up the pigs, which were ready for slaughter by then, and to slaughter them for the monastery.

Antonite monasteries in the empire

One of the first Antoniter settlements in the empire was Memmingen in 1214 (this is also where the Antoniter Museum is located today, which is dedicated to the history of the order and its history), another 41 houses followed. Among them were the monasteries in:

The list of Antonite monasteries contains further branches .

Aftermath: Antoniter Forum

The association "Antoniter Forum / Society for the Care of the Heritage of the Antonites" was founded on February 16, 1991. It was dedicated to the research and documentation of the Antonite Order, dealt with art and architecture in the vicinity of the Antonite Order, provided subject-specific information and pursued charitable purposes based on the goals of the Antonites. To fulfill the first task of the society, the research and documentation of the Antonite order, a journal with scientific claim was founded in 1993, the "Antoniter Forum". On October 7, 2017, the association was dissolved by resolution of the general meeting.

literature

  • Wolfram Aichinger: El fuego de San Antón y los hospitales antonianos en España. Turia + Kant, Vienna et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-574-4 , in Spanish.
  • Iso Himmelsbach: Nihil est in actis - nihil? The General Preceptory of the Antonites in the Diocese of Constance in Freiburg i. Br. In: Antoniter Forum. 16, 2008, ISSN  0944-8985 , pp. 7-60.
  • Johann Paul Gottlob Kircheisen: Observations on the ergot and its origin. Seidler, Altenburg 1800, digitized version .
  • Adalbert Mischlewski: The Antoniterorder in Germany. In: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History. 10, 1958, ISSN  0066-6432 , pp. 39-66 (also as a special print), online .
  • Adalbert Mischlewski: Basic features of the history of the Antonite order up to the end of the 15th century. (With special consideration of the life and work of Petrus Mitte de Caprariis) (= Bonn Contributions to Church History 8). Böhlau, Wien et al. 1976, ISBN 3-412-20075-1 (also: Munich, Univ., Kath.-Theol. Fak., Diss., 1969).
  • Herbert Vossberg: Luther advises Reißenbusch to marry. The rise and fall of the Antonites in Germany. A contribution to the history of the Reformation. Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1968.

Web links

Commons : Antonite monasteries  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 1. Implementation report on the plan of the Catholic training institute for health care , ed. on behalf of the German Caritas Association, Cologne 1930, p. 3f.
  2. ↑ Werner Dettelbacher: From the work of the Antonites in Würzburg. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 81-88, here: pp. 84 f.
  3. ↑ Antoniter Forum website ; accessed January 30, 2020.