Heggbach Monastery
The imperial abbey of Heggbach was founded in the 13th century as a direct imperial nuns - abbey of the Cistercian order in what is today the municipality of Maselheim in Upper Swabia ( Baden-Württemberg ). The monastery was closed in 1803 in the course of secularization and has been part of the St. Elisabeth Foundation since 2000 .
history
middle Ages
The beginnings of the monastery are not certain. After chronikalischer tradition it came from an in Maselheim "noble of two Miss, Rosenberg and Laude Castle" established Begin Klause forth. The first documentary evidence dates from 1231, when the Bishop of Constance Konrad II von Tegerfelden transferred the parish church in Hecchibach , which previously belonged to the Salem Monastery, to the - unspecified - sisters : they were allowed to determine the pastor themselves and use the income of the church. This marked an important step in the endeavor to transform an informal association of pious women into an institution with rights and income. The driving force behind this development was the Salem abbot Eberhard von Rohrdorf , who in addition to Heggbach promoted five other women's monasteries and brought them to the Cistercian order . In 1234 the monastery was already a member of the order when Pope Gregory IX. granted all supporters of the new foundation ( novella plantatio ) a twenty-day indulgence. On this occasion, Master and Convention were explicitly mentioned for the first time. The founding phase was completed in 1248, when Pope Innocent IV issued the monastery a major letter of protection and privileges, formally incorporated it into the Cistercian order and guaranteed extensive independence from the diocesan bishop . The head of the convent was now officially designated as abbess .
The place Heggbach probably belonged to the monastery in its entirety as early as 1248 and was converted into a farm ( Grangie ). The monastery acquired further property through acquisitions and donations. Initially, the counts from Grüningen , Berg and Kirchberg appeared as donors ; later, in addition to the Biberach patrician family Gräter, two knight families in particular emerged from the surrounding area: the Lords of Freyberg and the Lords of Baustetten . Both built their family burial place in the Heggbach monastery. All anniversary foundations - there were so many that regular worship suffered as a result - were combined into a single anniversarium in 1476 with papal permission.
After 1300 a phase of consolidation followed. In order to round off the abbey territory, remote free float was sold. The debts, cited several times as a reason for sale, are probably due to the construction of the church and convent buildings; a fire may also play a role, the details of which are not known. In 1343 the bishop's deputy consecrated the large church (Abbey Church of St. George), to which the convent chapel of St. Agnes (consecrated in 1500) and the Freiberg chapel of St. Anna (consecrated in 1528) were added. The former parish church of St. Pankratius to the north of the abbey church was preserved and later served as a cemetery church.
Early modern age
The monastery survived the Peasants' War without major damage. In a complaint filed in February 1525, the subjects demanded, among other things, the abolition of serfdom , the compulsory labor and the small tithe . Its leader, Ulrich Schmid from Sulmingen, who is keen on moderation , is credited with the fact that the farmers of the Baltringer Haufen carried away the food supplies from the monastery, but did not vent their displeasure in the form of violence or arson. In 1531 the city of Biberach, which had joined the Reformation , tried to introduce the new doctrine in Burgrieden, where the city held authority, but Heggbach monastery held the church authority . In the Schmalkaldic War , this conflict escalated: Biberach occupied the monastery, so that from August to December 1546, no Catholic mass was possible. After the Schmalkaldic Confederation was broken up, the city officially renounced its claims to castle graves in 1548. During the Thirty Years' War in 1632, the abbess and the convent had to hide from the advancing Swedish troops. Some nuns remained in exile until 1649. After their return they found buildings and fields in neglect, but the substance was intact. After the damage was repaired, the church was rededicated in 1656. From 1687 to 1716 the buildings were redesigned in the Baroque style .
Secularization and today's usage
In 1803 the monastery belonged to the compensation fund of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss . The main part of the monastery area was awarded to Rudolf Waldbott von Bassenheim for the count's house Waldbott von Bassenheim , the places Mietingen and Sulmingen fell to the Counts of Plettenberg-Mietingen . Both lords were mediatized in 1806 in favor of Württemberg . After the monastery was closed, the nuns received a pension and lifelong right of residence. The last woman of the convent died in 1846.
Count Hugo Waldbott sold the buildings and the remaining lands to Prince Franz von Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee in 1875 . He founded the monastery in 1884 for the Sisters of Charity from Reute , who set up an institution for epileptics, the feeble-minded and the incurable . The facility continues to exist as Heggbach facilities to the present . The core facilities are still preserved today, but have been adapted to the various uses, especially through new buildings. The church and east wing burned down in a fire in 1893.
A Madonna survived this fire in the monastery, the origin of which probably dates back to around 1470. The work of art is attributed to the Ulm School ; The circle of Hans Multscher , the master of the Tiefenbronn Altar, but also Jörg Syrlin the Elder are mentioned .
Legal status
Like Salem itself, his daughter monastery was under the protection and umbrella of the Reich in the late Staufer period and was able to maintain imperial immediacy even after the end of the Hohenstaufen. 1481 transferred Emperor Friedrich III. the imperial city of Biberach formally the umbrella bailiff over Heggbach, which has been exercised since ancient times . A visible expression of imperial freedom was the inclusion of Heggbach in the imperial register of 1521. The monastery had a seat and vote on imperial and district assemblies. On the prelate bank of the Swabian District , Heggbach had his place between Gengenbach and Gutenzell. In 1576, Emperor Rudolf II granted the monastery exemption from foreign courts.
In spiritual matters Heggbach was under the paternity of the Salem monastery. The Salem abbot represented the monastery in the committees of the order, carried out regular visitations, supervised the election of the abbess and sent one of his confreres to Heggbach as a confessor. In the 18th century there was a rift between Salem and the daughter monasteries, so that Abbot Anselm II. Schwab canceled his paternity in 1752. Until an amicable settlement was reached in 1765, Heggbach was subordinate to the Abbot of Kaisheim .
territory
Ownership history
The monastery was initially poorly equipped and in 1248 only owned the town of Heggbach, located northeast of Maselheim on a ridge. Since no believers were assigned to the local parish in 1231, it was probably a desert . Until 1269, the abbey gradually acquired the entire property in Maselheim, which also included the lower court and church law. Almost all of Sulmingen was added between 1275 and 1307 , whereby in 1290, with a larger property complex, the judicial rights were also transferred to the monastery.
In 1396 three brothers from Freyberg sold the tithe in Baltringen to the monastery. A donation from the Freyberg family brought the church set in Burgrieden in 1420 . In 1442 Heggbach acquired the villages of Mietingen and Wennedach from Konrad von Freyberg . In order to finance the purchase sum of 11,720 guilders , the monastery had to part with free float, for example from the tithe in Großschafhausen and Orsenhausen , which it had acquired in 1401–1404. Differences of opinion with Buchau Abbey because of its serfs, the so-called Kornelier people, in Mietingen could only be contractually settled in 1569.
The monastery bought two thirds of Baustetten in 1491 and 1503, the first part around 1920 gulden from Hans Schad, the second for 1307 gulden from the lords of Essendorf zu Ellmannsweiler. (The remaining third belonged to the Neidhart family in Ulm and came to the Biberach alms care in 1584.)
The abbey territory had thus assumed its final form. It included the villages of Maselheim, Mietingen, Sulmingen, Wennedach, two thirds of Baustetten and the Höfe zum Stein founded in 1456. In the course of time, the monastery separated from a large part of the other goods - which were not linked to sovereign rights. The last major transaction dates from 1578, when the sale of the six farms and eight Selden at Laupheim brought in 10,000 guilders. In addition to income in Baltringen, Bronnen and Burgrieden, the monastery kept its vineyards in the Lake Constance area until secularization, which were concentrated in Markdorf and were jointly owned by Heggbach and the neighboring Gutenzell monastery until 1504 .
In 1802 the territory covered almost 50 square kilometers, on which about 2000 subjects lived. The annual income was estimated at 12,000 guilders.
jurisdiction
In 1429 King Sigismund gave the abbess her own court in her monastery courtyard. Up to this point, Salem exercised lower jurisdiction on behalf of Heggbach. Blood jurisdiction was explicitly excluded from the privilege , which the Landvogtei Swabia was still entitled to. With the acquisition of Mietingen the situation became more complicated, because Konrad von Freyberg had already had the blood spell and Heggbach Monastery was now claiming it for itself. The resulting dispute with the bailiwick was only decided in 1491 in favor of the monastery. 1606 transferred Archduke Maximilian III. the high and Malefic authorities over the entire Heggbach monastery area to the Salem monastery; The executive body was the Salemer Pflege Schemmerberg. Disagreements about the demarcation between higher and lower jurisdiction - Heggbach continued to perceive the latter himself - led Heggbach and Gutenzell, who was confronted with the same problem, to take legal action against their father's monastery in 1741. The trial was first conducted in front of the Lehenhof in Freiburg in front of Austria, then before the Imperial Court of Justice. Finally, the parties agreed on a compromise in 1764: Salem remained responsible for the four cases (manslaughter, rape, arson, aggravated theft) and some other individually designated offenses. In particular, Heggbach was not allowed to impose any death sentences.
Village courts in Heggbach (also responsible for Maselheim and Sulmingen), Mietingen (including Wennedach) and Baustetten have been documented since 1518. Because of the Baustetter court, the monastery concluded a contract with the town of Biberach in 1598: depending on the ownership shares, the monastery held the chair for two years and the town for one year. Since 1637 the Heggbach court was also responsible for Mietingen. The court of appeal in the 18th century was the Altdorf district court , and the appeal went to the Innsbruck court.
Convention and business enterprise
Apart from a phase during and immediately after the Thirty Years' War, around 25 to 30 nuns and 10 to 12 lay sisters lived in Heggbach Abbey . The proportion of nuns from noble and patrician families was around a third before 1500, and around a fifth from 1500 to 1630. After that the bourgeois and peasant daughters were largely among themselves; they came mainly from Upper Swabia. An abbess has been at the head of the convent since 1248 , who was elected for life from 1416. A prioress and a subprioress stood by her side. In order to organize the secular aspects of monastic life, a number of offices were filled, including conductress, sexton and nurse. The highest administrative officer of the monastery had held the title of court master since 1429, and later he was also referred to as senior bailiff.
The areas around the monastery were farmed as a proprietary business. Around 1800 the building yard included around 250 Jauchert fields, 100 daytime meadows, 60 Jauchert gardens, a small vineyard and 3000 Jauchert forests. Most of the buildings stood within the outer monastery wall in the immediate vicinity of the enclosure . There were bakeries, breweries and blacksmiths at handicraft businesses; The brickworks and mill with sawmill were apart.
List of Abbesses
The exact terms of office are not known until the middle of the 15th century. In these cases, the years of the documentary evidence are listed. If the year of death is explicitly stated, the term of office ended when the abbess resigned.
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Wirtemberg document book . Volume IV, No. N115. Stuttgart 1883, p. 412 f. ( Digitized version , online edition )
- ↑ Wirtemberg document book . Volume IV, No. N121. Stuttgart 1883, p. 416 f. ( Digitized version , online edition )
- ↑ Wirtemberg document book . Volume IV, No.N157. Stuttgart 1883, p. 455 f. ( Digitized version , online edition )
- ↑ Georg Dehio , Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, part of the volume Baden-Württemberg, edited by Friedrich Piel , Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich 1964, p. 187
- ↑ A thesis by Wolfgang Deutsch from 1977 reads that Syrlin the Elder is identical to the anonymous master of the Heggbach Madonna, see below. a. in the magazine sehepunkte 2003/3 on www.sehepunkte.de/2003/03/druckfassung/1275.html, accessed on August 3, 2014
- ↑ Main State Archives Stuttgart, B 456 U 266
- ^ Seating order of the Swabian district. In the 18th century Neresheim was inserted between Gengenbach and Heggbach.
- ↑ Regesta Imperii XI 2 n.7242
- ↑ Main State Archives Stuttgart, B 456 U 423
- ↑ Der Landkreis Biberach , Volume II, ISBN 3-7995-6186-2 , p. 369f.
literature
- Otto Beck: The Imperial Abbey of Heggbach . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1980, ISBN 3-7995-4028-8 .
- Ludwig Haas (Ed.): 750 years of Heggbach Monastery 1231–1981. Sigmaringen 1981, ISBN 3-7995-4037-7 .
- Detlev Naeve: History of the Heggbach nursing home and the Ingerkingen children's asylum during National Socialism. 1933-1945 . Gata, Eitorf 2000, ISBN 3-932174-75-5 . (At the same time dissertation, University of Tübingen 1998)
- Josef Anton Giefel (Ed.): Regesta Heggbacensia . In: Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte , 3 (1880), pp. 201–223.
- Landesarchivdirektion Baden-Württemberg (ed.): The district of Biberach . Volume II. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1990, ISBN 3-7995-6186-2 , p. 364ff.
Web links
- Cistercian abbey of Heggbach in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
- Holdings B 456 of the main state archive in Stuttgart : documents and files of the Reichsabtei Heggbach
- St. Elisabeth Foundation - Heggbacher Wohnverbund
Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 59 ″ N , 9 ° 53 ′ 45 ″ E