Schönfeld Monastery

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Schönfeld Monastery
The former monastery area, still surrounded by a wall, around 1850. At no. 2 is the Ev. Hospital, No. 1 is the old Salzamt, which still exists.

The former monastery area, still surrounded by a wall, around 1850. At no. 2 is the Ev. Hospital, No. 1 is the old Salzamt, which still exists.

Data
place Bad Dürkheim
Client possibly Counts of Leiningen
Construction year before 1136
demolition 1913

Schönfeld was a Benedictine monastery that was located in what is now the Rhineland-Palatinate city ​​of Bad Dürkheim . There are no structural remains.

Location

The monastery was located to the east of today's Bad Dürkheim graduation tower or the Gutleutstrasse, which runs parallel to it, for example in the area of ​​the Evangelical Hospital. After it was closed, it was converted into a salt works , of which the castle-like baroque administration wing still stands to the northeast of the hospital. Today's street "Im Nonnengarten" is also located in the former monastery area and is reminiscent of the Benedictine convent.

history

Oldest building in the former monastery area. Historic administration building of the Philippshall salt works, later Salzamt, today administration of the Ev. Hospital
The new Saline Gate, created according to the old model

Its origins and foundation are in the dark. According to Johannes Trithemius, Schönfeld was named as early as 1136 and had St. Anna as the church patroness. In 1176 the exemption of all his goods from tithing is documented by the overlord Abbot Rudiger of Limburg , although it seems to be a confirmation of already older rights. The next documentary mention took place in 1247, when a nearby hospital and garden were acquired. The abbot of Limburg exercised the supervisory authority, the counts of Leiningen had the protective bailiwick. At the monastery there were salty springs, which were handed over to the Leiningen family in 1338 and 1387 by the Limburg monastery, with the exception of the best well, over which a house was built.

Under Abbess Christina, the Speyer Bishop Sigibodo II of Lichtenberg issued new regulations for the then flourishing monastery in 1304, and in 1376 it suffered severe damage in a feud. Bishop Reinhard von Speyer had the monastery life reformed there in 1443 because grievances had crept in. Count Emich von Leiningen also complained about the Schönfeld sisters in 1457, whereupon Bishop Siegfried admonished them to make serious improvements.

From 1472 the nuns in Schönfeld Monastery were replaced by Cölestiner from Oybin , a Benedictine male order. The Cölestinerprior Michael Goltz still documents in 1498, 1500 however already the Worms Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Dieburger appears as owner, the Count Emich IX. von Leiningen asked in 1502 "to handle the monastery in spiritual and worldly matters, not to let it fall into the hands of strangers and to arrange its services by one or more people priests or religious who were to be appointed there." The Cölestiner had given up the convent in 1499. In 1510 the Count of Leiningen seems to have taken over the monastery because he leased its property. He had been granted imperial ban since 1512 , when the executor elector Ludwig V of the Palatinate wrested Schönfeld from him. He returned the monastery to Limburg Abbey, which occupied it with a master (priest and administrator) and a farmer until the Reformation was introduced.

In 1571 the Electoral Palatinate secularized the Limburg monastery and with it its branch convent Schönfeld. The goods fell to the state. In 1595, Elector Friedrich IV. Schönfeld gave the noble Bernhard von Mentzingen the lease of his salt spring , with the condition that the monastery be converted into a salt works and salt produced there. With interruptions in wartime, this saltworks, called "Philippshall" , existed until 1913 when salt production was stopped. The graduation tower, which was last built around 1847, is the most striking remnant of this salt factory and, used for medicinal purposes, still exists today. But it is not on the former monastery grounds. The Evangelical Hospital is now located there, and the administration building at the rear is the old saltworks administration or the later salt office . The castle-like building dates from the middle of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the monastery area, in which the main building of the saline were located, was clearly recognizable and surrounded by a wall.

In a description from 1857 it says: “To the east of Dürkheim, almost 10 minutes away, lies the Philippshall saltworks, which is still part of the municipality and whose long graduation houses cross the Wiesenthal located between the saltworks and the city ... The main buildings of the saltworks are quite extensive and surrounded by a wall ... At the same time, within the perimeter of the walls there are some gardens used by the officials. The whole thing can be completely closed off by a gate and now gives the view of a monastery, as it used to be and was called Schönfeld. "

The former entrance gate to the saltworks or the former monastery area, which did not come from the end of the 18th century, was demolished in 1964 when the hospital was built and was supposed to be rebuilt. As the parts were lost, a true-to-original replica was created in 2015, which is no longer at the original location, but to the east of the graduation tower on Gutleutstrasse.

literature

  • Franz Xaver Remling : Documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria, Neustadt an der Haardt , 1836, Volume 1, pp. 162–167; (Digital scan)
  • Michael Frey : Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the Royal Bavarian Rhine District , Volume 2, Speyer, 1836, pp. 409-415; (Digital scan)
  • Johann Goswin Widder : Attempt of a complete geographic-historical description of the Electoral Palatinate on the Rheine , Volume 2, pp. 321-325, Frankfurt, 1786; (Digital scan)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Georg Lehmann : History of the Limburg Monastery near Dürckheim an der Haardt , Frankenthal, 1822, p. 34 u. 35; (Digital scan)
  2. ^ Karl Borchardt: The Cölestiner: a monk community of the later Middle Ages , Verlag Matthiesen, 1994, p. 155 u. 156, ISBN 3786814880 ; (Detail scan)
  3. ^ Erwin Gatz , Clemens Brodkorb: The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire, 1448 to 1648: a biographical lexicon , Duncker & Humblot publishing house, 1996, p. 124, ISBN 3428084225 ; (Cutout scan 1) , (Cutout scan 2)
  4. ^ Heinrich Mayer: Dürkheim in der Rheinpfalz: according to history, local conditions, surroundings, depicted as a brine bath and grape health resort , Löffler, Mannheim 1857, p. 61; (Digital scan)
  5. ↑ Website for the new Saline Gate