Catherine of Tecklenburg

Epitaph of Katharina von Tecklenburg

Katharina von Tecklenburg (born December 31, 1517 - † March 9, 1560 in Essen ) was abbess of the Essen monastery from 1551 until her death .

Katharina was the second youngest daughter of Count Otto VIII von Tecklenburg and his wife Irmgard von Rietberg. As early as 1522, at the age of five, Katharina received a preamble at the Essen monastery. In 1551 she became abbess. Katharina's term of office is judged ambiguously in the sources, which may be due to the denominational situation in Essen Abbey. Whether Katharina, as the abbess of the nominally Catholic monastery, adhered to the Catholic faith is not known and is doubtful. Her father confessed to the Lutheran denomination from 1527, her brother Konrad von Tecklenburg-Schwerin , the dolle Cord , was one of the leaders of the Schmalkaldic League . The Essen canon Nünning ruled that because of their poor advisors, the city of Essen was able to acquire sovereign rights such as taxation of the clergy. The motto HGMG (Lord God me gracious) reproduced on Katharina's grave inscription comes from the time when she realized what her politics had done. In fact, Katharina probably tried to regulate the relationship between the denominations by means of a contract, the so-called Tecklenburger settlement. However, this was not ratified by the estates, but the denominational conflict between the Catholic monastery and the Protestant-inclined city was only to intensify after her death. Katharina's bad reputation in the Catholic sources may have been due to the fact that she allocated the income from the Early Mass Foundation to the city school for twenty years and thus withdrew it from the canons.

epitaph

Katharina died on March 9, 1560 and was buried in front of the Katharinen Altar of the Essen Minster . Her epitaph, which was stolen in 1947, was an engraved bronze plaque 78 cm high and 57 cm wide. It showed, framed by two pilasters supporting an arch, the coats of arms of her parents, in between a crucifix with the abbess kneeling in front of it, flanked by two tablets. The left tablet quotes the Beatitude of the Peaceful from the Sermon on the Mount , the right one tells the viewer: Anno 1560 the 9 Martii op den middach starf the noble and whale-bearing katrina vg graces of the keiserlich free world. stifftes essen abis, gave birth to countess zo tekenborgh, withered im fride reigns und storven is in frit, sel got grace.

literature

• Ute Küppers-Braun: Catholic - Lutheran - Calvinist - Catholic. The Essen Abbey in the age of denominationalization . in: Women's convents in the age of denominationalization (Essen research on the women's foundation, Volume 8), Klartext Verlag, Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8375-0436-1