Drolshagen Monastery
Drolshagen Monastery is a former Cistercian abbey in Drolshagen . It was founded in the 13th century. The flowering in the Middle Ages could no longer be continued in modern times. In 1803 the monastery was abolished during the secularization . Only the main wing of its buildings remains, which is used for public purposes.
history
founding
According to a forged deed of donation, the founding year is in 1235. The actual founding is to be set a little later. In 1248, Countess Mechthild von Sayn , together with her late husband Heinrich III, named herself in another document . , as the founder. She and the Archbishop of Cologne made numerous donations to secure the economic existence of the monastery. Among other things, the St. Clemens parish church of Drolshagen belonged to it . The monastery thus had the right to appoint the pastor. This was rebuilt in the 13th century and enlarged by extensive extensions.
Of 19 Cistercian monasteries in Westphalia, Drolshagen was the only one that was initially directly subordinate to the Cîteaux monastery . Later it came under the control of the Heisterbach monastery . There were also close relationships with the Marienstatt monastery . Its abbots had been permanent visitors to Drolshagen since 1539.
Material equipment
The heyday of the monastery was in the 13th and 14th centuries. At the end of the Middle Ages, the property of the monastery, which was mainly in and around Drolshagen, comprised around 93 hectares. In addition to property in the city and rural community of Drolshagen, the properties were in particular with Valbert , as well as Attendorn , Förde , Kleusheim , Rhode and Wenden . Scattered property was near Eckenhagen in the Bergisches Land and near Ferndorf in the Siegerland . There were also several possessions in the Rhineland. The monastery also got its wine from there. Some other Rhenish goods had already been sold at the beginning of the 14th century. The same applies to goods in the Soester Börde. Properties near Balve were still owned by a monastery in the middle of the 15th century. The abbey also had two grinding mills and several iron hammers .
History in the early modern period
Until the 17th century, the abbey was reserved for aristocratic daughters who, in addition to the Sauerland, mainly came from the Bergisches Land and Rhineland. Already in the 15th century there was evidence of a decline in monastic breeding. In 1489 a nun was involved in a trade in relics. During the Reformation, the cloister regulations were no longer observed as strictly as before and the nuns sometimes wore secular clothing. The number of nuns fell sharply. At the time of Abbess Walburg von Wischel (1578–1599), the number of sisters fell to only four, so that the choral service could no longer be performed properly. In 1602 the abbess Eva von Plettenberg, a sister of the electoral mistress Gertrud von Plettenberg, left the monastery and accepted the Lutheran denomination. The decline ended under Abbess Angela Dorothea Knipping. After that, their convent consisted mostly of Westphalian aristocratic daughters, but increasingly also of bourgeois daughters. The abbess, however, always came from the nobility.
During the Thirty Years' War the nuns had to flee to Cologne at times. Around 1680 the monastery was rebuilt with stables and a bakery. During this time, however, a dispute began with the city and the parish of Drolshagen. It was about the mutual use of the church. The conflict could not be resolved until 1763. The congregation told the monastery to build its own church, while the convent waived all rights except the right of patronage to the Drolshagen church. The compromise was mainly due to the work of Prior Eugen Hartung.
Around this time, the monastery also owned some iron and steel works . The aforementioned Prior Hartung brought the monastery into serious economic difficulties with his bad investments in the mining industry, especially in the Vahlberger Hütte. This led to the monastery becoming increasingly indebted. The monastery had to part with goods worth 20,000 thalers and still had debts of the same amount.
Hartung's plans to move to the Röttgen hunting lodge near Bonn while being replaced by the Franciscans (OFM) were unsuccessful. The catastrophic economic conditions also led to conflicts within the community, which in 1792 led to an archbishop's visitation. The abbess herself spoke out in favor of abolishing the monastery at this time. This did not happen in the last years of the Electoral Cologne rule, but on October 13, 1803 the new sovereign, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, ordered the abolition of the monastery. The abbess and the last four women choirs were retired. The archive was initially housed in Arnsberg and later in the Münster State Archives.
For a long time the number of monastery members fluctuated between 10 and 17 profession virgins and 4 to 5 lay sisters. Around 1600 the monastery only had 6 maidens, only to accommodate 14 again towards the end of the 17th century (1686). At the time of the dissolution of the monastery only 4 profession maidens lived in the monastery.
In the sources, the monastery is named after "Abbess and Convent of St. Clement's Church" (1243). Later the “nuns of the Grawen Orden van Cystias” (1355) and the “Abbess of the Freyadligen Monastery S. Clementis zu Drolshagen” (1738) are mentioned. So the head of the monastery was an abbess . In addition, prioress, subprioress, waitress, sexton, novice master, organist, singer and nurse are mentioned. There were also prior and confessors from the Marienstatt Abbey .
List of Abbesses
- 1281/1311 Aleidis
- 1318/1334 Beatrix
- 1348/1352 Mechthild von Wildenberg
- 1360/1371 Uyleken von Bruch
- 1381 Heyme
- 1386/1390 Christine von Attendorn
- 1406/1409 Gertrud von Hamm
- 1434/1439 Stine von Honnef
- 1446/1457 Gretha Antoneta Ploichiseren
- 1473/1482 Lucardis van dem Heede called Duvenetersen
- 1482/1491 Lucia von der Leyen called van dem Negenhove
- 1493/1504 Maria Schönhals
- 1510/1543 Anna of the Stones
- 1543–1552 Catharina von Oel
- 1552–1578 Maria von Fünfzall
- 1578–1599 Walburga von Wischel
- 1599–1602 Eva von Plettenberg
- 1602–1628 Angela Dorothea Knipping
- 1628–1661 Anna Elisabeth von Carthausen
- 1661–1681 Anna Elisabeth von Neuhof called Ley
- 1681–1702 Anna Elisabeth Favero
- 1702–1740 Maria Mechthildis von Schledorn
- 1741–1775 Maria Josepha von Papen
- 1775–1802 Maria Josepha of Lilien
Literature and Sources
- Karl Hengst: Westphalian monastery book , part 1, Münster 1992, pages 271–275.
- Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Harm Klueting: The Electoral Cologne Duchy of Westphalia as spiritual territory in the 16th and 18th centuries. In the S. (Ed.): The Duchy of Westphalia. Vol. 1: The Duchy of Westphalia: The Electorate of Cologne from the beginnings of Cologne rule in southern Westphalia to secularization in 1803. Münster, 2009 ISBN 978-3-402-12827-5 p. 483
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 SX
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 SX
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 p. XII
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 p. XIIf.
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 p. XIII
- ↑ Helmut Richtering (arrangement): The archive of the former Drolshagen monastery. Documents and files together with an appendix of additional archival material. Olpe, 1969 p. XIII
Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 22.8 " N , 7 ° 46 ′ 43.7" E