Flechtdorf Monastery
Monastery Flechtdorf is a former Benedictine - Abbey in the district Flechtdorf the north Hessian community Diemelsee in Waldeck-Frankenberg . It existed from 1104 until the Reformation .
prehistory
Allegedly in 836 led Bishop Badurad of Paderborn , the transfer of the relics of St. Landelin of Crespin from the Crespin Abbey in the Diocese of Cambrai in West Francia to Boke (now part of Delbrück in Paderborn district ) in Westphalia. Boke thus became a base of Christianity in the newly evangelized Saxony.
In 1101, Count Erpo von Padberg and his wife Beatrix von Nidda founded a Benedictine monastery in Boke over the bones of the saint with the support of Bishop Heinrich II. Von Werl, who was largely related to them . Their presence in Boke is documented for the first time in the deed of foundation. The monastery Boke was generous of Beatrix with allodial equipped to them as a dowry and inheritance received from her family. Erpo also equipped the new monastery with considerable ownership, so u. a. with its own churches in Langförden (now part of Vechta ) and in Werdohl in the Märkisches Sauerland (the predecessor building of the local Kilian Church ) as well as property in Werdohl, in Wirmighausen (now part of the municipality of Diemelsee ), in Beringhausen (now part of the city of Marsberg ) and in Messinghausen (now part of Brilon ).
Monastery history
However, the Boke Monastery only existed for a few years, because after the childless death of the founder Beatrix, there was a bitter argument with her relatives from the Itter house. Her brothers laid claim to their inheritance in Boke and refused to transfer the estate to the new monastery. The conflict was resolved by abolishing the monastery in Boke in 1104 and relocating it to Flechtdorf, owned by Count Erpo, where it was occupied by Benedictines from the Abdinghof mother monastery in Paderborn. Most of the Landolinus relics were brought to Flechtdorf; only one arm relic remained in Boke.
When the Benedictine Abbey of St. Maria settled in Flechtdorf, there was already a church there, which was converted into a monastery church and supplemented with the necessary convent buildings between 1104 and 1114 . Erpo von Padberg died in 1113 and was buried in Flechtdorf. With him, his male line died out, and his property, the castle and lordship of Padberg as well as the Flechtdorf monastery, were sold to Archbishop Friedrich I of Cologne in 1120 ; however, the spiritual supervision of the monastery remained with the Bishop of Paderborn .
In 1160, Count Volkwin II. Von Schwalenberg , known from 1180 as Volkwin I. von Waldeck , became the monastery's governor . His descendants, the brothers Volkwin IV. Von Schwalenberg and Adolf I. von Waldeck , had to give up the bailiwick after repeated disputes with Paderborn around 1227. As a result (at the latest in 1270), the Bailiwick came to the Lords of Padberg , Kurkölner ministerials , as Burgmannen on the castle Padberg sat and called themselves "von Padberg" since 1165th In 1413, the bailiwick, as well as the entire area of the Gogericht Flechtdorf, came back to the Counts of Waldeck after the defeat of the Padbergs against the Korbach citizens in the so-called " Padberg feud ".
The monastery church was built in several stages, beginning between 1120 and 1190 with the towers and the western part in a basilica form. The building was completed at the beginning of the 13th century as a Gothic hall church ; the south aisle was rebuilt in the Gothic style. The convent buildings (east, south and west wings) south of the church were completed in 1180 under the abbot Uffo. At the inauguration of the church in 1250, Pope Alexander IV granted indulgences to all the abbey's benefactors . The monastery flourished and expanded its property and rights through various gifts, purchases and exchanges. Due to a “miraculous” image of Mary, numerous relics and indulgence days, Flechtdorf became a religious attraction for the entire region.
The 150 years from the middle of the 14th to the end of the 15th century were marked by repeated changes in the decay of moral and spiritual life, coupled with economic decline and reform efforts by individual abbots. In 1379, Bishop Heinrich III. a far-reaching monastery reform started from Paderborn, but this too was short-lived in its effect. The Counts of Waldeck saw the signs of decay - visible in aging, a decline in the number of monks and nuns, financial difficulties and decay of customs - in Flechtdorf and in the other monasteries within their sphere of influence with displeasure and also tried to reform. The Flechtdorf monastery was reformed again in 1444 and then experienced a new brief bloom under Abbot Hermann Frowein (Frowyn), under whom it joined the Bursfeld Reform Congregation in 1469 . In the same year, Abbot Frowein was commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz, Adolf II of Nassau , to whose diocese the southern part of the County of Waldeck belonged, to visit the Netze monastery , the result of which, however, has not been recorded.
Under Abbot Jost Fiebeling (1506–1526) the monastery once again experienced a spiritual and economic heyday, which then came to an end with the introduction of the Reformation in 1525 and the subsequent abolition of the monasteries in the county of Waldeck.
Repeal
In 1528 the abbot and the convent began to move documents and liturgical implements to Westphalia. From 1535 the convent began to dissolve. In 1543 Count Wolrad II ordered reforms in the monastery and appointed an evangelical preacher (assistant preacher ) for the Flechtdorf community at the expense of the convent . Around 1550 only three monks lived in the monastery. The last abbot, Balthasar Hachmeister, was deposed in 1580 because of his vicious lifestyle.
The Archbishop of Cologne, as sovereign of the Duchy of Westphalia , challenged the orders of the counts. The process before the Reich Chamber of Commerce for sovereignty over the monastery dragged on from 1551 to 1591. During this time of the dispute between Waldeck and Cologne, the catastrophe of 1546 occurred when the Landdrost von Westfalen, Bernhard von Nassau-Beilstein , plundered the monastery and robbed documents, almost the entire library (over 100 books) and most of the liturgical equipment; All that remains of the library are the pathetic remains of an antiphonal from the end of the 15th century, which ended as waste for the binding of the “Itinerarium Wolradi” from 1548. Count Wolrad II von Waldeck-Eisenberg reacted with a second plunder of the monastery and the removal of the livestock. The Reich Chamber of Commerce finally decided in favor of the Waldecker. After the last monk, Hubert Figge, died in 1598, they confiscated the monastery property in 1602. The monastery property was continued as a count's domain , and the monastery buildings became a hospital for poor and old sick people. The monastery church served as a Protestant parish church.
In 1639 a major fire destroyed the eastern part of the church and parts of the convent building. During the partial reconstruction in 1669 under Count Georg Friedrich von Waldeck-Eisenberg, only a smooth end wall without a choir was built in place of the destroyed eastern part.
State hospital and retirement home
In 1702 Count Christian Ludwig had a state hospital set up in the monastery buildings. The inmates of other hospitals in the county of Waldeck were brought to Flechtdorf. The hospital was given 700 acres of land to provide economic security . Two years later (1704) the hospital and the property belonging to it were transferred to the newly established “Landeshospital Flechtdorf” foundation. According to the foundation charter, "at least 30 poor people, men and women, should be kept there". The supervision of the hospital had a appointed by the chief of the governors Counts, economic management was responsible for a bailiff .
A seminary set up at the same time in the old monastery was dissolved again in 1712.
In 1783, Prince Friedrich von Waldeck opened a home for poor women who had recently given birth and the mentally handicapped in the so-called manor house.
In 1890, construction began on a new hospital building, which was inaugurated in 1891 and significantly expanded from 1963–1965 with an extension. After the construction of another extension in 2003 and 2004, the old building stock was completely renovated and completed in 2006.
Due to the constant decline in income from its own property, the foundation was no longer able to operate the home, which had meanwhile become a modern old people's home, itself. In 1968 the Waldeck district leased the old people's home (hospital), which at the time had 65 residents. In 1969 the four older charitable foundations of Waldeck, including the Flechtdorfer Landeshospital, were merged into the "Waldeckische Landesstiftung". The buildings used for agriculture (west wing and parts of the south wing of the former monastery) were sold. Today the retirement and nursing home "Landeshospital Flechtdorf" is run by the "Retirement and nursing homes of the Waldeck-Frankenberg non-profit GmbH" based in Korbach , which also operates the retirement and nursing home "Schloss Rhoden" in Rhoden . The sole shareholder is the Waldeck-Frankenberg district, legal successor to the former Waldeck district.
Church of St. Mary
The monastery church remained in the possession of the Waldeckische Landesstiftung and is used by the evangelical community in Flechtdorf for their services.
The construction
The church is built from irregular limestone blocks, which are visible on the outside and covered on the inside by an ocher-colored paint with painted joints. The building is dominated by the twin tower facade of the west house. The towers themselves are not structured, but loosened up by sound arcades and arched openings. The slate- covered tower roofs are pyramidal. The tympanum in the arch above the west portal between the towers is undecorated. The bulge profile of the base leads around the portal and is intertwined in the portal apex to form an oval with ornamental foliage. A second portal is located on the south aisle.
The interior at the west portal is surrounded by the hall-shaped rooms of the west building, the tower yoke and the narrow transept. Central nave and side aisles are the same height here. In the south wall of the west transept there is a sandstone relief of a winged dragon; it is the crowning conclusion of a walled double arcade that opened from the upper floor of the adjacent convent building. The wide belt and shield arches of the coupled groin vault in the two-bay central nave of the nave are supported by rectangular pillars. The north side clearly shows the structure of the vaulted basilica; In the north aisle, the belt arches rest on short templates over semicircular consoles.
The south side of the central nave, on the other hand, bears witness to the conversion of the basilica into a hall church. The side aisle was brought level with the central nave and the upper aisle wall between the two parts of the room was broken out. A side aisle yoke comes on top of a central nave yoke. Here, too, the arches supporting the groin vault rest on templates over semicircular consoles. In the south wall, above the height of the original aisle, there is a three-part pointed arch window. The set columns and bulge shapes indicate the Rhenish-Westphalian transition style from late Romanesque to early Gothic . The north aisle wall was pulled up to the height of the central nave in order to create a support for the gable roof spanning all three naves.
The remains of a rood screen from the 13th century have been preserved in a block of wall in front of the east wall. In the Middle Ages, such barriers were set up between monk choir and lay church, especially in monastery churches. This wall is broken through by three arches. The right arch was used for the passage to the high choir or to a crypt. The parish altar, also known as the cross altar, stood in the middle, slightly recessed arch. A large so-called triumphal cross was hung above it.
The chalice-shaped baptismal font dates from 1513 and is inscribed in Gothic minuscule on the upper edge . The altar and pulpit were donated by the Waldeck Princely House to the church during the renovation in 1907. The choir stalls in the south aisle come from the Volkhardinghausen monastery . From 1966 to 1958 the choir stalls stood in the Evangelical City Church in Wolfhagen.
Redevelopment
Since 2007 the Waldeckische Landesstiftung, the Landeskirchenamt and the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege have been financing a fundamental renovation of the church. A major renovation took place as early as 1907. A second was carried out in the early 1970s after the condition of the church had become so bad, mainly due to the lack of any insulation against rising damp from the ground, that services were hardly ever held in it. The entire floor of sandstone slabs without a substructure was soaked and partially algae; the masonry was faulty; the wooden fixtures in the bell tower were damaged; and the electrical installation was no longer OK. From today's perspective, however, the work at that time produced structural defects, as materials were used that would no longer be used today. In the now complex renovation, materials are used that are similar to those originally used, and with the help of new heating and ventilation technology, an improvement in the indoor climate is sought.
- Views of Flechtdorf Monastery
Main portal
Side nave
Side nave -
bricked-up entrance
Choir stalls
East Side
Future use of the convent building
In May 2007, the Flechtdorf Monastery Association, which had been founded the year before, auctioned the remaining and increasingly neglected buildings and land of the old monastery; These were the west wing of the old abbey, the substance of which dates back to the founding phase of the monastery, half of the south wing, which was built in the 14th and 15th centuries, the former renter's house from the 18th century and a stable - and barn buildings to the west. The association has set itself the task of promoting the preservation, restoration and use of the former monastery complex in an ideal and material way. A usage concept that takes into account the history of the monastery was drawn up and renovation work has been carried out since 2009. In 2015, the Hessian Monument Protection Prize went to the Flechtdorf Monastery Friends' Association.
Remarks
- ↑ The place Flechtdorf, northwest of Korbach , is mentioned for the first time in 830 as "Fliathorpe" in a list of donations from the Corvey monastery .
- ^ Monument Preservation & Cultural History: Hessian Monument Protection Prize 2015, page 43
literature
- Gerhard Neumann: Church and society in the county of Waldeck at the end of the Middle Ages. Waldeckische Forschungen, Scientific Series of the Waldeckisches Historisches Verein, vol. 11. Bad Arolsen 2001.
- Arnold Jesch: Festschrift on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the state hospital and the 850th anniversary of the monastery in the 1100 year old Flechtdorf. Korbach 1952.
- Aloys Schwersmann: The Flechtdorf Benedictine monastery in Waldeck (= sources and research on Hessian history 51). Verlag Hessische Historische Kommission, Darmstadt / Marburg 1984, ISBN 3-88443-139-0 .
- Wilhelm Dersch: The Flechtdorfer Chronicle of Prior Daniel from Heiligenstadt . In: Waldecker Chroniken 2 (1914), pp. 269–357.
- Jürgen Römer: Church and Monastery Flechtdorf (= DKV art guide No. 656). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-422-02195-2 .
Web links
- Lippedorf Boke: History: The Benedictine monastery
- Friends of Flechtdorf Monastery: History of Flechtdorf Monastery
- Princely Waldecksche Hofbibliothek Arolsen: Flechtdorf
Coordinates: 51 ° 19 ′ 35 ″ N , 8 ° 49 ′ 30 ″ E