Benedict Knittel
Benedikt Knittel (* December 16, 1650 in Lauda ; † August 21, 1732 in the Cistercian monastery Schöntal an der Jagst) was abbot in the Schöntal monastery from 1683 . There he appeared through a brisk construction activity, whereby many of the monastery buildings by Knittel contain verses with chronograms . However, Knittel is not the inventor or namesake of the Knittelverse .
Life
Knittel was born to the Lauda councilor Johannes Knittel and his wife Ursula, née Rauch, and was baptized in the name of Johannes. He received the first name Benedict after he was admitted to the Schöntal monastery after taking the religious vows on October 11, 1671. The adoption of a new first name with admission to a monastery had been common since 1636 as a sign of the spiritual rebirth of a monk. After studying theology , presumably in Würzburg , he was ordained a Catholic priest on March 9, 1675 . In the following years he held various offices in the monastery, for example in 1676 he was cantor and thus responsible for church music, in 1677 as subprior assistant to the prior who, as the abbot's deputy, oversees the monks' convent, in 1678 as clergyman, and in 1681 as pistrinarius Manager of the crops and supervisor of the monastery mill. In the same year 1681 he was appointed prior and in 1682 as Magister novitiorum with the spiritual supervision of the novices .
On July 6, 1683, Knittel was elected abbot of Schöntal just one day after the death of his predecessor Franziskus Kraft. The choice does not seem to have been made entirely of one's own free will, as arrangements were made for the outcome of the election as Kraft's death approached. So was Kaisheimer Abbot Elias as Visitor of the monastery on 23 June after Heilbronn ordered to be at the death of Kraft's quick to help, while the Mainz bailiff from Krautheim was not notified. Knittels choice was confirmed on September 29, 1683 by Johann von Citeaux . On November 7th, Knittel was ordained abbot by the Kaisheim abbot Elias.
Even before his ordination to the abbot, Knittel carried out his first official acts and in July 1683 filled pastoral posts and monastery offices in Westernhausen , Mergentheim and Gommersdorf .
Since Knittel was particularly interested in the history of the monastery, he had a tower added to the old abbey in 1697 and housed the reorganized monastery archive in it. As a result, extensive construction work began on the buildings, which lasted half a century, but was interrupted several times by the armed conflicts of those years. From 1701 to 1707 a new convent building was built under master builder Leonhard Dientzenhofer , from 1708 to 1717 under the builders Jakob Ströhlein and Bernhard Schießer a new nave of the monastery church, from 1716 to 1720 the Holy Sepulcher Chapel on the Schöntaler Kreuzberg and from 1717 to 1726 the choir and transept the monastery church. The new construction of the abbey, which Knittel had already planned and which completed the renovation of the entire monastery ensemble, only took place under his successor Angelus Münch (in office from 1732 to 1761).
Due to illness, Knittel was only able to celebrate his golden jubilee of profession about two weeks late on October 28, 1721. His state of health must have been questionable at that time, as he had already commissioned his epitaph from the Öhringen sculptor Christian Flade as a precautionary measure .
On the occasion of his 49-year reign he donated the anniversary column in Schöntal. He did not live to see his 50th anniversary as abbot. He died of exhaustion on August 21, 1732. He was buried in the north aisle of the Schöntal monastery church.
coat of arms
For his coat of arms , Knittel chose the representation of a Heracles club held by an armored arm appearing from a cloud. In his pamphlet Primavera Schoenthalia Latine Vallis Amoena , Knittel himself testifies that it is actually Herakles' club . The coat of arms is a talking coat of arms , as such a club was also called a stick or stick. With the reference to Heracles, Knittel also follows the recourse to mythological hero figures popular in the Baroque era.
Services
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Knittel was the author of several literary works, most of which were, however, only handwritten for use within the monastery. The content of the writings is particularly the history of the Schöntal Monastery. Two of the typefaces, Primavera Schoenthalia and Antiquo-Moderna , also appeared in print in 1714 in Schwäbisch Hall. His manuscript Poematas Sacro-Profana is a compilation of verses and poems for the church year.
The most important and most recent legacy of Knittel, however, are numerous mostly Latin verses and poems that he wrote as building inscriptions for the monastery and the Schöntal properties outside. Such inscriptions are the subject of his book Antquo-Moderna and have been preserved on many buildings to the present day. Many of his verses contain a chronostitch .
Example on the new building of the archive tower in Schöntal:
IVs VetVs Vt VIgeat, serVo: DoCVMenta LoqVantVr.
His Domini signis: + pellatur noxius ignis.
ne rodant mures: ne tollant arceo fures .
I keep the right that it applies: the files should speak!
Sign of the Lord, so dear, drive away the harmful fire.
Give us protection so that the mouse does not gnaw and no thief carry us away.
The large Latin letters read as numbers read the year the archive tower was built, 1697.
Works
- Annales immediatae et exemptae abbatiae ..... , Schöntal 1677 (history of the Schöntal monastery in annalistic form)
- Continuatio Annalium Schnönthalensium, et rerum Notabiliorum sub Regimine F. Benedicti Abbatis XLVI (continuation of the story)
- Primaeva Schoenthalia, Latine Vallis Amoena , Hall 1714 (poetic representation of the foundation of Schöntal's monastery)
- Antiquo-Moderna Speciosae Vallis Abbatia s [acri] et exempti ord [inis] Cisterciensis , Hall 1714 (compilation of inscriptions and poems made for Schöntal)
- Ortus et Aetas exemptae Abbatiae de Speciosa Valle, that is the year and diary of what has continued from the beginning and the progress of the immediate and free Stifft and Closters Schönthal ... from 1175 ... added ... to ... 1723
- Poemata Sacro-Profana Ethica Latino-Germanica, inter vigilias nocurnas ... from anno 1683 usque ad 1730 (poems, Latin and German)
literature
- Johannes Brümmer: Art and claim to power. Abbot Benedikt Knittel (1650–1732) and his work in the Cistercian monastery Schöntal , Sigmaringen 1994
- Friedrich Albrecht: Abbot Benedikt Knittel and the Schöntal monastery as a literary monument . 2nd, revised edition. German Schiller Society, Marbach am Neckar 2000, ISBN 3-928882-26-0
Web links
- Curriculum vitae of Benedikt Knittel ( Memento from May 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brümmer 1994, p. 20.
- ↑ Brümmer 1994, p. 22.
- ↑ Brümmer 1994, p. 22.
- ↑ Brümmer 1994, p. 20.
- ↑ http://www.welt-der-wappen.de/Heraldik/Galerien2/galerie1272.htm
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Knittel, Benedict |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German abbot and poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 16, 1650 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lauda |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 21, 1732 |
| Place of death | Schöntal Monastery |