Rechentshofen monastery
| Cistercian convent Rechentshofen (Marienkron) | |
|---|---|
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| location |
Germany Baden-Wuerttemberg |
| Coordinates: | 48 ° 59 '17.6 " N , 9 ° 2' 21.4" E |
| Patronage | Maria |
| founding year | 1230 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1564 |
| Mother monastery | Maulbronn Monastery |
The monastery Rechentshofen (Marienkron) was a nunnery of the Cistercian order founded around 1240 on the site of an earlier settlement south-east of Hohenhaslach (today part of Sachsenheim in the Ludwigsburg district in Baden-Württemberg ). Monastery life ended in the course of the Reformation in Württemberg in 1564. The former monastery has been a Württemberg domain since 1648 .
history
Founding of a monastery
The monastery was founded around 1240 by the noble Belrein von Eselsberg and his wife Agnes von Bilversheim, who gifted it with goods and tithe in Rechentshofen, Auenbühl (today Bühlwäldle north of the monastery) and in the nearby Hartwald ( called Nonnenhart on it ). It is not known when she decided to found a monastery. The assumption that it was made in connection with the stay of the Cistercian Abbot General Konrad von Urach in southwest Germany between 1224 and 1226 cannot be proven and is rather unlikely, as there were currently no women's monasteries in this order. Rather, the concern for the personal salvation of the soul with the appropriate burial place and the care of an Eselsberg daughter may have prompted the founder, who remained without male descendants, to found the monastery. Belrein's daughter Berchtrad became abbess of the monastery, which was to serve as the burial place of her parents and later also the family of her sister Agnes, who was married to Count Konrad von Vaihingen. The regional historian Hansmartin Decker-Hauff explained that, despite this connection, no Count von Vaihingen testified to the foundation, but Count Hartmann I. von Grüningen led the secular series of witnesses by saying that this Hartmann also had a daughter Belrein as his wife. Other witnesses were the Speyer Bishop Konrad von Eberstein and the abbot of Maulbronn Monastery Konrad von Sternenfels with son, Konrad von Lomershein, Berchtold, Vogt von Weißenstein, and his brothers Belrein and Helfrich.
development
The monastery was a women's monastery, while the Cistercian order originally only built men's monasteries. It was therefore not part of the Cistercian order at first, but was closely connected to the nearby Maulbronn Monastery and was formally accepted into the order in 1267. Like all Cistercian monasteries, the monastery was consecrated to the Virgin Mary and was therefore also called Corona Sanctae Mariae or Marienkron (Mariäkron), which, however, has not prevailed in general.
In addition to the actual monastery, the monastery property also included the small town of Rechentshofen with some surrounding lands, which mainly came from foundations of the von Eselsburg and their successors, the Counts of Vaihingen . Other donors were surrounding families such as the Lords of Enzberg , the Lords of Riexingen and especially the Lords of Sachsenheim , who thus gained influence on the election of the abbesses. In 1379 Kleinhans von Sachsenheim and Fritz Osterbrunn von Riexingen, as their guardian, brought Gutlin , daughter of their deceased cousin Heinrich von Riexingen , into the monastery, who is occupied as Abbess Guta von Riexingen in Rechentshofen from 1428 to 1444 .
The monastery always remained small and never had more than 20 nuns. The monastery buildings were initially simple wooden structures and could only be replaced by solid stone structures around 50 years after they were founded with funds from a papal indulgence from 1288. According to Belrein von Eselsberg († around 1252) and his wife, the Counts of Vaihingen were also buried in the monastery church .
The development of the monastery followed that of the Cistercian order. In the course of time, the initially strict rules of the order were relaxed and unmarried daughters from lower aristocratic families were given admission to the monastery in return for foundations, which thereby acquired the character of a women's monastery . In the 15th and 16th centuries they opened up to daughters from upper middle-class families. With Anna Strölerin from Ulm, there was also a unique bourgeois abbess. The loosening of the rules of the order in relation to private property meant that numerous foundations went to individual nuns, but no longer to the monastery itself, which brought some women religious to prosperity, while the monastery itself did not experience a boom. The main income of the monastery came from rent and interest income, and the monastery also owned a mill. A procurator of the Maulbronn monastery supervised the finances .
After the Counts of Vaihingen died out, their property came to the House of Württemberg in addition to Eselsberg Castle and the umbrella bailiwick of the Rechentshofen Monastery . In the course of his monastery reforms, Count Eberhard im Bart in 1485 failed to unite the ailing women's monasteries Rechentshofen and Kirchbach . The Württemberg side generally sought to weaken the power of the monasteries and, in the early 16th century, gained jurisdiction over the monasteries. In addition, Württemberg court masters were appointed to administer the monastery economy.
Destruction and liquidation
During the Peasants' War , the monastery was looted and burned down in 1525 by rebellious farmers led by Hans Menckler from Bönnigheim. A little later, in the course of the Reformation , Württemberg took over complete and far-reaching control of the monastery: Catholic ceremonies were banned, the dress code and visiting regulations were redesigned, and entry and exit rights were reserved, etc. The multiple paternalism and sometimes violent religious disputes within the convent led to the monastery going out in 1564 without official repeal. The last remaining nun, Magdalena Schenkin von Winterstetten, received a ducal personal property and died in Vaihingen in 1579. From 1583 to 1588 the former monastery was a ducal hunting lodge for hunting on the Stromberg , after which it was used for agriculture.
During the Thirty Years' War , a new monastery was briefly founded in 1634 as part of the Counter-Reformation , but the monastery was finally closed after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and completely became the property of Württemberg. The former monastery was operated as a domain and was under the administration of the Freudental staff office, which financed schools in particular with the income from its management. The Hofmeisterei was subordinated to the Bietigheim Bailiwick. The agricultural land belonging to the monastery was divided into Oberhof and Unterhof, and the Unterhof was acquired by a farmer in 1798. The Protestant community in Rechentshofen, which is looked after from Kleinsachsenheim, used the monastery church and the cemetery until around 1800. The monastery church was closed in 1807, and later it was converted for economic and residential purposes.
Leased domain
When southwest Germany was reorganized in the course of the Napoleonic Wars after 1803, the domain was transferred from church and school property to state property and in 1812 to the property of the court domain chamber. In 1813 a separate staff office was established in Rechentshofen, which was also the camera administration of the court and domain chamber; A beer brewery was established in Rechentshofen, which however had to be abandoned after a few years due to insufficient yields. A year later, the properties of the dissolved Freudental Camera Office were also added to the Rechentshofen Office, but in 1817 the Court Domain Chamber dissolved the staff office and subordinated its properties to the newly established Freudental Court Chamber Office.
Since then, Rechentshofen has been run and leased as a domain. They managed the following tenants:
- Karl and Josef Rauth, Offenau, Upper Office Neckarsulm (1817–1863)
- Josef Rauth (1863-1870)
- Wilhelm Jung, Bruchsal (1870–1874)
- Friedrich Eßich, tenant of the Wilhelmshof court chamber domain (1874–1886)
- Fritz Eßich (1886–1898)
- Ernst Eßich (1898–1936)
Since 1874, five generations of the Eßich family have leased the domain. The land reforms after the First and Second World War reduced the leasehold area from 254 hectares to 180 hectares. In some cases, repatriate farms were built on the ceded areas.
Buildings and plant
In the estate, which today mainly specializes in pig breeding, sugar beet and sunflower cultivation and seed propagation, several buildings dating back to the former monastery have been preserved, including the former monastery church, which was rebuilt in a simplified form after the fire in 1882, and the large cellar from around 1600 underneath the house .
The crypt under the church, which dates back to the monastery period, has also been preserved. The ceiling is designed as a cross vault. The crypt once served as a walk-in burial place. During the Second World War it was rebuilt by installing a brick wall and a door to the air raid shelter for the residents living on the domain. In addition, a corridor to the large, lower-lying cellar was dug in order to have an emergency exit if the main entrance was buried.
literature
- Thomas Faltin: The Cistercian convent Rechentshofen and its position towards spiritual and secular violence. In: Journal for Württemberg State History (ZWLG) 55 (1996), pp. 27–64.
- Werner Palmbach: The Rechentshofen Monastery in Hohenhaslach, a wine town. History and stories from 1200 years of village life . City of Sachsenheim, 2000
- Karl Eduard Paulus : Description of the Oberamt Vaihingen . Issued by the Royal Bureau of Statistics and Topography. Hallberger, Stuttgart 1856. Wikisource .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Presumably a sister of Bamberg Bishop Heinrich I von Bilversheim
- ↑ WUB Volume III., No. 950, Pages 454–455 WUB online
- ↑ However, like many other Decker-Hauff genealogical constructs, this conclusion is not tenable.
- ↑ WUB Volume III., No. 950, Pages 454–455 WUB online
- ^ Karl Eduard Paulus : Description of the Oberamt Vaihingen . Issued by the Royal Bureau of Statistics and Topography. Hallberger, Stuttgart 1856. Wikisource
- ↑ Theodor Schön: Regesten on the history of the Lords of Riexingen . In: Gerhard Graf Leutrum von Ertingen (ed.): Die Gräflich-Leutrumsche Frauenkirche zu Unter-Riexingen , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1891, pp. 94–97, and for Abbess Guta (1444) LABW, StA Ludwigsburg, GL 110 vol. 115 LABW online .
- ^ Karl Eduard Paulus: Description of the Oberamt Vaihingen , 1856. Wikisource
- ^ Heinz Winterhalder: Offices and heads of the camera and tax administration in Baden-Württemberg ; Part 1: Württemberg, Freiburg 1976. pp. 389f.
- ↑ Eberhard Fritz: The court domain chamber in the Kingdom of Württemberg. For the asset management of the House of Württemberg. In: Journal for Württemberg State History 56 (1997). P. 169.
Web links
- Cistercian abbey Rechentshofen in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
- Article on reform