Gehrden Monastery

Monastery church of St. Peter and Paul

The Gehrden monastery is a former Benedictine abbey in Brakel-Gehrden in the Höxter district in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia . The former monastery church has the largest historical bell ringing in Westphalia.

Foundation and first heyday

The founding history of the monastery is obscured by later forgery, especially the alleged founding document from 1138. It was actually founded in 1142 by the Paderborn Bishop Bernhard I von Oesede , who relocated the Benedictine convent of St. Maria von der Iburg near Bad Driburg to Gehrden. The nobleman Heinrich von Gehrden made his entire estate in Gehrden and in neighboring Siddessen available for the foundation of the monastery . The monastery subsequently gained ownership and influence through the entry of numerous members of the regional nobility. In 1173 a large donation of land was made to the monastery by Werner von Brach and his wife Beatrix, who led the monastery as prioress around 1200.

Immediately after the monastery had moved to its current location, the new monastery church , a vaulted transept basilica based on the model of the Lippoldsberg abbey church consecrated in 1151, was built; the mighty west tower followed in the early 13th century. The door with rich iron fittings in the north portal of the church dates from around 1200.

A daughter monastery was founded in Dalhausen in 1305 under Abbess Ida von Bonnichhusen . In 1319 the settlement north of the monastery received city rights. In 1474 the convent joined the late medieval reform movement of the Bursfeld congregation .

secularization

In the course of secularization , the Benedictine nuns left the monastery in 1810, which was expanded into a secular palace with a baroque park. At the time of its dissolution there were still eleven choir sisters and four lay sisters in the monastery. Count Bocholtz-Asseburg zu Niesen , Jérôme Bonaparte's master of ceremonies , converted the convent building into a castle and had parts demolished. The building then changed hands several times and was owned by the Archdiocese of Paderborn from 1965.

Todays use

Since the mid-1960s, the family education center in the Archdiocese of Paderborn used the property as an educational facility. Today, after alterations and renovations in 2007/2008, there is a hotel in the monastery.

The twelve apostle linden tree can be found in the garden . According to various estimates, the age of the linden tree is given as 400 to 800 years. The circumference of the trunk is about 10 meters at a height of 20 meters.

Tower clock

A historical clockwork of the monastery church became the centerpiece of the work of art presented on November 9, 1989 in Berlin by the jeweler Jens Lorenz with the inscription "Time blows up all walls". "It almost looks as if what I am revealing to you today will be overtaken by contemporary events," Lorenz concluded his speech in front of 250 invited guests. The same evening the Berlin Wall fell.

Abbesses

Lutgardis n.d. (only in the necrology)
Beatrix 1200 or shortly afterwards (widow of Werner de Brach)
Wigmodis 1227
Jutta 1245
Jutta von Badenstene 1245 (magistra)
M. 1252
Alheidis de Schöneberg 1260/1268
B. 1284
Woldradis 1297
Ida von Bonnichhusen 1305
Gisle von Luthardessen 1420
Elisabeth (?) Nagel before 1464/1474
Gertrud von Bunstrup (Dumstorp) 1464 / 1474–1489
Alveradis (de) Beghe (n) 1490/1529
Anna van der Borch 1529–1574
Dorothea von Offen 1574–1603
Angela von Oeynhausen 1603–1634
(Sedi vacancy 1635–1636)
Ida von Bönninghausen 1636–1657
Sophia Agnes de Wylstrop (Wilstorph) called Cölbe 1657–1678
Clara Luberta von Westphalen 1678
Anna Catharina von Oeynhausen 1679–1693
Margaretha Josina Ursula von Schorlemer 1696–1705
Johanna Wilhelma Elisabeth von Haxthausen 1705–1711
Maria Anna Catharina de Groten and Groote 1711–1716
Victoria Dorothea von Juden 1716–1741
Henrietta Scholastica von Canstein 1741–1773
Maria Victoria of Jews 1773–1798
Maria Victoria (von) Burchard 1798–1810.

literature

Alfred Bruns: Gehrden. In: Karl Hengst (Hrsg.): Westfälisches Klosterbuch. Part 1: Ahlen - Mülheim. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-06886-9 , pp. 327-332 ( sources and research on church and religious history 2, publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia 44).
Herbert Dohmann : Gehrden monastery church. Published by the Catholic Parish of St. Peter and Paul . Bonifatius, Paderborn 2001.
Ignaz Theodor Liborius Meyer : Monastery and town of Gehrden . In: Wigand's archive for history and antiquity Westphalia , 4th vol. (1831), 1st issue, pp. 67-101 ( digitized version )
Thomas Sterba: Herder's New Monastery Lexicon. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-451-30500-9 , p. 222.

Individual evidence

↑ Klemens Honselmann : Studies on documents from the Gehrden monastery from the 12th century . In: Westfälische Zeitschrift 120, 1970, pp. 297-312.

↑ schloss-gehrden.de. History ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ http://www.stadt-im-ohr.de/touren/friedenau/blog-inhalt/zeit-sprengt-alle-mauern/

Web links

51.654008 9.119575Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 14.4 " N , 9 ° 7 ′ 10.5" E

[1] Klemens Honselmann : Studies on documents from the Gehrden monastery from the 12th century . In: Westfälische Zeitschrift 120, 1970, pp. 297-312.