Star of light
Lichtenstern is a district of Löwenstein in the Heilbronn district in Baden-Württemberg . The place goes back to the Lichtenstern Monastery , which existed from 1242 to 1554, was then the seat of the Wuerttemberg Monastery Office Lichtenstern until 1806 and has been the seat of the Evangelical Lichtenstern Foundation since 1865.
history
Cistercian convent
The Cistercian convent Stella Praeclara , in German Heller Stern or Lichtenstern , was founded in 1242 by Luitgard von Weinsberg, a born giver of Limpurg and widow of Engelhard III. from Weinsberg . The monastery area, the wooded hill in the Tuffingstal east of Löwenstein, bordered by two headwaters of an inflow of the Sulm , was donated by the lords of Weinsberg and the lords of Heinriet. The first settlement was carried out by nuns from the Himmelthal Monastery , located between Aschaffenburg and Miltenberg , the sister or niece of the foundress, a Burgsindis (or Kunigunde) from Limburg, became the first abbess. The founder died before the monastery was consecrated, and her bones were only later transferred to the complex. By the end of the 13th century, the monastery complex, enclosed by a wall, was built with a monastery church (1280), cloister , convent building, residential buildings and ancillary buildings.
The patrons of the monastery were initially the lords of Weinsberg. These as well as the Lords of Löwenstein and the taverns from Limpurg furnished the monastery with goods and rights in Böckingen , Bitzfeld , Flein , Weinsberg , Affaltrach, Eschenau, Dimbach , Weiler and other places. The monastery also received endowments from the families of the convent women who entered and was able to purchase additional properties from the surpluses it generated. However, the increase in land stagnated at the time of Abbess Margarete vom Stein (1444–1469) in favor of the expansions of the monastery buildings undertaken at that time. Around 1450, with the transfer of the Weinsberg property to the Electoral Palatinate , the patronage of the monastery passed to the latter and in 1504 it came to the Duchy of Württemberg .
During the Peasants' War , the monastery was plundered on April 13, 1525 by a group of peasants under Jäcklein Rohrbach and only narrowly escaped destruction, as a fire set by the peasants went out by itself. The nuns had meanwhile fled to the nursing yard of the monastery in Heilbronn , which was, however, also plundered after the city of Heilbronn opened the gates to the farmers.
From 1534 Duke Ulrich von Württemberg carried out the Reformation in Württemberg. With a decree of that year he decreed that the monasteries in the communities in which they had the right of patronage were only allowed to employ Protestant pastors. He also forbade the alienation of monastery property. The nuns protested unsuccessfully and were formally released from their vows with a special Reformation ordinance for the Wuerttemberg monasteries from 1547. The Augsburg interim of 1548 gave the nuns hope that the monastery would continue to exist, but Duke Christoph von Württemberg ultimately dissolved the monastery in 1554.
Abbey Office
From then on, a monastery superior administered the more than 2500 acres of the monastery properties and benefices. The upper monastery office comprised the hamlets of Bernbach, Greuthof and Joachimstal belonging to the Lichtenstern area, as well as the monastery towns of Waldbach , Dimbach , Obereisesheim and Reisach. The court master (monastery bailiff) Ulrich Renz (in office 1554–1574) made a special contribution to the organization of the monastery superior office. Under his successor Andreas von Oberbach, the Oberamtei and the band house (1586) were built in Lichtenstern around 1580.
In the Thirty Years' War the complex became a monastery again after the Edict of Restitution of 1629, when Lichtenstern was subordinated to Prelate Christopherus, abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Walkenried from the Halberstadt diocese, in October 1634 . In 1648, however, the monastery was finally closed.
In 1690 the Heilbronn nursing courtyard burned down. In 1739 an independent parish was established in Lichtenstern for the 133 souls counted at the time in Lichtenstern and the surrounding hamlets (Bernbach, Greuthof, Klostermühle). Between 1770 and 1790 the south and east wings of the cloister were demolished.
As a result of the reorganization of the Württemberg administration (general rescript of January 2, 1806), the Lichtenstern monastery administration was dissolved in 1807 and Lichtenstern was subordinated to the Weinsberg administration. The last residents left the facility, which was empty in the following years and fell into disrepair. In 1811 the parish was abolished and Lichtenstern became a branch parish of Löwenstein. In 1834 the state of Württemberg offered the property for sale after demolition.
Evangelical Foundation Lichtenstern
The Löwenstein pastor Hegler prevented the demolition. In response to his public appeal to save Lichtenstern, an employee of Pestalozzi , the Prussian high school and government councilor Dr. Carl August Zeller (1774–1846) took over the monastery grounds on June 15, 1835. On January 11, 1836, he opened a child rescue center in the still existing buildings in Lichtensterne - based on the model of the children's home built by his brother Christian Heinrich Zeller in Beuggen Castle on the Upper Rhine November 1865 was raised to the Royal Foundation.
On May 17, 1906, the band house burned down completely, but was rebuilt in its old form within a year. In 1922 the teacher training institute was closed and in 1925 a home for small children took its place. In 1940 the buildings were partially occupied by the Reich Labor Service .
After the Second World War, refugees from Löwenstein were accommodated in some of the buildings. In 1946, a secondary school for girls was opened in the Bandhaus, which moved to Großsachsenheim as the Lichtenstern grammar school in 1954 , while Lichtenstern housed the lower classes of an advanced grammar school for boys until 1963.
After the students left in 1963, the Binderhaus and the Bandhaus were converted into facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. The facilities for the disabled were continuously expanded: the Heglerhaus and the Zellerhaus were built in the convent garden by 1970, the Luitgardhaus and the houses north and west in the lower courtyard, plus farm buildings, employee apartments and the festival hall (until 1976). The workshop for the disabled and the special school were inaugurated in 1983. The place Lichtenstern could now offer a home to 300 people with a mental disability.
The Evangelical Foundation Lichtenstern also operates facilities for people with disabilities in Obersulm , Lauffen am Neckar , Eppingen and Böckingen and also the so-called “Open Aid” in Öhringen .
literature
- Adolf Schlitter: Lichtenstern then and now . Lichtenstern 1936
- Chr. Eichenhofer: Lichtenstern as a women's monastery, senior office and institution. A local historical account . Self-published by the institute, 1867 ( full text in the Google book search).
- Carsten Friese: Former home children describe massive violence in Lichtenstern . In: Heilbronn voice . May 6, 2010 ( at Stimme.de ).
- Walter Kauffmann: Lichtenstern Monastery . In: 700 years of the city of Löwenstein 1287–1987. A homeland and non-fiction book . City of Löwenstein, Löwenstein 1987, pp. 369–388
Web links
- Website of the Evangelical Foundation Lichtenstern
- Cistercian abbey Lichtenstern in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
Coordinates: 49 ° 5 ′ 56 " N , 9 ° 24 ′ 33" E