Mönchsee (Heilbronn)
The Mönchsee in Heilbronn was a fish pond of the Heilbronn Carmelite monastery that was created around 1465 . The lake was east of Heilbronn's old town, was fed by the Pfühlbach and had a size of about 12 hectares. It was drained in 1524. In Heilbronn, the names of Mönchseestrasse and Mönchsee-Gymnasium are still reminiscent of the lake .
history
Installation by the Carmelites around 1465
Fish was one of the main food of the Carmelites , as the order's fasting and abstinence rules allowed only the sick to eat meat. Therefore, only a few years after the monastery was founded in 1448, around the year 1465, the friars built a large fish pond in a swampy lowland east of the city and in the immediate vicinity of the monastery outside the city, which was fed by the Pfühlbach, which rises from the Köpferbrunnen . The Pfühlbach once had swampy floodplains along its entire course, which were suitable for damming lakes. Other lakes that were later dammed up from the Pfühlbach are the lakes Trappensee (created in 1575), Pfühlsee (dammed in the 19th century) and Köpfer reservoir in the city forest (created in 1935) as well as the no longer existing Bardilisee (created in the 18th century). . In addition, some lakes were created to produce ice for the Heilbronn breweries. According to unconfirmed sources, there may have been a smaller parish lake at the site of the Mönchsee. The brothers had acquired part of the land required for the lake from parish properties.
The Carmelites built a dam to damm the lake. This dam ran roughly from today's corner of Karlstrasse / Karmeliterstrasse to the north to today's Old Cemetery , the former monastery grounds, and then in an arc to the east to the Weinsberger Brücklein, which led over the Pfühlbach. The Karmeliterstraße was created from a part of this dam, which in particular also protected the monastery from flooding.
The water required for the lake was taken from the Pfühlbach. This brook ran directly north of the lake, but its bed was already buried so deep that no water could get into the higher lake from there. For this reason, the water was already tapped in the upper reaches of the Pfühlbach and fed to the lake via a Deuch line , which ran in a 168-meter-long brick tunnel in the area between today's Siebennussbaumweg and today's railway systems. After various disputes over water rights, it was agreed in 1495 that the water could always be supplied to the lake in winter, but only on Saturdays and Sundays in summer (from April 23rd to September 29th).
The size of the Mönchsee was put in a document from 1840 as 40 Heilbronn acres (approx. 11.8 hectares ). Around 1900 some of the old sea dams were still visible, based on which the size of the former lake was calculated at around 13.7 hectares minus the indentations. The lake thus had almost half the area of Heilbronn's old town around 1500, which was around 30 hectares.
In the north of the lake there was a drainage towards the Pfühlbach. The water from the lake could also be channeled into the city as extinguishing and cleaning water via a second outlet roughly at the level of today's Karlstrasse.
Drainage by the council in 1524
The lake was the cause of many disputes because the water over the dam damaged the neighboring fields or the lake withdrew the water from the neighboring fields. The lively bathing activity on the lake also gave rise to complaints. According to a report by a monk to the city in 1513, there was a small building on stilts in the middle of the lake, which was called hurnhauß .
Around the turn of the year 1523/24 a large flood occurred in Heilbronn, during which cellars overflowed and houses were torn down. The anger of those affected was directed primarily against the large lake in the east of the city, which was seen as a threat and a cause of the evil. On Epiphany 1524 angry citizens went to the lake to dig it up. The popular anger could be stopped, but the city council decided immediately that the monastery had to dig and dry the lake at its own expense. When the monastery did not comply with the request, the council had the lake excavated by day laborers in February 1524. The resentment of the Heilbronn population at the lake or at the brothers and the quick accommodating of the city is seen in connection with the peasants' war which is already beginning . The lake ran empty within two weeks, during which the brothers fished the fish stocks. The Carmelites had no fishing rights in the Neckar , but had other smaller fish ponds in Lautenbach and Lehren , where they could meet their fish needs in the future.
Since it was not possible to dig a deep enough trench to completely empty the lake, a small residual lake of about two and a half hectares remained at the deepest point in the south of the lake, which only dried up in the course of the 18th century. The remaining areas were turned into arable land after they had dried up.
The fact that there was once a lake in a large area of the eastern Heilbronn city center was once again noticeable during the expansion of the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the construction of streets and the development of building plots. Stable dams had to be built for the roads leading through the former lake area. The buildings created in this area, including the Friedenskirche , mostly needed a particularly reinforced foundation. The area once again revealed its former character as a damp floodplain in August 1968 when around 2,000 cellars were flooded during a flood disaster, most of them in the former floodplains of the Pfühlbach.
literature
- Werner Heim: The Mönchsee . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 14th year, no. 10 . Verlag Heilbronner Demokratie, Heilbronn October 19, 1968 (continued in No. 12 of December 14, 1968. ZDB ID 128017-x ).
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 34.1 ″ N , 9 ° 13 ′ 47.6 ″ E