Altzella Monastery
| Altzella Cistercian Abbey | |
|---|---|
 Konversenhaus |
|
| location |
 Germany Saxony |
| Coordinates: | 51 ° 3 '37 " N , 13 ° 16' 35.6" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
439 |
| Patronage | St. Mary |
| founding year | 1170 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1540 |
| Mother monastery | Pforta Monastery |
| Primary Abbey | Morimond Monastery |
|
Daughter monasteries |
1268: Neuzelle Monastery |
The Altzelle monastery (originally Cella or more precisely Cella Sanctae Mariae , Altenzelle , today Altzella ) is a former Cistercian abbey .
It is located west of the city of Nossen at the confluence of the Pitzschebach in the Freiberg Mulde . It is managed by Schloss Nossen / Kloster Altzella. In the former Cistercian monastery there is the hereditary burial place of the Wettins from the period from 1190 to 1381. The monastery with its partly well-preserved wall is today a mixture of romantic park with ruins and renovated buildings, it serves various cultural and religious purposes. In the business sector, seminars, but also private celebrations can be held.
historical overview
The first years
In 1162, Emperor Friedrich I transferred 800 Hufen cleared land west and south of the Freiberg Mulde to an abbey donated by Margrave Otto von Meißen . The site of Böhrigen , originally intended for the abbey, was rejected by the Cistercians. After a silver find in 1168 on the territory of what is now Freiberg , part of the land around Freiberg was exchanged for a bishop's fief west of Nossen , on which a Benedictine monastery previously existed for a short time . In the following years, a little north of the former Benedictine abbey, west of Nossen and south of the Freiberg Mulde, the construction of the Cistercian abbey began. To build the monastery complex, clay pits, kilns for bricks and lime were built, and stone quarries were opened, some in the immediate vicinity of the abbey.
The abbot and his convent moved from the Cistercian Abbey of Pforta (near Naumburg ) to the Cella monastery in 1175. Construction of the monastery church began at the same time. There was evidence of brisk construction activity between 1180 and 1230, within which the building of the cloister area and the Romanesque step portal were built and the collegiate church was consecrated in 1198.
1217 was the Benedictines - Monastery of the Holy Cross Meissen subordinate to the Abbot of cell some 50 years later, was in 1268 the daughter monastery Neuzelle ( Cella Nova ) in Guben . The name Cella Vetus (Altzella) gradually became established for better differentiation.
The monastery served as a burial place for the Wettins as early as 1190 , and finally the Andreas chapel was built from 1339 to 1349 as a burial place for the family. There were Frederick the Serious and Frederick the severity buried.
Heyday
The monastery experienced its heyday under the abbots Vinzenz von Gruner and the humanist Martin von Lochau (first mentioned in 1485, † 1522; abbot from 1501 to 1522). 1436 bought the monastery from the Diocese of Meissen for 4,200 guilders the castle Nossen with inventory and estates. The buildings were in a poor state of construction and were converted into the abbot's seat . The upper floor of the Konversenhaus was used as a library room in 1506 . Martin von Lochau increased the book stock to 1000 volumes, which later formed the basis of the Leipzig University Library.
secularization
Around 1540, the Saxon Duke Heinrich the Pious initiated the secularization of the monastery. Until the establishment of the Nossen office in 1544, the management of the extensive monastery property was carried out by former monastery members from Altzella.
Even after that, the building served as a location for several church political conferences until 1548.
From 1557 at the latest, large parts of the monastery buildings, which were now in a poor structural condition , were demolished under Elector August and used for the extraction of building material, e.g. B. used for the conversion of Nossen Castle into an electoral hunting lodge.
The fate of many still usable buildings within the monastery walls was finally sealed by a fire in 1599.
Agriculture was practiced for the next three centuries. Only the Konversenhaus, used as a bulk floor and a cattle barn, was completely preserved.
Between 1676 and 1787 the Saxon electors had excavations carried out for the remains of their ancestors and buried them in a memorial chapel, today's mausoleum . Around 1800 a romantic landscape park was created , in which buildings and ruins were included in the design. In the 19th century, a mill, a wagon shed and a syringe house were built on the site . In 1993, the monastery was finally taken over by the Free State of Saxony and restored, including the remaining fragments, in accordance with a listed building.
Medieval buildings around the cloister
The monastery abbeys of the Cistercian and Benedictine orders are all based on a uniform floor plan , which is documented for the first time for the St. Gallen monastery around 830 . Accordingly, the cloister connects to the west-east facing monastery church , which is used for prayers and readings, but also for a central fountain or a cemetery. The cloister is followed by an arcade through which the monks enter the convent building . Together with the cloister, the convent building forms the enclosure .
Collegiate Church, St. Andrew's Chapel
The Romanesque collegiate church was - as evidenced by excavation foundations - a 67-meter-long building with a three-aisled nave and a transept . A staggered choir formed the east end of the brick building , under which, in addition to the founder Otto von Meißen, a further 21 members of the Wettin family were buried. The western front originally had northern Italian influences. After the church was demolished, only two parts of the west gable have been preserved for posterity. An etching by the painter Johann Gottfried Klinsky (1765–1828) from the late 18th century shows the still complete west gable, which was only demolished in 1790 to its present day condition. The floor plan of the church is marked today by slabs of slate.
The St. Andrew's Chapel was built on the south-west corner of the collegiate church from 1339 to 1349. The building was 15 meters long and 14 meters wide and had two aisles and two altars . After its construction, the chapel served as the burial place of the Wettin family until 1391. In it were next to the two Meissen Margraves Friedrich II (1310-1349), called the Serious, and Friedrich III. (1332–1381), also called the severity, buried their family members. The bones found during excavations in 1786 were transferred to the crypt of the newly built mausoleum.
East wing
The east wing of the monastery formed the actual convent building, which housed three facilities on the ground floor:
- The sacristy , which, as the immediate adjoining room of the church, housed the objects for the church service and served as a preparation and changing room for the same.
- The chapter house , which was primarily used for daily spiritual reading.
- The parlatorium (consultation room), a room in which the monks were released from their vow of silence and were allowed to speak freely.
There was a door and two windows facing the cloister . The upper floor housed the monks' dormitory. From the east wing, ruins of the chapter house and a small Gothic chapel are still preserved. The entrance portal of the east wing was integrated into the main entrance of the Nossen town church .
Wine cellar, summer refectory
At the transition from the east to the north wing of the enclosure, a wine cellar with quarry stone cross vaults was laid out on a square pillar that is still accessible today.
The northern end of the enclosure was formed by the Kalefaktorium (warming room), the fountain house and the summer refectory , the latter with a two-aisled basement and a single-aisled hall floor, of which part of the facade is still preserved. Under the brickwork of the 45 meter long and 14 meter wide Gothic dining room from 1225/30, a round arch made of quarry stone can be seen, which indicates a previous building. The romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich is said to have used the ruins of the summer refectory as a motif for a lithograph.
Konversenhaus
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The non- consecrated friars , who were lay brothers ( converses ) in the monastery hierarchy below the monks, had the use of the Konversenhaus on the western edge of the enclosure. Since the building was used as a granary and cowshed from around 1700 to 1952, it is the only building that has been completely preserved.
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In order to ensure the strict separation from the consecrated friars, the two-aisled refectory was built on the ground floor without windows to the cloister adjoining to the east. A bull from Pope Eugene IV from 1437 allowed choir monks and conversations to dine and sleep together. From 1472 onwards, the common use as a winter refectory (heated dining room) is documented, since the south-east corner of the room is already on the 13th / 14th. Century was a previous design of a tiled stove . At the north edge of the dining room a door leads to the anteroom (Erm). The dining room was renovated in 1955 and has been used since 1962 as a lapidarium for the exhibition of architectural artefacts that came to light during the creation of the landscape park and work on the foundations of the mausoleum in 1992.
Since the dormitory on the upper floor was no longer needed with the amalgamation of choir and conversation monks, Abbot Martin von Lochau had it converted into a library in 1506 . The floor was raised and provided with a magnificent wooden beam ceiling. A collection from the 41 meter long and 10 meter wide room is still kept in the university library in Leipzig today . A stone spiral staircase connects the library room with the winter refectory.
Medieval architecture beyond the enclosure
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abbey
The abbey served as the administrative center of the monastery and as a hostel for selected guests. The ruins are to the east of the cloister area. The surrounding walls of the abbot's chapel, the east hall (prince's room) with thick quarry stone masonry and deep window niches as well as the two adjoining cellars vaulted with quarry stones have been preserved.
Farm buildings and facilities
In order to ensure the self-sufficiency of the order, a flowing body of water was essential. For this purpose, a ditch was derived from the Freiberg Mulde , which continues to this day under the monastery walls, past the abbey and through the northeastern area of the site. All buildings with a high water requirement were erected on the Mühlgraben, in particular: slaughterhouse, abbey kitchen, wine press , wash house , mill , brewery and tanning house .
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The Mühlgraben leads northeast past the two bulk buildings, of which the outer walls and the distinctive gables are still preserved. In them the peasant interest grain or, according to another source, the self-grown grain such as oats , rye and buckwheat was stored on several floors one above the other. The basement was probably used to store empty barrels, wagons, sleds, wheels and runners.
To the west of the bulk buildings stretched the monastery gardens, which were called Hortulus gardens .
On the western edge of the cloister, in front of the Konversenhaus, is the scribing, which was mainly used for administrative purposes. It originally consisted of only two rooms on the ground floor and first floor and was expanded to include the southern part in 1847. Today the clerk's shop is used as an access area with a till, cafe and sanitary facilities.
From 1993 to 2005, the headquarters of the “Batuz Foundation Saxony” and the headquarters and studio of the “Société Imaginaire” of Batuz were located a little south of the scribbler .
Monastery wall, monastery gate and prayer column
The facility is still surrounded by a 1325 meter long, 1.50 to 2 meter thick and up to 5 meter high quarry stone wall. When the Borsdorf – Coswig railway was built in 1868 , part of the wall on the northern edge was moved south.
The Romanesque step portal of the monastery gate on the west side of the monastery wall was built in the last quarter of the 12th century and was originally the only entrance to the monastery. The inner clear width is 4.90 meters and expands to the outside by three steps to 10 meters. In the original form, a bridge led over a ditch in front of the gate. By filling the doorway with rubble, the walls disappeared 1.60 meters deep into the earth.
In the 15th century a pentagonal, Gothic prayer column was erected in front of the main portal . The 6.5 meter high column was originally covered with colored stones and carried depictions of Mary and saints. When the landscape park was created, it was repositioned on an artificial hill in the eastern monastery area.
mausoleum
As early as 1676, Elector Johann Georg II had excavations carried out for the remains of his ancestors. Immediately afterwards the construction of a baroque burial chapel began in the area of the choir of the demolished collegiate church, which remained unfinished. The original contours of the choir were no longer taken into account. After the building was damaged by Prussian troops in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), in 1785 the Oberland surveyor Christian Adolf Franck was commissioned to convert the burial chapel. From 1787 the building was adapted in the classical style. After the completion of the monument in the mausoleum in 1801 with components made of white Crottendorfer and black and red Wildenfels marble , the remains of the five Wettins originally buried in the Andreas Chapel were buried in the crypt below on June 1, 1804 . The five classical sandstone coffins lie 2.85 meters below the monument base. The two pillars of the monument have a Corinthian capital , the inscriptions consist of 1700 gold-plated metal letters.
Individual evidence
- ^ Karlheinz Blaschke : Altzelle - a monastery between clergy and rulership. In: Martina Schattkowsky , André Thieme (ed.): Altzelle. Cistercian abbey in central Germany and house monastery of the Wettins. 2002, pp. 98-99.
literature
- Eduard Beyer: The Cistercian monastery and monastery old cell in the diocese of Meißen. Janssen, Dresden 1855, digitized .
- Susanne Geck: Between the monastery wall and the cloister. New findings on the development of Altzella. In: Work and research reports on the preservation of monuments in Saxony. 45, 2003, ISSN 0402-7817 , pp. 383-442.
- Susanne Geck, Thomas Westphalen : Research on the Cistercian monastery Altzella. In: Karlheinz Blaschke , Heinrich Magirius , Siegfried Seifert (eds.): 750 years of Marienstern monastery. Festschrift. Stekovics, Halle (Saale) 1998, ISBN 3-929330-96-2 , pp. 223-230.
- Tom Graber: Document book of the Cistercian monastery Altzelle. Volume 1: 1162–1249 (= Codex diplomaticus Saxoniae. Main part 2: The documents of the cities and ecclesiastical institutions in Saxony. Volume 19). Hahn, Hannover 2006, ISBN 3-7752-1901-3 .
- Tom Graber, Martina Schattkowsky (ed.): The Cistercians and their libraries. Book ownership and writing use of the Altzelle monastery in a European comparison (= writings on Saxon history and folklore. Vol. 28). Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86583-325-9 .
- Cornelius Gurlitt : Altenzella . In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 41. Issue: Administrative Authority Meißen-Land . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1923, p. 1.
- Peter Landau : The place of origin of the Sachsenspiegel. Eike von Repgow, Altzelle and the Anglo-Norman canon. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages . Vol. 61, No. 1, 2005, pp. 73-101 (digitized version )
- Heinrich Magirius : Altzella monastery park (= Saxony's most beautiful palaces, castles and gardens. 7). Edition Leipzig, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-361-00525-6 .
- Heinrich Magirius: The building history of the Altzella monastery (= treatises of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Philological-historical class. Vol. 53, no . 2, ISSN 0080-5297 ). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1962, (at the same time: Leipzig, university, dissertation, 1958).
- Martina Schattkowsky: The Cistercian monastery Altzella 1162–1540. Studies on the organization and management of monastic property (= studies on the history of the Catholic diocese and monastery. Vol. 27). St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1985.
- Martina Schattkowsky: On the importance of the Grangienwirtschaft for the Cistercian monastery Altzella in the Mark Meißen (1162-1540). In: Yearbook for the History of Feudalism. Vol. 10, 1986, ISSN 0138-4856 , pp. 75-97.
- Martina Schattkowsky, André Thieme (eds.): Altzelle. Cistercian abbey in Central Germany and house monastery of the Wettins (= writings on Saxon regional history. Vol. 3). Scientific conference on the occasion of the 825th anniversary of the initiation of the Altzelle monastery 5. – 6. May 2000. Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-935693-55-9 .
- Monastery cell . In: August Schumann : Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony. 17th volume. Schumann, Zwickau 1830, pp. 413-423.
- Helga Wäß: Altzella - Benedictine monastery, collegiate church and tomb of the Wettins. In: Helga Wäß: Form and Perception of Central German Memory Sculpture in the 14th Century. In two volumes. (Volume 1: A contribution to medieval grave monuments, epitaphs and curiosities in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, North Hesse, East Westphalia and South Lower Saxony. Volume 2: Catalog of selected objects from the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the 15th century. ) . TENEA, Bristol et al. a. 2006, ISBN 3-86504-159-0 , p. 26 ff. And cat. No. 4-19, numerous images of the grave slabs.
Note: With regard to the order, there has been a mix-up with the old cell monastery . Altzella was a Cistercian monastery! - Harald Winkel: Dominion and Memoria. The Wettins and their monasteries in the Middle Ages (= writings on Saxon history and folklore. Vol. 32). Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86583-439-3 .
- Carl Heinrich Ferdinand von Zehmen : The order of the Aebte of the former Cistercian monastery old cell near Nossen on the Mulde. Walther'sche Buchhandlung, Dresden 1845, pp. 1–62.
- Carl Heinrich Ferdinand von Zehmen: The fate of the princely burials in the monastery old cell on the Freiberger Mulde. Meinhold and Sons, Dresden 1846, pp. 1–16.
- Carl Heinrich Ferdinand von Zehmen: The Andreas or Prince Chapel attached to the collegiate church at Alten -zelle. A historical fragment. Meinhold and Sons, Dresden 1847, pp. 1–11.
- Heinrich von Martius : Altenzelle monastery: A contribution to the customer of the past . Craz and Gerlach, Nossen 1822. OCLC 63767539
