Schönensteinbach Monastery

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The Schönensteinbach Monastery was a Dominican convent near Wittenheim in Alsace .

history

Founding legend

According to tradition, after the birth of Christ in 1138 , two daughters (Mechthild and Kunigunde) of a knight Nochero von Wittenheim founded the monastery in Steinbach as a “Bernhardinerkloster” ( Cistercian ): First, after a pious upbringing, the two sisters went to a »monastery Kleinlützel « (but not the one at Kleinlützel , but perhaps the Birlingen monastery near Steinbach , a branch of the Lützel monastery ). Soon after their entry, the nuns of the founder's successors, the Counts of Pfirt , were harassed by hunts, feasts, willful destruction and improper behavior, so that they and their co-sisters left this still new "Kleinlützel Monastery" without further ado .

They had asked their father Nochero to have the St. Margarethen Chapel near Wittenheim as their domicile, but he refused because he thought this would be too absurd for two women. Instead, he promised them a secluded barn in a forest, but hoped they would not accept it. Now he was very surprised when the entire convent of Kleinlützel arrived here. He was happy to help with the construction together with his friends with gifts and donations, so that a small monastery soon emerged. (Freely retold from the Chronicle of Schönensteinbach by Seraphin Dietler ).

Heyday

From 1160 the newly founded convent became part of the Augustinian ( St. Maria in Steinbach Monastery ) and from 1397 the Dominican Order ( St. Brigitten Monastery in Schönensteinbach ).

Due to its location in the open Rhine plain , the monastery was poorly protected against troops moving through, despite the forests that surrounded it at that time. It was plundered in 1365 when the English passed through during the Hundred Years War and completely burned when they passed through the Gugler in 1375. In 1382 the Augustinians tried to rebuild the Marbach Monastery , but all means were lacking; even an attempt by the Premonstratensians of Strasbourg did not succeed. It was only under Leopold of Austria and his wife Catherine of Burgundy that it was rebuilt as a Dominican convent in 1397. According to the requirements of the committed monastery reformers Raimund von Capua and Konrad von Prussia , Schönensteinbach became the first Dominican monastery to be observed in the Teutonia order. Five sisters from the St. Katharinental monastery , together with a few other nuns from Alsatian monasteries, took on the task of turning Schönensteinbach into a model of a reform monastery. Under Clara Anna von Hohenburg as prioress, the monastery began to flourish, in which other monasteries were reformed from here, such as the Unterlinden monastery in Colmar in 1419 and the Catherine's monastery in Nuremberg in 1428 . A close-knit network of reform monasteries emerged, also documented by a lively exchange of manuscripts for the construction of the respective monastery libraries. A book of hours with the provenance of Schönensteinbach in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian refers to the former library . From 1399 to 1405 Friedrich von Blankenheim, as Bishop of Utrecht, had the Maria Magdalena monastery built in Wijk bij Duurstede and settled it with sisters from Schönensteinbach. Around 1435, sisters from Wijk settled in the Westerau monastery in Westroijen at the gates of the city of Tiel . Around 1426 Margaretha Ursula von Masmünster is named as the prioress. In 1426 the monastery former Konrad von Prussia found his final resting place in his favorite foundation Schönensteinbach, where he had spent the last years of his life.

During the Armagnak campaigns of 1444/1445, under the direction of the Basel Dominican prior Konrad Schlatter, the Schönensteinbach Dominicans were evacuated to Basel, Strasbourg, Pforzheim, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Katharinental.

Peasants' War

At the beginning of the uprising in Upper Alsace in 1525, the convent fled to Ensisheim with all its movable belongings . The rebellious peasants destroyed the empty buildings all the more bitterly. After the defeat the peasants were obliged by Ferdinand of Austria to pay 8000 guilders for the reconstruction, whereby they were waived 1500 guilders. In the following twelve years, the buildings were built from scratch.

End of the monastery

The monastery was closed in the course of the French Revolution and the goods fell to the state. Half of the monastery was sold to two citizens in 1807, and in the same year it was auctioned, whereby the buildings remained in one hand. Today the street name at the location still reminds of the monastery.

literature

  • Landolin Winterer : The Schönensteinbach Monastery. 1897.
  • Johann von Schlumberger (Ed.): Seraphin Dietler's Chronicle of the Schönensteinbach Monastery. Gebweiler 1897.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Private website on the history of Steinbach
  2. ^ Theobald Walter: The grave inscriptions of the district of Upper Alsace from the oldest times up to 1820. Verlag der J Boltzeschen Buchhandlung, Gebweiler 1904. archive.org
  3. ↑ Johann von Schlumberger (Ed.): Seraphin Dietler's Chronicle of the Schönensteinbach Monastery. Gebweiler 1897, p. 7 ff.
  4. ↑ On the Schönensteinbach Monastery near Guebwiller, from: Judith Theben: Die Mystische Lyrik des 14. und 15. Century. Studies, texts, repertory. Berlin 2010 (cultural topography of the Alemannic region 2), pp. 65f., ISBN 3-484-89501-2 ; books.google.de
  5. ↑ The reference that can be read several times, as also in J. Theben (see above), that Schönensteinbach was a Birgitten monastery , is erroneous; Birgitta was only the church patron. See Werner Williams-Krapp: Review by Judith Theben (see above). In: Speculum , 88,4, 2013, p. 1176 f., Here p. 1177.
  6. ↑ Johann von Schlumberger (Ed.): Seraphin Dietler's Chronicle of the Schönensteinbach Monastery. Gebweiler 1897, p. 166
  7. ↑ a b After Anton Weis:  Konrad de Grossis . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 640 f.
  8. ↑ See Judith Theben (see above), p. 65, note 63, as well as Antje Willing: Literature and Order Reform in the 15th Century. German Last Supper in Nuremberg's Katharinenkloster. Münster u. a. 2004 ( Studies and Texts on the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times , Volume 4), p. 16 with note 24 books.google.de
  9. ↑ A. Willing ( see above ), pp. 20-22.
  10. ↑ Book of Hours ( Memento of December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on the Gulbenkian Museum website ( online ( Memento of the original of February 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and Archive link according to instructions and then remove this note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / museu.gulbenkian.pt
  11. ↑ Catalogus van de archieven van de kleine kapittelen en kloosters  - Internet Archive
  12. ↑ Private website about the Westerau and Westroijen monastery ( Memento from December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Dutch)
  13. ^ Website of the Dominicans in Geldern ( Memento from August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ^ Schlatter, Konrad OP. In: Author's Lexicon . Volume VIII, Col. 706 f.
  15. ↑ Johann von Schlumberger (Ed.): Seraphin Dietler's Chronicle of the Schönensteinbach Monastery . Gebweiler 1897, addendum in the chronicle: based on an old manuscript from 1738.
  16. ↑ Johann von Schlumberger (Ed.): Seraphin Dietler's Chronicle of the Schönensteinbach Monastery . Gebweiler 1897, foreword by Johann von Schlumberger, pp. XVI – XVII (with map).

Coordinates: 47 ° 49 ′ 24.3 "  N , 7 ° 18 ′ 11.2"  E