Bursfeld Congregation

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The former Bursfelde Benedictine Abbey - parent monastery of the Bursfeld Union (2007)

The Bursfeld Congregation (also Bursfelder Union ) was an amalgamation of predominantly West and Central German, but also Dutch, Belgian, Danish and Luxembourg Benedictine monasteries , which originated from the reform movement in the monasteries Clus and Bursfelde .

prehistory

Like many Benedictine monasteries, the Bursfelde Monastery also experienced a period of moral and material decline at the beginning of the 15th century. The monks led an increasingly secular life, they divided the monastery property among themselves and kept mistresses. The monastery church even served as a warehouse for passing merchants at times. Under these conditions, the desire of many clerics for a return to the Rule of Benedict and the old ideals of monastic life found increasing approval. In 1430 , thanks to Duke Otto II of Braunschweig , Johannes Dederoth was appointed abbot of the Clus monastery, where he began to implement his reform ideas. In 1433 he also became abbot of the Bursfelde monastery. The following year he traveled to Trier and met Johannes Rode , the abbot of St. Matthias , who had already reformed the way of life of the monks in his abbey. He not only gave him four clergymen from St. Matthias, but also the new statutes of the Trier Abbey. Dederoth reformed life in his two monasteries based on Rode's example. An important cornerstone of his reform was the prohibition of all private property and the concentration on solemn worship and living together. In this way he succeeded in reanimating Bursfelde Monastery and leading to a new moral and economic boom. Shortly after Dederoth's reform, the Reinhausen monastery also took over the new consuetudines practiced in Bursfelde . Dederoth died of the plague in 1439 . His successor as Abbot of Bursfelde was Johannes von Hagen († 1469), under whose direction the Bursfeld Congregation was founded.

Goals and implementation

The Bursfeld Congregation, which arose in connection with the Devotio moderna , wanted to observe the rule of the order of St. Benedict in its original rigor and purity. The primary goal was to standardize the monastic observances in the member monasteries. The abbot of every monastery that professed to be part of the congregation undertook to implement the Bursfeld Consuetudo in his monastery and thus to adopt the liturgy and lifestyle of Bursfeld. As a result, the abbot surrendered many of his rights to the congregation and was no longer able to exercise completely arbitrarily in the monastery - for example in financial matters, where the chapter of the congregation had the right to object to sales. In return, any member monastery that got into financial or legal difficulties could count on the support of the General Chapter. Another advantage of membership was that it greatly reduced the dependence on the bishop or sovereign, under which the Benedictine monasteries had been for centuries. The annual visitations by abbots of other monasteries to each monastery belonging to the congregation were intended to guarantee that the spirit of reform was not missed. The reports of the visitors were presented to the general chapters of the Union, also held annually, in which all abbots of the reform monasteries had to take part. The member monasteries had to strictly follow the decisions of the general chapters.

The St. Michael Abbey (Hildesheim) , member since 1453, on a 2 euro commemorative coin

Development of the Congregation

After Reinhausen had joined the reform movement early on, Huysburg Monastery was added in 1444 . On March 11, 1446, the union was officially recognized by the Council of Basel . In the same year the first meeting of the General Chapter followed in Bursfelde. The abbot of the Bursfelde monastery was the president of the Union for life. In the following decades, more and more monasteries joined the congregation, in 1455 there were 12, in 1460 there were already 23. These included increasingly important abbeys such as Great St. Martin in Cologne (1455), St. Marien (1455) near Trier, St. Matthias Trier and Hirsau (1458), Herzebrock Monastery (1465), Maria Laach (1474) or Corvey (1505). In 1508, Kloster Grafschaft became the last of the ten Benedictine abbeys in Westphalia to join the congregation. In 1459 Pope Pius II confirmed the recognition of the Council of Basel to the congregation and granted it further privileges. Two years later, the Pope formally commissioned the congregation to reform all German Benedictine monasteries. Soon, nunneries and abbeys beyond the German-speaking area also joined the Union. In 1500 the Bursfeld Congregation had 79 member monasteries and the number rose to 95 over the next three decades. The Reformation finally marked a crucial turning point for the Union. The General Chapter initially fought against all reformatory tendencies, but could not prevent more and more monasteries from joining the Reformation, sometimes under duress. In just ten years, between 1520 and 1530, the Union lost 34 monasteries. Further losses followed, including one of the founding monasteries - Huysburg - and finally the main monastery of the reform movement, Bursfelde Monastery itself, after Abbot Johannes Rappe had forcibly committed himself to Protestantism. This meant that the Abbot of Bursfelde could no longer be President of the Congregation. In the 1530s and 1540s, most of the abbots stayed away from the chapter meetings, including Johannes Rappe, who only took part in the general chapter again when Bursfeld was re-Catholic in 1554. In the middle of the 16th century only about 30 abbeys were still active in the congregation, which now suffered from a permanent lack of money and personnel. The Bursfeld Union was in a deep crisis, which was also evident in the fact that no General Chapter meetings took place from 1583 to 1595. Only in the 17th century did the remaining abbeys of the Union regain a boom, thanks to the privilege of Emperor Ferdinand II and the Edict of Restitution . Anti-religious criticism in the Age of Enlightenment and the wars triggered by the French Revolution quickly led to the end of the Congregation. For the chapter invited to the Westphalian Abbey of Liesborn in 1785 , only five or six abbots appeared. The last president of the congregation, Abbot Bernhard Bierbaum von Kloster Werden and Helmstedt , died in 1798 while fleeing from the French troops in Helmstedt Abbey. With the entry into force of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 the Union lost the last monasteries and the Bursfeld Congregation finally ceased to exist.

Known members

literature

  • Statuta ordinum: Constitutiones Benedictinae Congregationis Bursfeldensis . Marienthal: Fratres clerici Vitae Communis, 1474–1475 ( digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf ).
  • Marcel Albert (ed.): Caeremoniae Bursfeldenses (= Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum. 13). Siegburg Schmitt, 2002, ISBN 3-87710-400-2 .
  • Elke-Ursel Hammer: Monastic reform between person and institution. On the work of Abbot Adam Meyer von Groß St. Martin in Cologne (1454–1499) (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History . 165). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-35300-6 .
  • Elke-Ursel Hammer: Substructures, centers and regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation . In: Enno Bünz, Stefan Tebruck, Helmut G. Walther (ed.): Religious movements in the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Matthias Werner on his 65th birthday (= publications of the historical commission for Thuringia. 24). Cologne / Weimar / Vienna, Böhlau 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-20060-2 .
  • Hermann Herbst : The Benedictine monastery Klus near Gandersheim and the Bursfeld reform. Teubner, Leipzig & Berlin 1932, Reprint 1973, ISBN 3-8067-0147-4 .
  • Nicolaus Heutger: Bursfelde and its reform monasteries . 2nd ext. Edition. Lax, Hildesheim 1975, DNB 880628782 .
  • Johannes Linneborn: The Reformation of the Westphalian Benedictine monasteries in the 15th century and the Bursfeld Congregation . In: Studies and Communications from the Benedictine [and Cistercian] Order 20 (1899), pp. 266–314, 532–570; 21 (1900), pp. 53-67, 315-331, 554-578; 22 (1901), pp. 48-71, 396-418.
  • Mathias Miedreich: The Benedictine Abbey of St. Jakob near Mainz - a monastery of the Bursfeld Congregation - between the Peace of Westphalia and the Thirty Years War (1648-1756). (= Sources and treatises on church history in the Middle Rhine, Vol. 143), Aschendorff, Münster (Westf.) 2020, ISBN 978-3-402-15950-7 .
  • Paulus Volk : The General Chapter Recesses of the Bursfeld Congregation , 4 volumes. Respublica-Verlag, Siegburg 1955–1972, DNB 457739444 .
  • Walter Ziegler : The Bursfeld Congregation . In: Ulrich Faust, Franz Quarthal (edit.): The Reform Associations and Congregations of the Benedictines in the German-speaking area (= Germania Benedictina 1). EOS, St. Ottilien 1999, ISBN 3-8306-6994-1 , pp. 315-407.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See map 1 in: Barbara Frank: The Erfurt Peterskloster in the 15th century. Studies on the history of the monastery reform and the Bursfeld Union (= publications by the Max Planck Institute for History 34; studies on Germania Sacra 11). Göttingen 1973, ISBN 978-3-525-35339-4 .
  2. ↑ Hermann Herbst: The beginnings of the Bursfeld reform. In: Karl Kayser (Ed.): Journal of the Society for Church History of Lower Saxony 36 . Braunschweig 1931, p. 23.
  3. ^ Nicolaus C. Heutger: Bursfelde and its reform monasteries in Lower Saxony. Hildesheim 1969, p. 13.
  4. ↑ a b Elke-Ursel Hammer: Substructures, centers and regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 399.
  5. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 13.
  6. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 14.
  7. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 17.
  8. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 400.
  9. ↑ a b Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 26.
  10. ↑ a b Barbara Frank: The Erfurt Peterskloster in the 15th century. Studies on the history of the monastery reform and the Bursfeld Union (= publications by the Max Planck Institute for History 34; studies on Germania Sacra 11). Göttingen 1973, ISBN 978-3-525-35339-4 , p. 42.
  11. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 29.
  12. ^ Barbara Frank: The Erfurt Peterskloster in the 15th century. Studies on the history of the monastery reform and the Bursfeld Union (= publications by the Max Planck Institute for History 34; studies on Germania Sacra 11). Göttingen 1973, ISBN 978-3-525-35339-4 , p. 45.
  13. ↑ a b Josef Wiegel: Emericus Quincken - an important Grafschafter monastery abbot from Schmallenberg , p 19 ff. In: Schmallenberger Heimatblätter, 39./40. Edition, December 1974.
  14. ↑ a b Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 28.
  15. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 30.
  16. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 400.
  17. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 408.
  18. ^ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 37.
  19. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 39.
  20. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 409.
  21. ↑ a b Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 417.
  22. ↑ a b Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 42.
  23. ↑ a b Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 419.
  24. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 421.
  25. ↑ Hammer: Substructures, Centers and Regions in the Bursfeld Benedictine Congregation , p. 422.
  26. ^ Nicolaus Heutger: Lower Saxony religious houses and monasteries. History and present. Lectures and research (= research on the history of the order in Lower Saxony, 7). Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86732-038-2 , p. 278.
  27. ↑ Heutger: Bursfelde und seine Reformklöster , p. 43.