Merxhausen Monastery
The Merxhausen Monastery is a Gothic monastery in the Merxhausen district of Bad Emstal in northern Hesse . It was repealed in 1527. Today the Vitos Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bad Emstal is located in the monastery .
history
In the year 1213 in Merkeshusen the monastery foundation of Messrs Hermann and Dietrich von Blumenstein von Dörnberg by the Archbishop of Mainz is documented as Augustinian Canons - double pen . In the foundation letter of November 3, 1213, it says: “... at the place that was formerly Merkereshuse , now called the field of St. John, ... In this very place, ..., some pious women and some brothers have met settled down...". The new name Johannisfeld did not catch on, however, and the name Merkereshusen was used again just a few years later .
Archbishop Siegfried III. von Mainz incorporated the church in Offenhausen and the chapel in Riede into the monastery in 1242 . After 43 years of construction, the monastery church was consecrated on August 29, 1256 by the Mainz auxiliary bishop Dietrich. In 1269, Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse liberated the farm ... on which the monastery church is built ... but the canons emigrated in the 13th century and the monastery was then used as a nunnery.
In 1475 the monastery was destroyed by fire; it fell apart, and monastic life ceased. Landgrave Wilhelm II of Hesse had the remaining nuns moved to other monasteries until they were restored. The nunnery was closed in 1489 due to immorality and handed over to the Windesheim Monastery ( Windesheimer Congregation ) in the diocese of Utrecht . Augustinian canons from the Westphalian monastery Böddeken took over the monastery and rebuilt it.
In 1527 the monastery was secularized and abolished after the Homberg Synod of 1526, which introduced the Reformation in the Landgraviate of Hesse .
On August 26, 1533, the Merxhausen Monastery - like the Haina Monastery (1533) and the Gronau Monastery (1542) - was converted into a so-called Hohes Hospital , a state hospital for the rural poor, through a letter of foundation from Landgrave Philipp High Hospital Philippshospital Riedstadt in Hofheim near Darmstadt, also donated by Philipp in 1533, was founded on the basis of a parish).
Today the complex is home to the Vitos Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Merxhausen. In the monastery garden there are regular performances by the amateur theater Klosterspiele Merxhausen , in which patients from the clinic also participate. In 2013, the ten km long Eco Path Peace Education Bad Emstal was inaugurated.
The Bad Emstal Monastery Museum presents the changing history of the monastery.
investment
The monastery is a horseshoe-shaped three-wing complex.
Of the originally Romanesque monastery church, which was built between 1213 and 1256, only small, insignificant remains can be found in the north. At the beginning of the 14th century the church was rebuilt in the Gothic style and a Gothic choir with rib vault was created. During the restoration in 1935, Gothic paintings were uncovered. The depiction of Christ on the cross should be emphasized . In the church there are two gravestones by the late Gothic sculptor Philipp Soldan from 1548 and 1559, for Heinz von Lüder and Hermann Binzinger.
Today only the gothic altered south wing with a bay porch from 1533 remains of the former monastery.
Personalities
- Luise Greger , composer
literature
- Eduard Brauns: Hiking guide and travel guide through North Hesse and Waldeck . A. Bernecker Verlag, Melsungen 1971, p. 87
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 43.7 ″ N , 9 ° 15 ′ 36 ″ E