Willebadessen Monastery

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The Willebadessen monastery was an institution of the Benedictine nuns . It was founded in 1149 and existed until it was repealed in 1810. The monastery church is now the parish church of Willebadessen . The monastery complex became the property of the nobility, was the property of the European Sculpture Park Foundation in Willebadessen from 1979 to the end of 2016 and is now again in the possession of the Barons von Wrede .

View of the monastery complex around 1910

history

Former monastery church of St. Vitus

The Paderborn bishop Bernhard I von Oesede founded the monastery in 1149 near an existing settlement with a small church. He handed the church and parish over to the monastery. Another donor who provided the economic fundamentals was, according to one account, an episcopal ministerial by the name of Lutold von Osdagessen. According to other information, it was Ludolf von Oesede, a brother of the bishop. His six daughters entered the monastery. The founder and other ministerials increased the monastery property through further donations in the following years. The papal confirmation followed in 1183. The bailiwick was temporarily in the hands of the Counts of Schwalenberg .

The monastery church was consecrated to Saints Vitus , Cosmas and Damian and Maria . The right of visitation changed between the Abdinghof monastery and the Marienmünster Abbey . Their representative was the provost. The convent initially consisted of members of the region's lower nobility. Later also commoners joined them. The institution was headed by a prioress , who was later referred to as the abbess. There was also a sub-priority.

The Paderborn bishop allowed the monastery to found the city of Willebadessen on the basis of the existing settlement. In the course of time the monastery breeding subsided. At the instigation of Bishop Simon III. zur Lippe , the monastery joined the reform-oriented Bursfeld congregation in 1473 . This was accompanied by a new heyday of the monastery. During this time there were among other things structural changes. Inside the church has been refurbished.

Convent building and abbey

At the time of the Reformation the nuns adhered to Catholicism. During the Thirty Years' War the monastery suffered from the invasion of Hessian troops in 1634. The monastery inmates had to flee. After the end of the war there was a new upswing and the construction of almost the entire facility since the end of the century.

Monastery breeding decreased again in the 18th century. Prince-Bishop Wilhelm Anton von der Asseburg tried largely in vain to make changes, but the nuns met resistance. The episcopal orders could only be enforced under Friedrich Wilhelm von Westphalen .

In 1810 the monastery was abolished when it belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia . At that time, in addition to the abbess, twelve choir sisters and five lay sisters lived there. They received a pension and lifelong right to live in the convent building.

The monastery church became the parish church of the village of Willebadessen in 1830. After various other owners, the von Wrede family acquired the other monastery complexes in 1871 . They were transferred to the European Sculpture Park Foundation in 1977 . As a result, highly acclaimed exhibitions took place in the buildings. Since the foundation could no longer bear the maintenance costs for the monastery, it was transferred back to Konstantin Freiherr von Wrede at the turn of the year 2016/17.

buildings

abbey
Sculpture garden

The abbey is a three-winged, largely baroque complex with a cloister and a baroque church. In the past, the entire complex was surrounded on three sides by a moat and a double wall. Various smaller monastery gardens were located within the walls. The abbey was based on the ideal plan of a Benedictine monastery.

The church and the east wing of the monastery with the chapter house date from the third quarter of the 12th century. The south wing was demolished in 1871. The church was originally a cross-shaped, three-aisled pillar basilica . It was redesigned several times in the following centuries. The north aisle was demolished during the baroque period. The founder's chapel still exists with the graves of the founder, his wife and his daughters. The chapel had two aisles and was reduced in size in the 19th century.

One of the oldest and most important pieces of equipment in the church is the Vitus shrine made of yew wood and adorned with silver and gold in the form of a carrying altar from around 1200. A high altar from 1521 is by Gert van Loon . Parts of it are located in the LWL State Museum for Art and Cultural History in Münster .

Overall, today's facility reflects the state of the 18th century. The renovation and new construction of the monastery buildings began in 1700 in the area of ​​the cloister. The old Romanesque cloister gave way to a new building. The completion of the baroque renovation of the convent building was initially completed with the construction of the west wing as a guest wing in 1713. The abbess's building was erected in 1744.

Then there were the farm buildings. The guest house is now in the forge from 1688 and a seminar building of the foreign company of North Rhine-Westphalia is in the barn from 1738. A stable building dates from 1748. The former garden of the abbess is surrounded by a baroque wall.

Monastery archive

The monastery archive and the buildings initially passed into the hands of the Barons von Wrede family . Most of it is in the episcopal archive in Paderborn. Individual parts are owned by the Altertumsverein Paderborn , the Landesarchiv NRW, Westphalia department in Münster, or are deposited in the Willebadessen aristocratic archives in the LWL archives office for Westphalia .

literature

Web links

Commons : Kloster Willebadessen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralf Benner: Transfer of the building back to Konstantin Freiherr von Wrede: Willebadessen monastery changes hands. In: Westfalen-Blatt . December 28, 2016, accessed June 1, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Entry on archive.nrw.de
  3. ↑ [1]

Coordinates: 51 ° 37 '30.4 "  N , 9 ° 2' 4.4"  E