Monastery courtyard

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In Hof (Saale) existed between the end of the 13th century and the Reformation period, the Franciscan monastery Hof (a male monastery of the Franciscans ) and the Poor Clare monastery (a female monastery of the Poor Clares ). The monasteries were directly next to each other below the former castle in the west of the area surrounded by the city wall. Today the Jean-Paul-Gymnasium and the Diakonisches Werk are located there .

The Franciscan Monastery

West view of the former Franciscan monastery in Hof
East view of the former Franciscan monastery in Hof

The foundation letter of the Hof Franciscan monastery has not survived; Its first mention can be found in a document from Archbishop Erich von Magdeburg dated May 13, 1292, with which the monastery was allowed to sell letters of indulgence for self-financing . Similar letters of indulgence appeared frequently in the following years. As early as June 11, 1292, a separate monastery church "Zum Heiligen Kreuz" was named on the south side of the complex. It was considerably rebuilt and expanded in the style of a mendicant order church between 1351 and 1376 and received a high choir in Gothic style, an organ and a cloister around the inner courtyard, which separated it from the other monastery buildings. The church was one of the first churches in Franconia with an organ. On September 7th, 1376 she was consecrated again to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Cross. The monastery belonged to the Saxon Franciscan Province (Saxonia), which held a provincial chapter in the monastery Hof in 1376 and then again in 1419 ; the monastery must therefore have been large enough to accommodate many guests at the time.

In the early years, the Franciscans were exposed to hostility from the local clergy, who feared competition for financial contributions from the population. She fought particularly fiercely against Pastor Johannes von Schaphstete, who disrupted their services , insulted them as a heretic , did not recognize the confession they had made and refused to give a man who wanted to be buried in the monastery the sacraments of the death . The monastery filed a lawsuit against him with the Naumburg bishop Heinrich I von Grünberg , who was commissioned by the papal to protect the rights of the Franciscans in Germany. On June 16, 1322, they received unrestricted permission to do free pastoral work. Johannes von Schaphstete was suspended from his office.

The Hussite invasion of Hof on January 25, 1430, when the entire monastery was burned down, marked a sudden cut in monastery life . However, the religious fled in good time with the most important parts of the monastery treasure to the neighboring monastery in Eger , about 50 kilometers away . But they must have returned soon, because in October 1432 the Bamberg Bishop Anton von Rotenhan allowed them to collect alms for the reconstruction of the monastery even in Markneukirchen in Saxony and in Schönbach in Bohemia . They also received numerous foundations from Hofer's citizens and aristocrats from the area, some of which also acquired graves in the monastery church. Such foundations mostly consisted of one-off donations from kind , money or property, but that prevented order of the possessions in their monastic rule not Hofer Franciscans, the transfer of land ownership to accept or permanent claims on income from the proceeds of certain goods. In the monastery, lessons were also given as home studies as part of the training for the next generation of the order ( studium custodiale , studium particulare ), which at that time was considered almost equal to university studies . Lecturers imparted knowledge of the liberal arts and the basics of theology, as they were necessary for pastoral care and preaching. Even at the time of secularization , the monastery library comprised 466 volumes and a herbarium .

In the 15th century, the monastery in Hof, like the neighboring convents in Coburg and Saalfeld , adopted the Martinian Constitutions and thus pursued a moderate interpretation of the Franciscan vow of poverty .

The Reformation led to the decline of the monastery relatively quickly. Especially after Kaspar Löner , who was the first to proclaim the new doctrine in Hof, took over the task of the weekly sermon in the monastery church, numerous Franciscans left the order and some of them became Protestant preachers. Possibly as early as 1529, but no later than 1542, the monastery was finally abolished. On February 26, 1543, Margrave Albrecht von Brandenburg donated the area to the city council for the establishment of a Latin school ; the forerunner of the Jean-Paul-Gymnasium was built , with the teacher's apartments in the west wing and the classrooms in the western part of the north wing. However, both had to give way to the construction of a gym in 1867. The new main building of the high school occupies the area of ​​the former city wall.

Monastery church from the east, 19th century

The church was also used as a Protestant preaching church . For this purpose it was turned inside out; previously was the input for Religious in the West on the city wall side, to the east of the city to himself choir and found sanctuary . After the redesign, it was consecrated as Trinity Church in 1545. It was later damaged several times, mainly by war events, and renovated again, most recently between 1755 and 1757. After Hof became Prussian in 1792 , it lost its original purpose, was profaned in 1802 and then served alternately as a parade hall, military magazine, barn and warehouse for the toll office. In 1821 the city theater was set up in the former choir room ; the street where the entrance was located is still called Theaterstrasse. The remaining part served as a riding arena and warehouse for fair booths . Several requests from the growing Catholic community for the church to be used as a place of worship were rejected on the grounds that the theater had nowhere to move. When a new theater was built on Schützenstrasse in 1883, the Catholics had already built their own St. Mary's Church at the end of the old town and no one wanted the monastery church anymore. In 1902 it was canceled; an extension of the Neustadt elementary school was built in its place . In the Museum Bayerisches Vogtland a model of the church can be visited.

  • Demolition of the monastery church in 1902

  • Lithograph by Georg Könitzer around 1850

Of the originally closed monastery complex with residential buildings, church, mulz and brewery, the east and half of the north wing (Neustädter Schule), which has been increased by a third floor since 1854, and the summer house, in the art and music hall of the Jean-Paul-Gymnasium are housed.

The Poor Clare Monastery

Part of the former Poor Clare Monastery in Hof
Border of the two monasteries

The Clariss Monastery in Hof was probably first founded in 1287; the earliest mention of it dates from January 18, 1291. It was located south of the Franciscan monastery between this and Hof Palace. The starting point for the establishment was the Poor Clare Monastery in Eger . The Poor Clare Monastery must then have come to a standstill, because on July 7th 1348 it was re-established by a foundation of Gertrud von Uttenhofen and from 1350 its own church was built. From the beginning, many of the nuns were of noble descent and their families furnished the monastery with rich property , which was repeatedly expanded with purchases by the abbesses . For the order of abbesses, see the list of abbesses of Hof . In 1375 Burgrave Friedrich V of Nuremberg gave his daughters Anna, Katharina and Agnes to the Hof monastery. The then nine-year-old Katharina had already been engaged to the future Emperor Sigismund for seven years , but the engagement had been lifted again. From about 1390 Katharina was abbess of the monastery; after her death on November 19, 1409, her sister Agnes, who was four years younger than her, succeeded her. The Hussites devastated the monastery in 1430 as did that of the Franciscans; However, the nuns had already brought themselves to Eger in 1425. The blow from which it could not really recover was a fire in 1477, said to have been started by a nun who had hoped to escape from the general confusion with her lover. At that time Margareta von Brandenburg , born on April 18, 1453, was the abbess of Elector Albrecht Achilles . She wrote a land register with the ownership structure of the monastery, which was completed and supplemented by her two successors.

The Poor Clare monastery survived the Reformation for some time longer than that of the Franciscans; a new administrator's house was built in 1548. With the death of the last abbess Amalie von Hirschberg on May 23, 1564, however, it also came into the possession of the sovereign, Margrave Georg Friedrich von Brandenburg . Until 1574 it housed a girls' school. In the years that followed, it fell into increasing devastation. In 1657 the access to the church, which had no roof any more, had to be closed by a wall, in 1743 the tower was put down. Today there are no more remains. The other buildings served as a grain store, the north and west wings were salt stores from 1810. From 1858 to 1973 the city's prison was located in the former monastery . The east and south wings are the only remaining parts of the original monastery complex and house the administration of the Diakonisches Werk and a café. In the east wing, upon request, the roof structure erected during the reconstruction after the Hussite storm in 1444/45 can be viewed, the largest suspended beam construction in Upper Franconia . Opposite was the new building of a retirement and nursing home . This creates a closed inner courtyard again , which is used for various events.

literature

Web links

Commons : Kloster Hof  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ludger Stühlmeyer : Curia sonans. The music history of the city of Hof. Heinrichs-Verlag Bamberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89889-155-4 , p. 182.
  2. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 125.149.
  3. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 249.
  4. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 291.

Coordinates: 50 ° 19 ′ 16.7 ″  N , 11 ° 54 ′ 54 ″  E