Carmelite monastery Heilbronn
The Carmelite Monastery of Heilbronn was a 15th century monastery of the Carmelite Order . The monastery was located outside the city walls at the time, on the site of today's old cemetery . The convent also oversaw the pilgrimage to a Marian image of grace , which has been taking place since 1442 . The monastery was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War in 1632 , after which there was only a Carmelite convent in a town house in Heilbronn until 1802. The Mönchsee , which was once part of the monastery but was drained as early as 1524 , is still reminiscent of the names of a street in Heilbronn and the Mönchsee-Gymnasium located there .
history
Beginning of the pilgrimage in 1442
In 1442 the pilgrimage to a wooden figure of Mary called Maria von den Nesseln or Maria im Nesselbusch began in Heilbronn. The figure got its name from the fact that it was found in a bush in a field outside the city walls on the road to Weinsberg . The figure was initially given a canopy as rain protection. In 1444 the city of Heilbronn acquired the field on which the figure stood from the later mayor Bernhard Berlin and built a Marienkapelle there. A little later there were negotiations between the city of Heilbronn and the Carmelite Order , which included the founding of a monastery to look after the pilgrimage site, whereby the city reserved the supervision of all economic matters in the monastery contract of 1447, since the pilgrimage was particularly important because of the expected donations from pilgrims. On January 29, 1448, Pope Nicholas V approved the transfer of the chapel from the city to the order with the bull Inter clara salutis opera , and the Würzburg Bishop Gottfried von Limpurg approved the establishment of a monastery on May 4, 1448.
Founding of the monastery in 1448
The prior and the convent of the Carmelites in Heilbronn were first documented in June 1448. The Carmelites initially took their seat in a town house near the St. Nicholas Church in Heilbronn , from where the Marienkapelle could be reached in a few minutes on foot. In 1450 the city acquired another field to build the monastery. The construction plans for the monastery church possibly came from Hans von Mingolsheim , who at the time was working on the expansion of the Heilbronn Kilian's Church and in 1464 was also commissioned to build the monastery.
The design of the monastery, because it was outside the city walls, did not follow the other buildings of the mendicant orders usually settled in the city center , but rather those of the estates, which mainly built free-standing, walled structures. The monastery consisted of a monastery church that emerged from the Marienkapelle and a four-sided cloister adjoining one long side with residential and farm buildings grouped around it, completely or partially enclosed by a stone wall. Details of the building history are only known in fragments, but the monastery church seems to have been expanded first before the other buildings were built. In 1454 five altars and in 1458 the entire church of the Carmelite monastery were consecrated by the auxiliary bishop of Bishop Johann von Würzburg . The high altar of the church of the Carmelite monastery was consecrated in honor of Mary, the angels, the 10,000 martyrs, the three wise men and St. Bernardine. In the reliquary of the high altar there were relics of St. John the Baptist, Bartholomew, Laurentius, Georg, Sebastian, Christophorus, Anna, Agnes, Margarethe, Barbara, Dorothea, the 11,000 virgins and Ottilia. The monastery church was both the hll. Consecrated to Mary, John the Baptist, Kilian and Burkhard. The old statue of the Virgin Mary, which was the destination of the pilgrims, stood in a locked case in the church choir, which was separated from the church interior by a wall and was only accessible to the faithful on certain holidays.
While the monastery church was a stone structure that was expanded several times to include small chapels, the cloister and the convent buildings were probably just clapboard or tile-roofed wooden houses. The largest of the buildings was probably the prior's cell, which was described as a wooden building in 1498. Some of the wooden buildings were in poor condition just a few decades after they were erected. In 1512/13 rotten beams were reported to have fallen from the cloister. In 1521 the main building of the monastery was demolished and replaced by a new wooden building.
The Mönchsee , about 40 acres in size and fed by the Pfühlbach , belonged to the monastery . Fish was one of the brothers’s staple foods because, according to the rule, they did not eat meat. The water from the lake could also be channeled into the city as extinguishing and cleaning water. The lake was the cause of many disputes because the water over the dam damaged the neighboring fields or the lake withdrew the water from the neighboring fields. In February 1524, the Mönchsee was drained by the city council of Heilbronn. The Carmelites had no fishing rights in the Neckar , but had other smaller fish ponds in Lautenbach and Lehren , where they could meet their fish needs in the future.
In the same year 1524 a scandal broke out when the prior Heinrich Seitzenweiler seduced the daughter of the mayor Kaspar Berlin as a confessor. Seitzenweiler was arrested in June 1524 and deposed as prior. Also in 1524, the Reformation preacher, Master Hans, demanded the acceptance and cremation of the statue of Mary from the monastery in the Nikolaikirche .
Peasants' War and Reformation
During the German Peasants' War on April 18, 1525, the Carmelite monastery was looted and damaged by a group of farmers under Jäcklein Rohrbach . The pilgrimage to the monastery ended, but the monastery was restored. For the year 1529, the sale of vineyards in the Fleiner district by the abbess of the Lichtenstern monastery to the Heilbronn Carmelite monastery is documented.
In 1530 the Reformation took place in Heilbronn, as a result of which the Carmelites suffered disadvantages and temporarily left the city. In the future, the city provided a “caretaker” to oversee the monastery finances. In the same year, in addition to the existing Carmelite cemetery, a municipal cemetery was laid out next to the monastery, which after multiple enlargements and merging of all parts grew into today's Old Cemetery by 1834 . In the course of the Reformation, the old miraculous image, venerated in the church, came to the Heilbronn reformer Johann Lachmann , a staunch opponent of "idols", at the instigation of the Heilbronn council . The old miraculous image was finally lost, so that when the Carmelites returned in 1550, the city procured a new Pietà .
Destruction of the monastery in 1632
When Heilbronn was besieged by Swedish troops in December 1631 during the Thirty Years' War and then occupied, they only settled in the buildings outside the city wall, i.e. in the Carmelite monastery, in the brickworks and in the manor house. In March 1632 , Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig von Schmidberg , who was appointed city commander of Heilbronn by Gustaf Horn and charged with fortifying the city, had the monastery building demolished and the inmates driven out of the city. The statue of Mary was given to the commentary of the Teutonic Order by the Carmelites and was kept for a few years in the Heilbronn Teutonic Order Church . In 1661 the figure came to Straubing , where it is now in the Carmelite Church .
After the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634, the Carmelites returned to Heilbronn, where, in the absence of a monastery, they settled in their town house near the Nikolaikirche in Sülmerstrasse. There was also a valuable library there. In 1802 the order was dissolved as part of the mediatization of the ecclesiastical principalities.
The grave slab of Prior Konrad Diez is on the east wall of the tower porch of Kilian's Church . Diez was the last prior and died on February 23, 1577. His grave slab was moved from the Lapidarium of the Historical Museum in the Fleischhaus to the Kilian's Church after the Second World War .
literature
- Heribert Hummel: The Carmelite monastery in front of the city of Heilbronn . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronner Voice , 32nd year, No. 3, March 1986
Individual evidence
- ^ Helmut Schmolz, Hubert Weckbach: Heilbronn. History and life of a city . 2nd Edition. Anton H. Konrad-Verlag, Weißenhorn 1973, No. 117 Carmelite Monastery on Weinsberger Straße p. 58
- ↑ Eugen Knupfer (arrangement): Document book of the city of Heilbronn . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1904 ( Württemberg historical sources . N. F. 5). Page 387 "Archbishop Dietrich von Mainz gives indulgence to all who repentfully confess and then visit the Carmelite Monastery of the Nessel in Heilbronn."
- ^ Moriz von Rauch: Johann Lachmann (1923)
- ↑ Emil Scheerle: The Carmelite House . In: Peter Wanner (Ed.): Flein, Flein, du edler Fleck . Municipality of Flein, Flein 1988, p. 324f.
- ^ Wilhelm Steinhilber: The health system in old Heilbronn 1281–1871 . Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1956 ( publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 4), p. 354ff.
- ^ Entry of the Carmelite monastery "zur Nessel" in the HEUSS database of the Heilbronn City Archives , Zeitgeschichtliche Sammlung ZS-1988
Web links
- Carmelite monastery Heilbronn in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 42 " N , 9 ° 13 ′ 39" E