Marienthal Monastery (Palatinate)
Marienthal is a submerged Premonstratensian monastery, which was in the area of today's place Marienthal (Palatinate) , Donnersbergkreis , Rhineland-Palatinate . The current Protestant parish church of the village stands on the site of the old monastery church and has many historical components from it.
History of the monastery
The establishment of the Marienthal Monastery on the northern slope of the Donnersberg is closely related to the settlement of the nearby Münsterdreisen Monastery by Premonstratensian choristers.
Duke Friedrich II of Swabia walked Münsterdreisen in 1144 with the help of his relative Count Ludwig III. von Arnstein, to a Premonstratensian monastery . The latter occupied it with canons from his Arnstein monastery . Count Ludwig III, who became a religious and was later venerated as blessed . von Arnstein first renewed the Münsterdreisen convent and then transplanted the Premonstratensian sisters he founded in the Bethlenrode monastery near Kirdorf to the Palatinate, where they initially settled in Stetten for a short time . Around 1146 a monastery was built for them in Marienthal - at that time called " valle sancte Marie " - which was legally subordinate to Münsterdreisen. Münsterdreisen set up a provost there for the administration of the sacraments and the celebration of divine service, as well as for regulating the external affairs of the convent . The Premonstratensian Monastery of Enkenbach was founded in Marienthal in 1148 .
Not much has been documented about the Marienthal Monastery and its work. The holdings of the British Library in London contain a manuscript from around 1150 from the Münsterdreisen monastery. It is a volume of the Etymologiae of Bishop Isidore of Seville , with a contemporary note that it was copied by 8 nuns named there for the “Lords of Münsterdreisen”. The book is therefore likely to have been made in the Münsterdreisen subsidiary monasteries of Marienthal or Enkenbach, where scriptoria evidently existed. Since it is copied in almost perfect Latin, the sisters seem to have had a high level of education.
On December 5, 1523, the last abbot and conventual of Münsterdreisen, Johann Bicker, handed over his convent to the Lorsch monastery , from where the property was administered by a provost. This also included the supervision of the Marienthal monastery. During the Peasants' War in 1525 Münsterdreisen was looted and destroyed; Marienthal was apparently spared, as its monastery church had been completely preserved until the 19th century. On May 16, 1541, Provost Jakob Zentner, appointed by Lorsch, exchanged the Münsterdreisen Abbey, including the Marienthal Abbey and the parish church there, as well as all associated rights and inclines, with the Palatinate for other properties.
As part of the Pope Julius III. Approved dissolution of the Münsterdreisen monastery, the representatives of the Electorate of the Palatinate took possession of it and profaned it on Wednesday, September 6, 1553. On Thursday, September 7th, 1553, they went to nearby Marienthal and did the same in front of the high altar of the church there. After disputes, the Electoral Palatinate left Marienthal to the Lords of Daun-Falkenstein as a fiefdom, who introduced the Reformation there. They were buried in the Marienthal church.
The exact time of the monastery extinction is unknown, as is the year of the foundation. From 1385 onwards, the Marienthal Monastery no longer had any documents of its own; when it was transferred to the Electoral Palatinate in 1541, it was already "passed away" and the monastery church was referred to as the "parish church" .
The monastery church
Marienthal owned a single-nave, Gothic monastery church consecrated to St. Maria, which was built around 1275. There is no concrete documentary evidence of the time of construction, but a high level of debt in 1277 suggests expensive construction work and the early Gothic spoils still preserved today also point to this time. Alterations may have been made later, as the historian Franz Xaver Remling describes a stone in the choir at the beginning of the 19th century with the year 1478, which can no longer be found. Perhaps Remling just misread the number, as he himself stated that it was "carved out in his own digits that are not legible to everyone" .
The local historians from the Palatinate, Franz Xaver Remling (1803–1873) and Georg Friedrich Blaul (1809–1863), saw the old Marienthal church around 1835 themselves. Blaul describes them in his book "Dreams and Foams from the Rhine" , 1838:
“ It is one of the smaller monastery churches in the Gothic style. Pure proportions, slim, delicate and yet extremely simple forms characterize this really nice building with its three-sided choir. The 13 windows have beautifully crafted ribs, divided into two or three length fields and have various simple, beautiful decorations in their pointed arches. The buttresses that rise between these windows naturally share the slim proportions of the whole. They are simply adorned and do not have any staring up and decorated prongs, but end in a pointed gable cap stone. The first gate on the south side, which is still open on its own, is of correspondingly simple beauty, while three others have long been walled up; but in such a way that its beautiful shape can still be recognized. In the same way, two remaining arches, no doubt from the cloister, which has completely disappeared along with the monastery, attract the eye. "
The monastery church served as the village's Protestant parish church. Due to dilapidation, it was demolished in 1843 and rebuilt in a slightly different form in 1848-50. In addition to the old building blocks, the 13 original tracery windows , the ribbed pillars of the walls with capitals and the Gothic main portal were used. There is a sepia drawing of the old church from 1830 by the Speyer district archivist Peter Gayer (1793–1836)
Remains of other monastery buildings have not been preserved.
literature
- Franz Xaver Remling : “Documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria” , Neustadt / Haardt, 1836, volume 1; Digital scan of the source
- Alfons Hoffmann: “Kloster Marienthal am Donnersberg” , 1956, self-published by the author
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ On the renewal of Münsterdreisens by Duke Friedrich II. And Ludwig III. from Arnstein
- ↑ Ludwig III. von Arnstein in the portal "Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints"
- ^ About the relocation of the Premonstratensian women from Bethlenrode to Stetten or to Marienthal
- ^ On the London manuscript from the Münsterdreisen monastery
- ↑ Alfons Hoffmann, “Kloster Marienthal am Donnersberg” , 1956, pages 33 and 34
- ↑ On the year discovered by Remling
- ↑ To Peter Gayer
- ↑ On Gayer's drawing
Coordinates: 49 ° 38 ′ 6 ″ N , 7 ° 53 ′ 14 ″ E