Marienstein Monastery

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Former monastery church (today a branch church of St. Anna) with the priory building
West side of the former monastery complex

The Marienstein Monastery is a former monastery of the Augustinian Choir Women in the Marienstein district of the city of Eichstätt in Bavaria in the diocese of Eichstätt .

history

The Marienstein Monastery after the reconstruction. Copper engraving by Joh. Frank around 1680
Part of the western long tract
Eastern wall move

The monastery was founded around 1460 after the Windesheim reform by the Eichstätter Prince-Bishop Johann III. von Eych for six young middle-class women who wanted to lead a spiritual life together. Under Walburga Eichhorn, an Eichstatt dyer's daughter, they initially lived in the city under the leadership of the Dominicans , then moved west of Eichstätt to the hamlet of "staingrub", first mentioned in 1216, from which, taking into account the patroness of their community life, the Blessed Mother Mary Designation "Maria-stain" (today: Marienstein district of Eichstätt) developed. In 1469, Bishop Wilhelm von Reichenau confirmed an "oratorium et domus sub vocabulo Mariestein", ie a chapel and a house for the sisters under the name Mariestein. Construction of the monastery began in 1470 and was consecrated a year later. In the same year the monastery sold its original house in the Webergasse in Eichstätt. The convent, now under the care of the neighboring Augustinian canons of Rebdorf , adopted the rule of St. Augustine and the white costume . After the prince-bishop had been granted statutes, Walburga Eichhorn became the first prioress of the monastery in 1471.

The monastery was able to develop calmly at first and was considered economically healthy towards the end of the 16th century. An average of 40 women lived in the monastery, around 20 of them as choirs, 12 as working sisters, the rest as novices or pupils. There was definitely an ascetic and literary heyday when the peasants' war and the Reformation brought unrest to the monastery. Several times the monastery took on women's convents that were expelled for religious reasons, so u. a. the prioress Charitas Langenmantel 1544 the Benedictine nuns expelled by Count Palatine Ottheinrich from the monastery of Bergen near Neuburg an der Donau . Charitas Langenmantel was the sister of the Freising Canon Christoph Langenmantel (1488–1538), who helped Luther escape in Augsburg in 1518 . In 1546 the Convent Marienstein itself had to take refuge for a time in the episcopal city with the Benedictine nuns of St. Walburg .

The Thirty Years War brought the worst test ; on February 7, 1634, the Swedish troops looted and pillaged the church and monastery. At this point in time the prioress was Klara Staiger (also: Clara Staiger; maiden name: Katharina Staiger), who kept a diary from 1631 to 1650 and with it created an important regional and contemporary historical source from today's perspective. The nuns were able to flee to nearby Willibaldsburg in good time , from where they had to watch the decline of their monastery. Then they found refuge again in St. Walburg, until the city was captured by the Swedes and largely destroyed.

The reconstruction began under Klara Staiger, but was only completed under Clara's successor Agnes Sartor in 1669 under Prince-Bishop Marquard II. Count Schenk von Castell . His mother Katharina was a great benefactress of the monastery. The priory house had been rebuilt as early as 1635.

In the course of secularization , the monastery was secularized in 1806 and dissolved in 1832. In 1833 the monastery church "Maria Heimsuchung" was closed and cleared. From the furnishings, the high altar came to the church in Großnottersdorf near Titting , a side altar painting to St. Salvator in Bettbrunn , a figure of Mary from the early 16th century to Eberswang and a monstrance to Möckenlohe near Eichstätt. In 1835 the relics of St. Cölestin transferred to the Dominican monastery church of St. Peter in Eichstätt . In 1836 the last sisters left. In 1838 the abandoned monastery was sold to private individuals who largely demolished it.

In 1842 the profaned monastery church was reopened as a branch church of St. Anna of the Eichstätter parish of St. Walburg for church services in the Marienstein community, renovated in 1843 and rededicated. The priory building with stucco, ceiling fresco “Maria Hilf” (around 1720) and coffered ceilings was renovated in 2002. Despite the demolitions, the former monastery complex is still clearly recognizable as a closed assembly with a gate and farm buildings.

literature

  • Theodor Neuhofer: Marienstein - Augustinian convent founded in the Middle Ages , in: Historische Blätter für Stadt und Landkreis Eichstätt 1 (1952), No. 3, p. 10 f.
  • K [arl] Ried: Marienstein Monastery . In: Heimgarten 24 (1953), No. 42, pp. [1] f., No. 43, pp. [2] f.
  • Ida Wallner: Clara Staiger. A picture of life and culture from the 30 Years War . CC Buchners Verlag KG, Bamberg 1957
  • The Eichstätter area past and present. Stadt- und Kreissparkasse, Eichstätt 1973, pp. 223-225, 2nd extended edition 1984, pp. 241 f.
  • Ortrun Fina (arrangement): The Mariasteiner Anniversar Book of the Dead - Book of Life. List of commemorative days in the former Augustinian convent in Mariastein near Eichstätt / Bay. , Pustet, Regensburg 1987, ISBN 3-7917-1111-3
  • Ortrun Fina (Ed.): Klara Staiger's diary. Records made during the Thirty Years' War in Mariastein Abbey near Eichstätt . Pustet, Regensburg 1981, ISBN 3-7917-0721-3
  • Alexander Rauch: City of Eichstätt . Monuments in Bavaria, Volume I.9 / 1, Munich and Zurich 1989, pp. 188–191, ISBN 3-7954-1004-5
  • Treasures of architecture in old walls. Over 300 visitors wanted to see priory buildings. In: Eichstätter Kurier of June 17, 2005, p. 27
  • Wolf D. Pecher: The nun and the general. Clara Staiger rebuilt her monastery, which was destroyed in the Swedish War. In: Der Sonntag (weekend supplement by Donaukurier Ingolstadt) No. 11, 18./19. March 2006
  • Bernhard Sepp: Clara Staiger's diary. In: Collective sheet of the Historical Association Eichstätt , 2 (1887), pp. 72–74
  • Marienstein . In: Matthäus Merian, Martin Zeiller : Topographia Franconiae / Topographia Germaniae , Merian, Frankfurt am Main 1648, p. 59.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antonius Reith: Eichstätt. City and Altlandkreis. (Historical book of place names of Bavaria, 8). Munich: Commission for Bavarian State History, 2017, p. 137
  2. ^ Reith, p. 137
  3. ^ Friedrich Kaess: Bergen monastery near Neuburg on the Danube and its frescos by Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner , Konrad Verlag, 1981, p. 21, ISBN 3874371832 ; (Detail scan)
  4. ↑ Joseph Deutsch : Kilian Leib, Prior von Rebdorf: a picture of life from the age of the German Reformation , in: Reformation History Studies and Texts , Issue 15/16, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1910, p. 96; (Detail scan)
  5. ↑ The Eichstätter Room, p. 241

Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 34.9 "  N , 11 ° 9 ′ 46.8"  E