Michael Reinhartz

Michael Reinhartz (* 1613 ; † 1688 ) was abbot of the Premonstratensian Monastery of Wedinghausen from 1663 to 1688

Michael Reinhartz

Life

He came from an influential Werler family. His brother Caspar was mayor, official in Werl and notorious witch commissioner during the witch hunt in the Duchy of Westphalia . Michael entered the Wedinghausen monastery as a novice . At that time there was a devastating plague epidemic in 1631 . This forced the inmates of the monastery to flee. Some sought refuge in Rumbeck Abbey and others on Gut Moosfelde . In his report on the year 1631, Mayor Prange reported that Reinhartz was also attacked by the plague without being noticed at first. Together with the prior A. Bering he therefore went to Moosfelde and infected the prior , who died of it. Reinhartz himself apparently survived the disease. Before his death, Prior Reinhartz sent the Prémontré Abbey to the mother monastery of the order . He stayed and studied there for six years before returning to Wedinghausen. There he rose to prior and prefect of the rectorate school. He was considered humble, hardworking and highly educated. This enabled him to assert himself in the election of abbot against Johann Richard Rham , who was known nationwide as an imperial diplomat .

Around 1638 he is said to have taught at the Norbertiner Gymnasium in Cologne together with his brother Petrus Schultheis, who later became prior in Wedinghausen.

After his election, Reinhartz was held in high regard by the archbishop and sovereign Maximilian Heinrich of Bavaria . Reinhartz did a lot for the school system. He acquired new paraments for church services and encouraged the practice of music in the monastery, especially for worship purposes. Since then, only those who have mastered an instrument have been admitted to the monastery. With the money that Father Rham had brought into the monastery, he had the abbot's new residence, also known as the prelature, built.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcements from the Werler Working Group for Family Research. 6/1985 p. 210
2. ^ Franz Honselmann, Sauerländisches Familienarchiv, unaltered reprint of the 1931 edition, Paderborn 1983, p. 32.

literature

• Norbert Backmund: Monasticon Praemonstratense. Vol. 1 Berlin, 1983 p. 172
• Franz Xaver Hoegg: On the history of the monastery and high school in Arnsberg. In: For the second secular celebration of the Royal Laurentianum in Arnsberg. Arnsberg, 1843 p. 6f.
• Karl Feaux de Lacroix: History of Arnsberg. Arnsberg, 1895 [Reprint Werl 1983] p. 388