Germerode Monastery
The monastery Germerode is a former Premonstratensian - Choir woman pin in the district Germerode the community Meissner in Werra-Meissner in Northern Hesse at the foot of the High Meissner , 13 km from Eschwege removed. With its Romanesque monastery church from the 12th century, which follows the model of the Lippoldsberg monastery church , it is considered an important example of late Romanesque religious architecture in the vicinity.
history
Created as the house monastery of the Counts of Bilstein , Monastery of Germerode was founded in 1144/45 by Count Rugger II. Von Bilstein as a regulated dual monastery for canons and choir women from the lower nobility and transferred to the newly created Premonstratensian order. The church was built 1150–1170 during the reign of Count Otto I von Bilstein. The double monastery existed for about 100 years; thereafter Germerode was continued as a pure nunnery.
The refectory was completed around 1220 and contained administration and dining rooms on the ground floor and the nuns' dormitory on the upper floor. There was a direct connection from the dormitory to the church, through which one could go to night prayer. Apart from the refectory and the church, no other monastery buildings have survived today.
The heyday of the monastery reached its peak around 1350. After that, a gradual decline began: the monastery was forced to sell land and the strict monastic discipline also died down. With the introduction of the Reformation in Hesse by Landgrave Philipp , the monastery was dissolved in 1527 and converted into a landgrave bailiwick. The last prioress was Mechtilde von Keudell . With the exception of the church, all monastery buildings were used for agricultural purposes. In 1930 the estate was dissolved and the land was sold to farmers.
Today the "Society for the Preservation of the Germerode Monastery Complex eV" operates the conference facility of the Germerode Monastery in the former domain tenant house (gatehouse), and the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck maintains a parish office for "Meditation and Spiritual Life" in the former Germerode Monastery.
church
The Church of St. Maria and Walpurga is a three-aisled, arched Romanesque pillar basilica with alternating pillars in four bays, without a transept, with a three-aisled high choir and an underlying hall crypt in four aisles . The choir is closed by three semicircular apses. The nave is spanned by groin vaults, which are separated by wide belt arches by yoke. Since the church was originally intended for canons and women choirs, there were separate church rooms. The nave and choir square were reserved for the canons, while the nuns' gallery in the two-storey westwork of the church was provided, which was shielded from the church by an arcade parapet. The ground floor hall (also known as the west crypt or nuns' crypt) is located under the gallery with four pairs of columns. The actual crypt under the choir, formerly the burial chapel of the Bilstein counts, has four aisles.
After the dissolution of the monastery, the monastery church became the Protestant parish church of Germerode. Due to dilapidation, the northern aisle was completely demolished in 1533, the southern half demolished in half. The main entrance was moved to the south, and after 1600 the baroque carved galleries were added.
The baroque organ, created by organ builder Altstetter from Mühlhausen in 1700, with its seven-part prospectus and richly carved veils and wings originally stood in the choir room.
literature
- Johannes Schilling (ed.): Monastery Germerode. History Building History Present (= Monographia Hassiae. Vol. 16). Verlag Evangelischer Medienverband, Kassel 1994, ISBN 3-89477-969-1 .
- Julius Schmincke: Document book of the Germerode monastery (= journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Supplement. NF Bd. 1, No. 1, ZDB -ID 200295-4 ). Freyschmidt, Kassel 1866 digitized .
- W. Thalmann: The monastery church Germerode in the administrative region of Kassel. In: Die Denkmalpflege , Volume 11, No. 15 (November 24, 1909), pp. 120–123.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 37 " N , 9 ° 54 ′ 8.6" E