Gronau Monastery

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Gronau Abbey on an engraving by Merian (1655)

The Gronau Monastery was a Benedictine abbey in what is now the municipality of Heidenrod in Hesse . It was probably founded around 1130 by Benedictine monks from Michaelsberg Abbey in Siegburg as the home monastery of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen . It is first documented in 1252 as "Grunowe" (green Aue) mentioned, and was under the canons Sankt Goar, the oldest monastery in the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen .

history

Representation of the monastery complex (around 1584 from the hall book of the monastery hospital)

After the Katzenelnbogen counts died out, their property fell to the Landgraviate of Hesse in 1479 . On December 19, 1527, Landgrave Philip I of Hesse called a synod for the quadrilateral land in Gronau in order to have the Reformation introduced in the quadrilateral through his court preacher and visitor Adam Krafft .

In 1537 Philip dissolved the monastery. In 1542 he had it converted into a " high hospital " for men. At that time Gronau u. a. 391 acres of arable land, gardens and meadows, vineyards on the Rhine , 60 wooded areas, an external monastery courtyard, 4 mills, and farms and fiefs in 42 villages. There are said to have been 19 buildings within the surrounding wall. In 1549 a tithe barn was built.

During the Thirty Years' War the hospital was so badly damaged that it could no longer be used as such. The remains of the destroyed buildings were removed and reused as building material; only a few foundation walls remained. The income previously due to the Gronau Hospital was now transferred to the High Hospital in Haina .

The former monastery was converted into an estate and leased, later sold. The church was used for worship until 1813. Even after the former Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen fell to the Duchy of Nassau in 1816 , Gronau remained an Electorate of Hesse . Until 1984 agriculture was practiced on the Gronau monastery .

Todays use

Since 2001 there has been a restaurant with overnight accommodation ("Freizeithaus Klostergut Gronau"), a small museum and beer garden in the monastery. Occasionally there are cultural and entertainment events organized by an association ("Kultur im Kloster e.V. iG").

literature

  • Silvia Countess Brockdorff (†), Johannes Burkardt: Gronau . In: Friedhelm Jürgensmeier among others: The Benedictine monastery and nunnery in Hessen (Germania Benedictina 7 Hessen), Eos, St. Ottilien 2004, pp. 527-534, ISBN 3-8306-7199-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Freizeithaus Klostergut Gronau: Timeline of Klostergut Gronau ( memento of the original from May 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kloster-gronau.de
  2. ↑ Heidenrod community: districts: Grebenroth .

Coordinates: 50 ° 11 ′ 17.9 ″  N , 7 ° 56 ′ 15.7 ″  E