Ebstorf Monastery

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Overview of the monastery grounds

The monastery Ebstorf was in 1160 as a monastery of St. Mauritius in Ebstorf as a monastery (possibly a double monastery ) of the Norbertine founded and was the 12th century from the end of a Benedictine convent. It is one of several monasteries administered by the Hannover Monastery Chamber. It houses an evangelical women's monastery and an agricultural school. The monastery is known for the famous Ebstorf world map from the 13th century, its extensive medieval furnishings and its manuscript library.

Ebstorf Monastery, view of the inner courtyard

history

Ebstorf Monastery around 1654/1658, engraving by Matthäus Merian

The monastery was founded by Volrad von Bodwede , Count von Dannenberg and nephew of Heinrich the Lion . It was first mentioned in a document in 1197. It is one of the six Lüne monasteries that became Protestant convents after the Reformation .

After a fire in the 12th century, Benedictine nuns from the Walsrode monastery came to Ebstorf, and Ebstorf developed into a place of pilgrimage to Mary . Ebstorf monastery with its prioress , was subordinate to the abbess in the mother monastery of Walsrode. The monastery buildings from the 14th century, in the style of the north German brick Gothic , are still completely preserved today, as is the hall church with the nuns' gallery. The provost dates as well as the brewery from the 15th century. The provost of Ebstorf also acted as archdeacon ( regional dean ) in the responsible diocese of Verden . The cultivation of barley and hops on the monastery lands is documented for 1501.

In the 15th century, the life of the nuns changed after the Bursfeld monastery reform , which demanded a more moralistic life, but was also associated with teaching in Latin. In 1529, the Celle Guelph Duke Ernst the Confessor converted the monastery into a Protestant women's monastery , but it was not until 1565 that the Reformation took hold in the monastery completely. Protestant women still live here today under the direction of a Protestant abbess .

Monastery church

Monastery church
Exam
Monastery garden

architecture

The monastery church of St. Mauritius is a two-aisled, arched brick building from the middle of the 14th century. Contrary to the usual procedure, it was built from west to east. The roof of the nave was dendrochronologically dated to 1385 (d), that of the eastern part to 1396 (d). In 1393, Provost Heinrich von Offensen was buried in the choir. The massive bell tower was probably added to the south-west corner of the church in the 15th century.

The five-bay main nave was extended to two storeys for the installation of the nun's gallery . The south aisle is of the same length, but considerably lower and, as a parish church, was probably built at the same time as the main nave. The eastern end of the south nave was later changed.

Today the nun's gallery extends only over the four western bays. According to traces of demolition, it can be assumed that it originally extended a yoke further to the pulpit pillar. The south wall is structured with pointed arch niches in which and on the west wall tracery windows corresponding to those in the north wall can be found. The floor is made of alternating black glazed and red rhombic clay tiles. After shortening the gallery, it was closed off to the east with a concave swinging, glazed and ornamented wooden wall in the Baroque period.

The space under the gallery has three aisles; the north aisle was separated by a wall and extended to the south wing of the cloister . The other two naves are vaulted with seven bays each (out of ten previously) and the two western ones are separated by a wall. The south wall of the gallery is divided on its outside with cloverleaf arch niches in which 15 terracotta reliefs with the twelve apostles, Saint Mauritius and John the Baptist as well as Christ are attached, similar to the one in the Marienkirche in Uelzen .

Both naves of the church are vaulted like the choir; the ribs and belts are profiled with equally thick pear rod; the vault services of three interlocking running Birnstäben formed. The vaults rest on ornamented and figurative fighters and consoles. On the north side of the fifth yoke there is a side chapel closed off by two ribbed vaults.

The raised choir of two and a half yokes closes with five sides of a decagon. In the choir apse, the wall is almost completely dissolved into wide pointed arch windows. On the north side of the choir is a chapel with a six-part and a four-part vault; the main entrance to the church was originally located here. To the east of this is a two-story, arched sacristy attached to the choir.

Stained glass

Glass paintings from the 16th century have been preserved in the north windows of the nuns' gallery . The windows face from the west

  1. Windows: Figures of St. Ursula and St. George under late Gothic canopies from 1523,
  2. Windows: two older figure discs and medieval canopy architecture and artistically valuable ornamental discs,
  3. Windows: architectural fields in the arch, below the imperial eagle with inscription plaque, below the coat of arms with the date 1594,
  4. Window: five small heraldic panels with Gothic inscription, above architectural panels .

Furthermore, five ornamental and figurative glass paintings from the years 1908 to 1918 by the Ferdinand Müller glass painting establishment from Quedlinburg should be mentioned in the choir . Further glass paintings are housed in the cloister.

Furnishing

Lectern cloth with unicorn hunt
Ebstorf world map

Parts of a late Gothic wooden altar and two small wooden altars from the mid-16th century have been preserved on the nuns' gallery. The choir stalls were dated 1292 (d). A life-size statue from the end of the 13th century in a wooden cupboard depicts Saint Mauritius. A large seated Madonna with a supplemented head dates from around 1320 and was partially restored in 1979 to the original version. Three other figures in a distorted version from the beginning of the 20th century show a Pietà (around 1400), a crescent moon Madonna (around 1500) and a seated Mary from the period shortly after 1400. A panel painting from the beginning of the 16th century depicts the crucifixion Furthermore, seven epitaphs from the 17th century should be mentioned; especially the epitaph of Domina Lucia Appels († 1626) deserves attention.

A three-armed brass candelabra shows four dragons on the ornate base and originally stood on a brass base ring. A statuette of St. Mauritius is attached to the fork of the arms, which are decorated with shaft rings.

In the choir, the high altar from 1684 shows a rich structure with columns, carved cheeks, evangelist figures, putti and a crucifix in front of a painted landscape. The bronze baptismal font was created by Master Hermanns in 1310 and shows reliefs on the wall with repeated representations; the kettle stands on four support figures with a base ring. The pulpit with rich Renaissance ornaments was created in 1615 by Master Cordt Stein from Lüneburg. On the north gallery there is an epitaph for bailiff Joh. Witte († 1613) with a column structure and painting.

The handwritten library of the monastery is located both in the monastery itself and in a collection of the Society for Fine Arts and Patriotic Antiquities in Emden.

The monastery became famous for its Ebstorf world map from the 13th century. The original was burned in 1943 in Hanover during one of the air raids on Hanover . A true-to-original copy can be viewed in an adjoining room in the monastery . Furthermore, precious embroidery from the time since the 14th century is on display.

Monastery building

The cloister with four wings shows artistically valuable building sculptures and glass paintings. Three wings still have medieval ribbed vaults, the north wing has a baroque barrel vault. The figurative building sculpture on consoles and keystones should be emphasized. In the three-part tracery windows, glass paintings from around 1420 are installed, which were cleaned between 1978 and 1987. They show unique representations from the Speculum humanae salvationis , which begin in the southern wing of the cloister. In the manner of typological representations, one scene from the New Testament is juxtaposed in the upper field with the corresponding representations from the Old Testament or history in the lower three fields.

In the abbess wing adjoining to the west, two ogival arcades with sharp-edged pear rod profiles from the 13th century have been preserved, half of which are in the ground due to the raised floor. In the north wing opposite the entrance to the refectory, there is a bronze washbasin that was made in 1480 by Bartelt up de Rit from Lüneburg. The monastery entrance was originally in the east wing. In the cloister there is a lot of furniture from the 12th century. The Kreuzhof has served as a cemetery for members of the monastery since the Reformation.

On the north wing, the very long sleeping house goes to the west, which, together with the manor house adjoining it to the south and the abbess wing of the cloister, encloses the park-like monastery garden. The entrance was moved here because a wall was built for a strict enclosure between 1485 and 1487 . To the north of the sleeping quarters is the brewery, among other things, a probably late medieval undivided brick building.

literature

  • Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke: Ebstorf Monastery (= DKV art guide. No. 176, ISSN  2365-1857 ) 12th, revised edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich et al. 2002.
  • Hanna Dose: Ebstorf - Premonstratensian, Benedictine nuns from approx. 1190, women's monastery from 1565 (approx. 1160 to the present). In: Josef Dolle (ed.): Lower Saxony monastery book. Directory of the monasteries, monasteries, comedians and beguinages in Lower Saxony and Bremen from the beginnings to 1810. Volume 1, Bielefeld 2012 (= publications of the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen. Volume 56/1), pp. 351-360.
  • Marianne Elster, Horst Hoffmann (Red.): “In Loyalty and Devotion”. 800 years of Ebstorf Monastery (= writings on Uelzen local history. H. 13, ISSN  0941-1666 ). Ebstorf Monastery, Ebstorf 1997.
  • Rainer figure: Conservation measures on console stones in the cloister of Ebstorf Monastery. In: Hans-Herbert Möller (Ed.): Restoration of cultural monuments. Examples from the preservation of historical monuments in Lower Saxony (= reports on the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony . Supplement 2). Niemeyer, Hameln 1989, ISBN 3-87585-152-8 , pp. 86-88.
  • Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Ebstorf Monastery. In: Ernst Andreas Friedrich: If stones could talk. Volume 1. Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1989, ISBN 3-7842-0397-3 , pp. 152-155.
  • Helmar Härtel : The Ebstorf monastery library. Reform and School Reality at the End of the Middle Ages. In: Martin Kintzinger , Sönke Lorenz , Michael Walter (eds.): School and students in the Middle Ages. Contributions to the European history of education from the 9th to 15th centuries. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1996, pp. 245-258.
  • Volker Hemmerich: The medieval building history of the long sleeping house in Ebstorf monastery. Thomas Helms Verlag Schwerin 2002, ISBN 3-935749-04-X (also: Hanover, University, dissertation, 2001).
  • Michael Wolfson: A tour of Ebstorf Monastery (= The Blue Books. ) With photos by Jutta Brothers. Langewiesche, Königstein im Taunus 2002, ISBN 3-7845-2403-6 .
  • Chronicle Ebstorf. Part 3, pp. 6–23, can be viewed in the Samtgemeinde Archive Bad Bevensin - Ebstorf.
  • Sabine Wehking (arrangement): The inscriptions of the Lüneburg monasteries. Ebstorf, Isenhagen, Lüne, Medingen, Walsrode, Wienhausen. (= German inscriptions. 76) Wiesbaden 2009, available online .

Web links

Commons : Ebstorf Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Winterhager : Latin lessons for nuns in the Ebstorf monastery around 1490 under the influence of the Bursfeld reform movement. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 79–85, here: pp. 79 f.
  2. ^ Friedrich Winterhager: Latin lessons for nuns in the Ebstorf monastery around 1490 under the influence of the Bursfeld reform movement. 2015 (2016), p. 79 f.
  3. ↑ Uelzer beer website
  4. ^ Friedrich Winterhager: Latin lessons for nuns in the Ebstorf monastery around 1490 under the influence of the Bursfeld reform movement. 2015 (2016).
  5. ↑ a b c d Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments. Bremen - Lower Saxony. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , pp. 415-418.
  6. ↑ Renate Giermann, Helmar Härtel (arrangement): Manuscripts of the Ebstorf monastery. Wiesbaden 1994 (= medieval manuscripts in Lower Saxony. Volume 10).
  7. ^ Friedrich Winterhager: Latin lessons for nuns in the Ebstorf monastery around 1490 under the influence of the Bursfeld reform movement. 2015 (2016), p. 79.

Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 50.2 ″  N , 10 ° 24 ′ 44 ″  E