Bergen monastery on Rügen

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Noble women pen on a postcard, around 1900

The Bergen auf Rügen Abbey was a Cistercian - Kloster with the rank of Priory . It existed in Bergen on the island of Rügen from the end of the 12th to the 16th century as a Roman Catholic monastery, then until 1945 as an evangelical noble fräuleinstift.

history

The Principality of Rügen has belonged to Denmark since it was conquered by the Danes under King Waldemar II on June 15, 1168 . It was the beginning of the Christianization of Rügen. The last Slav leader , the young Jaromar I , was baptized and became the first Christian prince of Rügen and at the same time a Danish feudal bearer. In 1169 Pope Alexander III closed. Rügen to the Danish diocese of Roskilde , whose bishop Absalon von Lund promoted the Christianization of Rügen.

Foundation of the monastery

Prince Jaromar I von Rügen founded a nunnery directly adjacent to the church near the castle ramparts on the Rugard in 1193 , after he had built the church on his own land from burned stones and had it consecrated by Bishop Peter von Roskilde. According to the latest investigations, the start of construction on St. Mary's Church is dated from 1170/80. Twelve Benedictine nuns from the Roskilder Monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary were accepted as the first nuns . In this way, the monastery of Bergen, as a subsidiary of Roskilde, became the first nunnery in the Principality of Rügen. A nun's gallery was only built in Bergen's church during the second construction phase around 1300.

There is no evidence of the time when the Benedictine nuns from Bergen accepted the reform of the Cistercians , and it is also not known when the Bergen Monastery became part of the Cistercian order. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV confirmed the monastery both its possessions and the Cistercian rule applicable to the monastery, which, according to the document, had already been in force in Bergen before the General Council in 1215.

In 1285 Wizlaw II promised the nunnery in Bergen auf Rügen the donation of a chapel (church building) on the Rugard. This was completed in 1291, but canceled again by the nuns in 1380.

Development of the monastery

The nunnery owned the place Bergen, the local building rights, various interest and lease income and the mill compulsion . Already before 1215 the monastery exercised the patronage for the churches in Sagard , Bobbin and Jasmund . The filling of the parish positions, also in St. Marien zu Bergen, could only be done with the permission of the monastic convent. In 1232 the monastery was exempt from customs duties on the island of Rügen. In 1296 the high jurisdiction over hand and neck and the lower jurisdiction over skin and hair were added. It extended over all the villages owned by the nunnery and was exercised by the monastery bailiff. For example, he also had to deal with a manslaughter committed by clergymen Nikolaus Konow and Heinrich Rysselyn on the monastery estate in Dranske .

Prince Jaromar I equipped the monastery with extensive but scattered land holdings, most of which were located on the island of Rügen. Today, only a few donations from his successors and acquisitions by the monastery are known, going back to the middle of the 14th century. As a result, entire collections of localities were acquired more frequently, such as the 14-village possessions of Arnold Pape in 1344 and the estates of Johann von Kiel in Wieck, Dranske and Goos in 1357.

In a document from 1525, a total of 59 villages are counted as the property of the monastery. In another six villages it owned shares and in three it received income. The churches in Sagard and Bobbin belonged to the Bergen nunnery. Most of his possessions were around Bergen on Rügen, other possessions scattered around Wittow , Jasmund and Schaprode (Wollung). Its history is closely connected to the former village of Bergen, whose landlord and feudal lord was the monastery. The monastery received taxes and services from Bergen.

In a town fire in 1445, Bergen and the monastery with the church were largely destroyed, with numerous jewels and relics being lost. In a Stralsund chronicle it can be read that a fire destroyed the monastery of Bergen and all the honor of the kercken clenodia , but there is no concrete information about the extent of the fire and the parts of the building affected. The monastery church was rebuilt on the remaining masonry and rededicated. In 1472 another fire broke out in the monastery, which also affected the refectory and to which a nun fell victim. After the restoration and a new consecration, the patronage of the monastery church was expanded - St. Luke stepped next to the Virgin Mary . He was the patron of the Roskilder Episcopal Church, to whose diocese Rügen belonged at the time.

The spiritual direction of the Bergen monastery and its visitation was the responsibility of the abbot of the Eldena monastery . He appointed the Confessor , the nuns' confessor . The provosts were mostly laypeople , occasionally also clergy. In addition to the administration of the property, they exercised jurisdiction in Bergen. For the other lands, the Vogt was the monastery court clerk.

The head of the convent was the prioress , who was elected by the convent and who lived in her own priory house in the 14th and 15th centuries. The official title of abbess was only Anna (mentioned around 1388), possibly a daughter of Wartislaw VI. , and Elisabeth († 1473), daughter of Wartislaw IX. Abbesses are attested only twice who only bore this honorary title because of their high birth.

The nuns came from the Rügish and Pomeranian nobility and mostly Stralsundian patrician families . The number of nuns belonging to the convent fluctuated considerably in the first few centuries. In 1358, in addition to the prioress and sub-prioress, 37 nuns were named; from around 1490 the number of nuns decreased to 12. There were also novices and various boarders.

seal

The first surviving convent seal dates from 1289. It is pointed oval and shows a whole standing female figure, holding an upright palm frond in the right hand and a book in the left. The inscription reads: + S. CAPITVLI DE MONTE BEATE MARIE IN RVYA. The round seal of the prioress shows a lamb with a chalice and flag. The inscription reads: SIGILVM PRIORISSE DE MONTE.

A seal of the provost of Bergen found in the ruins of the Eldena monastery in 1829 shows the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus and a monk kneeling below. The inscription is: + SI: PREPOSITI + IN + MONTIBVS + RVYE.

Development since the Reformation

Merian: Bergen monastery

As early as 1525, nine years before the introduction of the Reformation in Pomerania, the monastery was visited by ducal officials who compiled a list of the treasures. On September 22nd, 1534, another list of the inventory in the monastery was made. After the state parliament resolution in Treptow an der Rega in 1534 to introduce the Reformation, a visit was made on July 13, 1535 to introduce the Bugenhagen church regulations . In the course of secularization, the monastery fell to Duke Philip I of Pomerania. The nuns drove the first Lutheran preacher Johannes Hän from the pulpit by throwing stones, so that his service had to be held temporarily in the churchyard.

By regulations of 1541 and 1560 it was decided in 1569 by the state parliament in Wollin to keep the Bergen monastery together with the nunneries in Stolp , Marienfließ , Verchen and Kolberg as breeding schools and for the maintenance of noble virgins in the duchy. Bergen, too, has now been converted into a Protestant women's monastery for the daughters of knighthood. The monastery properties were withdrawn from 1570, and all uses and slopes fell to the princely chamber from then on. A Dominial Rent Office was set up in Bergen and the supply of the monastery offices was very limited. The monastery was thus deprived of its economic basis, and since then it has been dependent on the grace of the respective sovereign. In 1578 the monastery order was revised to reflect the new circumstances and published in Stettin in 1616 . Duke Philipp Julius von Pommern-Wolgast had the Propsteigebuild converted into a hunting lodge from 1605 to 1611, on the ruins of which the royal Swedish office was built in 1708.

During the Thirty Years War , the Bergen monastery was occupied several times and almost completely devastated. Completely sacked by the Austrians under Hans von Goetze in 1629, the imperial troops repeated this in 1630. As a result of this war, Rügen fell to the Swedes. In the following years, the monastery buildings fell into disrepair , and from then on most of the conventual women lived with citizens in the city of Bergen. Some were built apartments by their families on the monastery grounds. In 1641 the estates asked the Swedes to restore the monastery. In 1654 even Queen Christina of Sweden owned the monastery, but despite repeated petitions, the situation of the monastery did not improve. In 1658 membership of the Diocese of Roskilde was ended. After the further deterioration of the monastery which was initially from 1660 cloister removed, in the following decades the convent resigned.

Help came only under the Swedish King Friedrich I. On December 19, 1720 he donated 1000 thalers , one third of which was to be used annually from the income of the royal domains for the monastery in Bergen and two thirds for a new monastery in Barth. The Rügen knighthood also collected the necessary funds. After several years of negotiations at the knightly convent, under the curators District Administrator Hermann Alexander von Wolffradt auf Udars and Colonel Ernst Bogislav von Rhaden zu Rosengarten and under the building inspectors Lieutenant Colonel NN von Bugenhagen von Bugenhagen auf Neparmitz and Christian Friedrich von Barnekow auf Klein Kuhbelkow, construction began in 1732 .

From 1732 to 1736 two new residential buildings, the two current monastery buildings, were built. The main building with the five-axis prayer room and the prioress's apartment was completed in 1732, the southern wing followed in 1736. The northern side wing could no longer be built due to a lack of funds. In the plan of the Capitianie and itziger Ambtmann C. Mohr of July 28, 1737, details are exactly listed.

On August 17, 1733, Frederick I of Sweden confirmed the Bergen monastery. In the same year the old monastery rules were renewed. In 1775 the convent received under Prioress Eleonore Tugendreich von Barnekow ad.H. Klein Kubbelkow was awarded the Order Cross by Queen Sophia Magdalene of Sweden .

During the French period , parts of the monastery served as a hospital in 1805, 1807, 1809 and 1813 and at times as a military hospital. In 1876, on the initiative of the prioress Juliane von Usedom, a fountain was built. And in 1886, with the support of the nun Bertha von Smiterlöw, she set up a toddler school, primarily for poorer children, for free use, the Julienstift . In 1892 the large surrounding wall was renewed and in 1893 the old gate to the churchyard was replaced by a new iron gate. In 1899 the monastery courtyard was also given electric lighting.

After the First World War , there were compulsory billeting from 1919 to 1922. The prioress von Harder and the conventuals Countess von Schmettau, von Versen, von der Lancken , von Kathen , von Richter , von Kleist and von Barnekow as well as six exspectants lived there until the end of the women's monastery in 1945 .

Dissolution of the women's pen

After the occupation of Rügen by the Red Army , all residents were expelled from the monastery on May 15, 1945 and a defensive position was set up there. The monastery walls were provided with loopholes. During this time, the furniture and large parts of the monastery archives were lost. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1947, the monastery buildings were inhabited by refugees from the east . The use as a retirement home agreed by the church, the city of Bergen and the state of Mecklenburg in 1947/48 in the form of a foundation called the Old Monastery Foundation in Bergen on Rügen was not implemented. The foundation was dissolved in the 1980s and the building became the property of the city of Bergen on Rügen.

Refurbishment and current use

Extensive renovations of the cloister courtyard ensemble have been carried out since 1991, which were accompanied by archaeological investigations from 2001 to 2004. On May 20, 2005, the facility was reopened as a cultural meeting place. The renovated monastery houses now house the town museum, a workshop for local craftsmen, a restaurant and apartments. Flea and craft markets take place regularly in the monastery courtyard.

literature

  • City of Bergen on Rügen, GSOM mbH (Hrsg.): The cloister courtyard and the church of St. Marien in Bergen on Rügen. ( Brochure PDF , 5.5 MB) Bergen 2005.
  • Johann Jakob Grümbke : Collected news on the history of the former Cistercian nunnery St. Maria in Bergen on the island of Rügen. Löffler, Stralsund 1833 (digitized version)
  • Hermann Hoogeweg : The founders and monasteries of the province of Pomerania. Volume 1, Leon Saunier, Stettin 1924, pp. 92-163.
  • Axel Attula: Decorations for women, Protestant women's pens in Northern Germany and their orders. Thomas Helms Verlag, Schwerin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940207-21-0 .

Web links

Commons : Kloster Bergen auf Rügen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jens Christian Holst: News on the building history of St. Marien. In: The cloister courtyard and the church of St. Marien in Bergen on Rügen. Bergen on Rügen 2005, pp. 22–48.
  2. ↑ Sven Wichert: On the history of the monastery. In: The cloister courtyard and the St. Marien church in Bergen on Rügen. Bergen on Rügen 2005, pp. 6-16.
  3. ↑ Pomeranian Document Book PUB I. No. 522.
  4. ↑ PUB I. No. 282.
  5. ↑ Illustration of the grave slab of Abbess Elisabeth. In: Ernst von Haselberg . The architectural and art monuments of the government district of Stralsund. Booklet IV. The district of Rügen. Léon Saunier, Stettin 1897, pp. 275-276 (Fig. 11).
  6. ↑ PUB III. NO. 1514.
  7. ↑ Bergen church archives: Memorabilia book of the aristocratic virgin monastery 1858–1945. No. 16.
  8. ↑ Bergen Church Archives: Memorabilia book of the aristocratic virgin monastery, 1858–1945. No. 16.
  9. ↑ Bergen Church Archives: Copy. The original in the monastery files. GA Cshultze, pastor. E 3.
  10. ↑ Heiko Schäfer: Bergen on Rügen, St. Mary's monastery and church square . Bergen 2004, excavation report LAKD.
  11. ↑ The historic cloister courtyard with museum and demonstration workshop. on the website of the city of Bergen on Rügen

Coordinates: 54 ° 25 ′ 2.03 "  N , 13 ° 25 ′ 56.31"  E