St. Clara Monastery (Bickenkloster)

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St. Ursula schools

The St. Clara Monastery in Villingen existed from the 1230s until August 1, 2015, most recently as the Ursuline Monastery of St. Ursula am Bickentor . The former Poor Clare monastery was the oldest and so far the last of the seven monasteries in Villingen.

location

The so-called Bickenkloster is located at Villinger Bickentor at the easternmost point of the city wall. Its neighbors were the former Dominican convent and the cousin collection in the city of Villingen .

history

Beginnings to the 14th century

The monastery was founded in the 1230s according to the rules of the Cistercian women and was founded by Pope Gregory IX. approved. Originally the monastery stood outside the city, on the site of the later Bickenkapelle. Today there is a stone cross in memory of the Bickenkapelle. After 1255 the convent settled in the city and adopted the rules of St. Francis under the name "Collection of Sisters of Souls at the Bickentor". In 1278 the monastery is mentioned as a collection or cousin collection . The nuns had found acceptance in the house of the patrician cousin in town. The "cousins' collection was originally in the St. Nikolaus chapel in the old town. The foundation walls of this chapel are still in the ground west of the house at 25 Marbacherstraße."

Bishop Heinrich von Konstanz placed the convent on May 28, 1294 under the supervision of the preachers in Rottweil.

Upswing under Ursula Haider in the 15th century

Until 1480, the Bickenkloster was an open monastery. As early as the middle of the 15th century, the city of Villingen and the episcopal curia in Constance wanted to make it a closed monastery. At the energetic instigation of the Provincial of the Preachers of the Upper Rhine, Heinrich Karer , the monastery was reformed and closed with the newly appointed Abbess Ursula Haider in 1480 . Ursula Haider, who came from the Valduna monastery , introduced a stricter rule of the order according to the Poor Clares in 1480. This made the monastery flourish. Members of the richest patrician families, such as the Muntprat and Mötteli from Ravensburg, made donations to the monastery or their daughters entered the monastery. Today in the Franciscan Museum exhibited tapestries , like the Muntpratteppich or Epiphany carpet, still bear witness. Under Haider, the Bickenkloster developed into a center of mystical spirituality and poetry, which was shaped by the writings of Heinrich Suso and Johannes Tauler .

Thirty Years War and repeal in 1782

When the city of Villingen was besieged several times during the Thirty Years War, the Bickenkloster was always exposed to the first attacks and the most devastating missiles. The monastery church was badly damaged. In 1782, Emperor Josef ordered the abolition of all "contemplative monasteries" in the Austrian hereditary lands, which until 1806 also included Villingen in front of Austria. On February 8, 1782, the Bickenkloster, which had belonged to the Cistercian order for 30 years and had been an open Poor Clare monastery for 212 years and a closed Poor Clare monastery for 303 years, was abolished by the imperial commissioner Marquardt von Gleichenstein. On February 11, von Gleichenstein had "many of the monastery's good books and writings burned in the oven". The last abbess was Maria Karolina Wittum.

St. Ursula Monastery and College

On October 18, 1782, the nuns constituted themselves with the rules of St. Ursula ( Ursulines ) as a teaching and educational institution for girls for a monastic life.

Juliana Ernstin's chronicle of the Bickenkloster

The abbess Juliana Ernstin wrote a chronicle of the monastery from 1238 to 1614. This was published by Karl Jordan Glatz in 1881. Juliana Ernstin entered the Bickenkloster on July 28, 1603 (St. Pantaleion's Day) at the age of 15, became prioress in 1637 and died as abbess after 1641. She also wrote the Villinger "Thinking booklet on all sorts of things from 1594 to 1622" and a report on the siege of Villingen from 1631 to 1633. It describes the time of the Thirty Years' War, in which the monastery, which was located directly on the city wall, was exposed to enemy fire. The sources that Ernstin uses seem to be reliable, as they were mostly kept in the monastery archive in 1881 according to Karl Jordan Glatz. Only Ursula Haider's handwritten notes were missing from Ernstin writes that she did not take everything from "this little book" because "it was too sophisticated for her understanding". Glatz suspects that Haider's notes were among the writings intended for the stove fire in 1782.

closure

The monastery was closed on August 1st, 2015. After a testamentary decree by the Ursuline Convention, the entire urban development of the monastery complex became the property of the Archdiocese of Freiburg. The vacated monastery rooms are now used by the St. Ursula schools, which previously occupied most of the area for school purposes. In the end, only two sisters, Superior Sister Roswitha Wecker at the age of 80 and Sister Siegrun Schachtner (75 years old) and the religious Father Hermann Fuchs, kept the monastery life at Bickentor. In 2014, long-time superior sister Eva Maria Lapp died.

literature

  • Karl Jordan Glatz (ed.): Chronicle of the Bickenkloster in Villingen 1238 to 1614 (= library of the Litterarian Association in Stuttgart, volume 151). Stuttgart 1881 ( digitized version ).
  • Edith Boewe-Koob: The monastery Sankt Clara at the Bickentor in Villingen . In: Villingen and Schwenningen. History and culture . Villingen-Schwenningen 1998, pp. 171-194.
  • St. Ursula. A house from Villingen with a history . Villingen 1999.
  • Peter Pfister : monastery leader of all Cistercian monasteries in the German-speaking area . Strasbourg, Munich 1998, p. 85.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Joseph Mone : Year stories of the Franciscans in Baden in Baden source collection of History, vol 3, p 681st.
  2. ^ Paul Revellio : Contributions to the history of the city of Villingen . 1964, p. 144 ff.
  3. ↑ Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 184 No. 427 (Abbess, prioress and convent of the Poor Clare Monastery in Villingen to the councilors of the late Archduke Leopold V, September 28, 1634).

Web links

Commons : Library of the Litterarian Association in Stuttgart  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Library of the Litterarian Association in Stuttgart  - sources and full texts

Coordinates: 48 ° 3 ′ 34.8 ″  N , 8 ° 27 ′ 42.8 ″  E