Seligenthal Abbey (Landshut)

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Seligenthal Monastery in Landshut
Large inner courtyard of the Seligenthal Cistercian Abbey
Large inner courtyard of the Seligenthal Cistercian Abbey
location GermanyGermany Germany
Bavaria
Lies in the diocese regensburg
Coordinates: 48 ° 32 '32.4 "  N , 12 ° 8' 51.4"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 32 '32.4 "  N , 12 ° 8' 51.4"  E
Patronage Assumption Day
founding year 1232
Year of dissolution /
annulment
1803
Year of repopulation 1836
Congregation incorporated directly into the Order

Daughter monasteries

Waldsassen Monastery (1863)
Marienkron Abbey (1955)
Helfta Monastery (1999)
La Paz Monastery (1972)

Engraving of the monastery from the " Churbaierischen Atlas " by Anton Wilhelm Ertl , 1687
Engraving of the monastery from the “Historico-topographica Descriptio” 1701–1726 by Michael Wening

The Kloster Seligenthal (lat. Abbatia BMV Felicis Vallis ) is a 1232 donated Abbey the Zisterzienserinnen and burial of Wittelsbachs in Landshut in Lower Bavaria in the diocese Regensburg .

history

The monastery consecrated to the Holy Virgin was founded in 1232 by Ludmilla , widow of Ludwig I des Kelheimer , Duke of Bavaria and founder of the city of Landshut. Ludmilla herself lived in the monastery and was buried in the Afra chapel after her death in 1240; later her bones are said to have been transferred to the abbey church. Today, two early Gothic wooden figures with an early depiction of the Bavarian diamond coat of arms remind of the ruling couple. The newly founded monastery was subordinated to the Kaisheim Abbey in 1236 , and the name Seligenthal was used for the first time .

After the monastery was founded, the sisters first lived in the house at Sistergasse 8, which was built around 1230. The Romanesque Afra chapel served as the temporary monastery church. The abbey church was built around this little church in 1259 and the current convent building in the period that followed.

The monastery flourished quickly. When a writing school was founded in 1260, 70 sisters were already living in Seligenthal. In the following centuries the monastery always enjoyed the favor of the Bavarian rulers. The late Romanesque abbey church of Our Lady , consecrated in 1259, was used as a burial place for the Wittelsbach family. In the 15th century due to a lack of compliance with the rules of the order and especially in the 16th century under the influence of the Reformation , the monastery was threatened with "extinction" several times. In 1559 it was subordinated to the Cistercian monastery of Aldersbach . During the Thirty Years' War , the sisters had to leave the convent several times between 1631 and 1649 because of looting Swedish troops and great famine. In 1651 they returned to the completely destroyed monastery.

In the period that followed, Seligenthal flourished again. In the 1680s, high-ranking representatives of the Cistercian order even praised the exemplary compliance with discipline. Adoration of saints also shaped the monastery around this time. Between 1667 and 1679 the corpses of Saints Antonius, Cassian, Viktor and Theodor were transferred to Seligenthal. During the Spanish War of Succession (1701–1714) the sisters had to leave their convent again. A little later, the originally late Romanesque abbey church (consecrated in 1259) was rebuilt in the early Rococo style between 1732 and 1734 . The high altar painting , stucco and ceiling painting are by Johann Baptist Zimmermann from Wessobrunn . The work also had Egid Quirin Asam advertised, but the contract was ultimately Zimmermann.

The monastery was dissolved in 1803 in the course of secularization in Bavaria . The admission of novices had already been restricted in 1766. Nevertheless, the sisters were allowed to stay in the monastery for the time being. In 1820 the girls' school established in 1782 was closed. According to the historian Sigmund Ritter von Riezler in the General German Biography , Volume 36 (1893), pp. 551–553, the Munich Auxiliary Bishop Franz Ignaz von Streber personally referred to King Ludwig I of Bavaria in order to rebuild the monastery in 1835 . The condition was the reopening of the girls' schools for the "education of the female youth" in Landshut. Seligenthal became a priory in 1862 and an abbey again in 1925 .

The abbey has established several subsidiaries in the course of its recent history. In 1863 nuns were sent to Waldsassen ( Waldsassen Abbey ), 1955 to Mönchhof ( Marienkron Abbey ), 1979 to La Paz ( Colegio Ave Maria ) and 1999 to Helfta ( Helfta Abbey ) to rebuild or rebuild monasteries there.

Abbess M. Petra Articus has headed the abbey since 1999, assuming this office from her predecessors M. Columba Baumgartner (1958 to 1987; † September 1, 2007) and M. Assumpta Schenkl (1987 to 1999; then prioress of the Helfta monastery in Eisleben ; † April 24, 2009) took over.

Today (as of 2010) 53 sisters live and work in the abbey. This makes Seligenthal one of the largest Cistercian convents in the world. Among other things, the sisters teach as teachers in the educational and care facilities of the Seligenthal School Foundation. In 2007 the abbey celebrated its 775th anniversary.

Abbey church

The high altar with figures by Wenzeslaus Jorhan and a painting by Johann Baptist Zimmermann
The ceiling fresco by Zimmermann framed with stucco
High altar, pulpit and side altar

The core of the late Romanesque monastery church of the Assumption was consecrated in 1259 by Bishop Heinrich von Chiemsee. It is a single-nave , cross-shaped central building . The choir , which was only vaulted under the abbess Anna Reisacher (1617–1634), has exactly the width of the nave. The two-story sacristy borders the north side of the choir . The nave has four bays and a needle cap barrel , while the cross arms only have a simple barrel vault . The nave west of the crossing is divided in two by a large gallery. On top is the nuns' choir, which is reserved for the monastery sisters, and below it is the church room for secular laypeople - earlier especially for the residents of the Klosterhofmark. Only the slender, turret -like tower is visible from outside the monastery grounds . It received its current form in 1689.

The church underwent the most profound changes in the years 1732 to 1734, when the Landshut court mason Johann Georg Hirschstötter redesigned the interior of the outwardly simple medieval building according to the plans of his Munich colleague Johann Baptist Gunetzrhainer . He created the choir from scratch so that all parts of the room are now subordinate to the large, central room of the crossing . This part in particular was richly decorated with stucco by Johann Baptist Zimmermann and his two sons . Zimmermann also created the ceiling frescoes showing a cycle of Mary. The birth of Mary is depicted in the right arm of the transept, her death in the left. The main picture in the cupola shows the coronation of Mary . He also painted the three altarpieces. The painting on the high altar shows the Assumption of the Virgin Mary , the two side altars Anna herself and the enthroned Mary. The altars, especially the high altar with the golden window symbolizing Jesus Christ, the pulpit and the choir grille were designed by Brother Kaspar Grießemann from the Cistercian monastery of Aldersbach; Most of the figurative decorations were made by the Griesbach sculptor Johann Wenzeslaus Jorhan .

The burial place of the Wittelsbach family is also located in the church. There was never a crypt , rather the deceased were buried in individual graves. A necrology started in the 14th century also provides information about the later burials. For example, the three "rich dukes" of Bavaria-Landshut are buried there in the 15th century - Heinrich the Rich († July 30, 1450), his son Ludwig the Rich († January 18, 1479) and in turn his son Georg the Reiche († December 1, 1503). Furthermore, Ruprecht von der Pfalz († August 20, 1504), the governor of Duke George the Rich and his wife, Elisabeth of Bavaria († September 15, 1504), the daughter of Duke Georg, and their two eldest sons Georg and Ruprecht ( both † August 1504) buried in the church. They all died of the dysentery that was rampant in the city during the siege of Landshut in the Landshut War of Succession . In the church there is also the tomb slab of the Tumba of Duke Ludwig X. († April 22, 1545). It is the only surviving work among the earlier grave slabs and death signs and is attributed to the Munich sculptor Thomas Häring.

Afra chapel

Little is known about the history of the Afra Chapel , but it is definitely older than the monastery church. The services were held there until they were completed. The monastery founder Ludmilla was also temporarily buried there after her death in 1240. The chapel then became a memorial for the dead of the Wittelsbach family. In 1320 a high grave was built on which the figures of the donor and her husband, carved around 1330, lay. At the beginning of the 17th century, the high grave was dismantled and the donor figures were arranged above the supporting column of the nuns' gallery. Shortly after the construction of the high grave, a Gothic choir was added to the Romanesque room to make room for the altar again.

Today's late Renaissance style altar casing dates from 1613, but the stucco figures in the middle - Mary with the Child, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist - date from the 14th century. The wings are painted. In a niche in the upper part of the altar is the figure of Saint Afra , who gave the chapel its name, although it is actually consecrated to John the Baptist and was therefore formerly known as the St. John's Chapel .

The chapel has a small brick tower in Baroque style from 1696 above the west gable. Also noteworthy are the 32 small wooden figures on the parapet of the gallery, which probably belong to a cycle with portraits of earlier princes, and the stepped Romanesque round arch frieze on the east gable of the chapel longhouse that frames the choir.

Heating was installed during a renovation of the chapel in 1970. That is why it is used today by the nuns as a winter church.

Further monastery buildings

The altar of the Preysing or Kärgl chapel

The Preysing Chapel is located next to the rear portal of the abbey church and adjoins its nave. It was founded in 1233 by the noble family of the same name, which had its headquarters in Altenpreysing, today Kronwinkl . During the renovation in the baroque period, the chapel was combined with the Kärgl chapel next to it . Today's chapel has two altars from 1629 and 1640, the older of which is decorated with figures of Saints Georg and Christophorus by Degler's student Hans Dreismich. Also of interest is a seated figure of Mary from around 1300, the “Preysing Madonna”. On the walls and in the pavement there are several tombstones in the late Gothic and Renaissance styles , including that of Karl Kärgl († 1495) by the Burghauser stonemason Franz Sickinger and that of the Seligenthal court master Georg Kärgl († 1527) by the Landshut sculptor Stefan Rottaler.

Other chapels are:

The convent building with the four-winged cloister connects to the north of the abbey church . This has a star vault that was built in 1477 and 1482. The cloister encloses a small inner courtyard, the Kreuzgarten. In the east wing of the convent building there is a refectory at ground level , which is designed as a two-aisled, vaulted hall with six cross bays each. There is also an early Gothic fresco depicting the Coronation of Mary. This is followed by the former kitchen , which has a star vault radiating from a round central pillar on four sides.

To the south of the abbey church around the large inner courtyard are the business and administration buildings of the abbey. They were built from 1729 and today are largely used as school buildings.

The abbey also has a large monastery garden west of the monastery buildings. The old cemetery is also worth mentioning. Here are the ornate epitaphs of Abbesses Sabina Hauser († 1582), Apollonia von Reinbach († 1605), Anna Malvater († 1617), Anna Reisacher († 1634), Anna Maria Johann († 1643) and Anna Countess von Preysing ( † 1665).

Facilities of the Seligenthal School Foundation

Exterior view of the Cistercian Abbey from Bismarckplatz

In 2000, the independent school foundation Seligenthal was established by the Cistercian abbey . This maintains a wide range of educational and training opportunities on the historic monastery grounds:

  • a kindergarten with five groups
  • a three-class private primary school with twelve classes
  • a day care center with eight groups for around 200 children
  • a grammar school with a modern language, economic-social-scientific and musical profile
  • full-day care for pupils in grades 5 to 7
  • a two- and four-year business school to obtain the secondary school leaving certificate
  • a two-tier specialist academy for social pedagogy for training as a nanny and for studying for educators

Trivia

  • In 2004 Meinhard Prill received the Bavarian TV Prize for the film From Heaven and Earth - Everyday Life in Landshut-Seligenthal Monastery .
  • Two streets in Landshut are named after the Seligenthal monastery, Seligenthaler Straße and the nearby sister street.

literature

  • Felix Mader : The art monuments of Lower Bavaria. Vol. 16: City of Landshut. Including the Trausnitz . Unchangeable Reprint of the Munich 1927 edition. 1980, here pp. 216–289.
  • Markus Mitschke: God for the glory - the city for the good. The monasteries of the city of Landshut from foundation to secularization . Landshut 2011.

Web links

Commons : Seligenthal Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. a b c d House of Bavarian History: Landshut, Seligenthal Monastery - History . Online at www.hdbg.eu. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
  2. a b c d e f g h i j Volker Liedke: Monuments in Bavaria - City of Landshut, p. 94ff. Schnell & Steiner, Munich 1988. ISBN 3-7954-1002-9 .
  3. Seligenthal Cistercian Abbey: Abbey Church . Online at abtei.seligenthal.de. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
  4. a b c Cistercian Abbey Seligenthal: Afra Chapel . Online at abtei.seligenthal.de. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
  5. Seligenthal Cistercian Abbey: School Foundation - Foundation and Order . Online at schulstiftung.seligenthal.de. Retrieved December 27, 2015.