Wiebrechtshausen Monastery
| Wiebrechtshausen Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Side view of the monastery church |
|
| location |
 Germany Lower Saxony |
| Coordinates: | 51 ° 44 '24 " N , 10 ° 1' 4" E |
| founding year | before 1245 by Cistercians |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1588 |
The Wiebrechtshausen Monastery is a former Cistercian monastery from the first half of the 13th century. It is located about 4 km north of Northeim in southern Lower Saxony at the foot of the "Nonnenberg" in a valley through which the stream "Düne" ("thin", little water-bearing) flows. A little further east is the Dünenberg (357 m above sea level). The monastery property is now used as an agricultural estate by KWS-Saatzucht AG.
history
The Wiebrechtshausen monastery was inhabited by nuns who lived according to the rules of the Cistercians. The circumstances of the foundation have not been conclusively clarified, the years between 1207/17 (early) and 1245 (late) come into consideration. In the monastery memorial book from around 1375 there is an entry in memory of Herewigus, "fundator loci" ( Latin = "founder of this place") for January 25th . Herewigus is currently not identifiable. Hedwig de Gandersheim is named as the first abbess . The predominant first occupation by nuns of the recently dissolved women's convent of Northeim is likely. In 1245, Wiebrechtshausen was first mentioned as a Cistercian monastery. A previous use of Wiebrechtshausen as a nursing home (hospital) is not clearly documented in writing, but there are indications. Abbess Hedwig died in 1232, "in the 25 years of her service in the monastery". This means that the beginning of a life shaped by the monastery would already be in the year 1207.
Elisabeth von Brandenburg , who held the government of the Principality of Calenberg-Göttingen as the guardian of her son from 1540 to 1545 and used this time to enforce the Reformation in the Principality, issued a monastery order in 1542 that regulated the Protestant reorganization of the monasteries. The Reformation was finally introduced in the Wiebrechtshausen monastery in 1588. Even in 1663 there is evidence of Protestant monastery life.
Structural elements from 1670 testify to: the church building, a nun's house with a roofed tithe barn , the ruins of the cloister , a new house with a school and guest room, stables, a mill with a brewery , an oil mill , a forge and houses for the monastery servants.
Monastery church
architecture
The monastery church was built as a transeptless vaulted basilica in a bound system around 1230/40 in the Romanesque style. The naves are closed in the east with apses. To the west, a transom-like transverse structure with an inserted porch and wooden turret , which was renovated in the 19th century, completes the building. Limestone was mainly used as the building material, the architectural structures mostly consist of red sandstone. The building is now unplastered. A restoration was carried out at the instigation of George V in the third quarter of the 19th century.
On the north side, the St. Anne's Chapel in Gothic style was added around 1400 and stabilized by two supporting pillars.
Interior
Inside, the building stands out due to its simplicity. There are no pictures and no special design of the windows in the church. The compact nave arcades are grouped in pairs by a round arch panel. Westphalian influences can be seen from the short, sturdy dividing columns and the leaves and tendrils of the chalice block capitals. An octagonal column was probably supplemented during the Gothic period, the north-western one with a boss capital from the 19th century. The central nave is closed by three dome-like ridge vaults, the straps of which are supported by cantilevered wall templates. In the west, a barrel-vaulted vestibule is inserted between the two staircases, which date from the 16th and 19th centuries. A richly structured but heavily restored column portal is arranged on the inner wall. The nuns' gallery, which was limited to the western yoke, presumably also extended over the vestibule in the past.
Furnishing
An almost life-size wooden crucifix from the end of the 13th century has been preserved on the high altar. The grave chapel for the Duke of Braunschweig Otto den Quaden (1367–94) is located in a Gothic extension . He died in the excommunication and first had to be buried in unconsecrated earth. Only later was he posthumously released from the church ban, whereupon a chapel connected to the church was built over the grave in 1400. The tomb was restored by Carl Dopmeyer in 1860 and shows the deceased as a reclining figure with a shield with the Brunswick lion, a galloping horse as a helmet ornament and with the sickle as a badge of the knight's union. Finally, four baroque grave slabs should be mentioned, one of which shows an inscription cartouche with acanthus tendrils and four angels, partly mourning, partly with a palm branch as a symbol of the resurrection in the spandrels for Hermann Wilhelm von Wrisbergholzen († 1717).
Todays use
In addition to the church, only a remnant of the former enclosure remains from the rest of the monastery. The Wiebrechtshausen monastery estate with its buildings and lands is now owned by the General Hanover Monastery Fund, which was created in 1542 as a result of the Reformation, and is currently leased by KWS Saat SE . The company operates a branch here that it uses as an organic farm.
The church is used in the parish of Leine-Solling by the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Langenholtensen .
literature
- Thomas Moritz and Gudrun Keindorf: monastery church and monastery estate Wiebrechtshausen . Deutscher Kunstverl., 2009. (DKV Art Guide No. 640). ISBN 342202042X
- Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Wiebrechtshausen Monastery , pp. 110–112, in: If stones could talk , Volume II, Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-7842-0479-1 .
Web links
- Architectural monument group in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- St. Mary's monastery church in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- Tenant house in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- Information from the parish of Langenholtensen
- Is Otto the Quade also the Secklenbörger?
Individual evidence
- ^ Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments. Bremen - Lower Saxony. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , p. 1354.