Sulz Monastery (Premonstratensian Monastery)

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St. Maria Monastery Church
Monastery building

The Monastery Sulz is a former convent of the Premonstratensians in the village Kloster Sulz in the municipality Dombühl in Bavaria . The place belongs to the diocese of Eichstätt .

history

The women's foundation was probably founded around 1200 by the Lords of Wahrberg and, as a member of the Premonstratensian Circarie Ilgeld, was subordinate to the Abbot of Zell near Würzburg . The monastery was its patron saint the Virgin Mary consecrated. News and documents about the first decades of the women's choir do not exist, as the whole complex was destroyed in a fire in 1260, as was the archive of the house.

The burgraves of Nuremberg and the later margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach acted as patrons of the convent. A canon from the Abbey Obernzell served as spiritual director in charge of the spiritual care of the sisters; mostly he also held the office of provost over the choir women. The small but wealthy monastery consisted of noble members who brought considerable fortunes with them. The headmistress held the title magistra et abbatissa, or later master of Sulz, and had a stately apartment to adequately represent the women's monastery. In the hands of the master were both the monastery administration, treasury management and contacts with the outside world, as well as the disciplinary authority over all members of the convent. The unmarried daughters of the surrounding aristocracy found their befitting livelihood here. Up to twelve Premonstratensian women spent their time here praying and working on the spinning wheel. The list of names of the Masters von Sulz resembles a Franconian aristocratic almanac : von Brugberg , Rotenburk , Stetten , Ödendorf , Vinsterloe , Wallenhausen , Seckendorff , Crailsheim , Aufsess , Lobenhausen . One of them suffered a great misfortune in Nuremberg , because the headmistress Margarete von Vinsterloe was killed in a fire in a hostel on a trip in 1425. With her, important documents and archival materials that she had carried with her fell victim to the fire, which is why little can be learned about the community.

The Stiftsdekan von Feuchtwangen Heinrich von Aurach is named in a document from the Sulz Monastery from August 25, 1275.

The church of St. Maria was rebuilt in the first decades of the 14th century in the Gothic style. The church burned down twice under master Brigitta von Aufseß, but the fire damage that occurred around 1500 was completely repaired by 1504. Shortly afterwards, the destruction suffered in the Peasants' War in 1525 was so lasting that the building was in ruins until 1573. The monastery was also completely robbed by the rural folk (including all cattle, horses, grain, hay, straw and even the feather beds were lost), which is why most of the canonesses had fled back to their families. In Feuchtwangen, in the presence of Margrave Kasimir, on July 4th Allda, a little monk who had previously been a preacher in the women's monastery in Sulz and who wrote several letters to the rebellious peasants, was judged with the sword .

Like many institutions in the margraviate, the Sulz Abbey fell victim to the Reformation , because in 1531 the Margrave of Ansbach initiated secularization through the extinction of the spiritual community. With the death of Sulz's last wife Barbara von Seckendorf in 1556, the convent was extinguished. As early as 1539, the Ansbach Landtag had determined the ownership of the monastery to finance a new university to be founded in Feuchtwangen , together with the assets of the Augustinian canons there. However, when this project finally failed, the two-storey convent building adjoining the church to the south was first used as a margrave's hunting estate, whose "gamekeeping" still exists today. From 1802 a school with a teacher's apartment was housed there. In the course of time it has been adapted to the changing requirements again and again and has changed significantly through modifications. Only two pointed arched doors from the 14th century point to the earlier pen of the Premonstratensian women. In 1573 the former collegiate church was restored as a Protestant parish church, whereby a wooden epitaph from around 1520 in the church, which is close to the Danube School, still reminds of the work of the Premonstratensian sisters in Sulz.
In 1976 the “Conventhaus” was converted into a kindergarten. Remnants of the monastery wall are still there today.
The former monastery mill on the Sulzach (Klosterweg 2), a stately building from the 15th / 16th centuries, is also still available as a single monument. Century with later changes and outbuildings. A tributary of the Sulzach rises from a spring in the rectory garden.

literature

  • Incontrovertible vestment of the Highness of the Imperial District Court Burggrafthums Nürnberg , Karl Ferdinand von Jung, Ansbach 1759. p. 236
  • Norbert Backmund: The canons and their monasteries in Bavaria , Passau 1966, p. 198 f.
  • Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. Bavaria I: Franconia. The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia edit. by T. Breuer, Fr. Oswald, Fr. Piel, W. Schwemmer et al., Munich 1979, p. 430
  • Hans Karlmann Ramisch: District of Rothenburg ob der Tauber (=  Bavarian art monuments . Volume 25 ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1967, DNB  457879254 , p. 60-64 .
  • Hans Roser: Monasteries in Franconia. Works and design of a European cultural landscape , Freiburg i. Br. 1988, pp. 151-155
  • Gottfried Stieber: Sulz . In: Historical and topographical news from the Principality of Brandenburg-Onolzbach . Johann Jacob Enderes, Schwabach 1761, p. 794-800 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Church council and dean i. R. Wilh. Schaudig: History of the city and the former Feuchtwangen monastery: 3. The collegiate monastery , Feuchtwangen 1927
  2. ^ Church council and dean i. R. Wilh. Schaudig: History of the city and the former Feuchtwangen monastery: 10. The city from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Thirty Years War. , Feuchtwangen 1927

Coordinates: 49 ° 15 ′ 40 ″  N , 10 ° 18 ′ 32 ″  E