Gerbstedt Monastery

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A bell tower now stands on the site of the former monastery.

The Gerbstedt Monastery was a submerged Benedictine monastery in today's town of Gerbstedt in the district of Mansfeld-Südharz in Saxony-Anhalt , Germany . The oldest monastery in the Mansfeld region was founded in 981 and existed for 600 years until it was secularized in 1574.

Location of the monastery and building

The monastery was located in the middle of Gerbstedt, immediately southeast of today's market square. The so-called Klostergerbstedt was separated from Altgerbstedt and Obergerbstedt by walls . The monastery area was on a plateau, which is limited in the south and northeast by two merging field hollows. The area housed a double-towered and three-aisled Romanesque basilica from the 10th century, which was dedicated to St. John the Baptist . Other buildings were u. a. a larger building with meeting rooms across the basilica and a residential building for the nuns .

history

The monastery was founded in 981 by the Margrave Rikdag as an Augustinian monastery on his own property. After he died shortly afterwards and the completion of the construction had not experienced more, his sister Eilswitt became the first abbess of Kanonissenstifts . In the decades that followed, the Counts of Wettin became the monastery 's guardians. At times they were buried in the monastery. The monastery existed until the 3rd quarter of the 11th century.

In 1118 the monastery was re- founded and reformed as a Benedictine monastery by the Margrave Conrad the Great . Later, the Count came from Mansfeld in the possession of the advocacies of the monastery. The foundation's certificate of confirmation from the second or third quarter of the 12th century states that the monastery has relics of the patron saint.

In the centuries that followed, the monastery gained a wealth of property in the surrounding villages of that time. This reached in the east across the Saale to Domnitz , where a monastery courtyard was owned.

Fate after the Reformation

After the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther when he posted his theses in 1517, the Gerbstedt Monastery was able to keep its traditions and property for a long time. During the peasant uprising of 1525 , the monastery was affected, but the nuns were able to return relatively easily. In 1561 the 40 nuns of the monastery were asked by Count Hans Georg and Peter Ernst von Mansfeld to set up a so-called honorable Christian breeding school . However, this and the monastery did not last long in the following years, as the monastery was secularized in 1574 . Parts of the monastery also housed a Catholic girls' school from 1540 to 1587.

After secularization, the monastery fell into disrepair and was gradually transformed by the current city. The nave of the monastery church collapsed in 1650, the south tower in 1805. The church was then torn down. Only individual structural elements have survived as spoilage : in the area of ​​the former monastery, a. a school building (Schulstrasse 7) with a walled-in Romanesque fighter with star and tendril decoration and a younger bell tower from 1827/1828, the substructure of which still comes from the Romanesque monastery. The nuns' house (Klosterplatz 12-16) also has Romanesque cellars.

The town church of Gerbstedt, which is also consecrated to St. Johannis Baptista today, not far from the old monastery grounds, is much younger than the monastery at that time and was originally consecrated to St. Stephen . Presumably the patronage of the monastery church passed on to them.

literature

  • Max Krühne: Document book of the monasteries of the County of Mansfeld , Halle 1888.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony Anhalt II. Administrative districts Dessau and Halle. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03065-4 .
  • Erich Neuss : walks through the county of Mansfeld. Part III: In the Heart of the County . Pp. 182–190, Fly Head Publishing, Halle 2001.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dehio, p. 202.
  2. ↑ Document book, p. 3: In the Annalista Saxo it says Hic Ricdagus cum sorore sua nomine Eilsuit construxit et fundavit cenobium, quod Gerbizstidi dicitur, ubi eadem soror illius sanctimonialibus prefuit.
  3. ^ Document book, p. 3: In the Annalista Saxo it says about the founders: Ibique sepultus est ipse cum filio suo Karolo et plutimis de eadem cognatione.
  4. ↑ a b c Dehio, p. 203.
  5. ^ Document book, p. 9: ... ecclesiam, que dicitur Gerbestede, pro honore sancti Johannis baptiste, cuius reliquie ibidem continentur .

Coordinates: 51 ° 37 ′ 51.4 "  N , 11 ° 37 ′ 44.7"  E