Ursula Haider

Ursula Haider (* 1413 in Leutkirch ; † January 20, 1498 in Villingen ) was a Swabian abbess of the Poor Clare monasteries in Valduna and Villingen. In the latter, she reformed the monastery. Her vision of Mary with the baby Jesus combined with the annual prayer of all 150 psalms (“Great Psalter”) is supposed to place Villingen, which has never been captured or destroyed by war, under the protection of the Queen of Heaven, according to legend.

youth

Haider was born in the Swabian imperial city of Leutkirch in 1413 and baptized after his mother Ursula . Father and mother died soon after giving birth. She was raised by her maternal grandmother and her son, the priest Johannes Bör. At age nine, she came to the hermitage Reute at Waldsee for further education. Haider decided to become a nun in this small Franciscan terziar convent, supported by her confessor there. When she returned to her grandmother and uncle at the age of 17, she turned down all suitors and a marriage intended for her. She was then allowed to look for a suitable monastery with other “virgins”, which she found in 1413 in the closed “Monastery of the Golden Mill” in Valduna in Vorarlberg .

Valduna Monastery

On July 29, 1431 Haider entered the order of St. Clare, a pupil of Francis of Assisi , in the Valduna monastery . Here she devoted herself particularly to caring for cancer patients. After 36 years of monastic life, she was elected superior of the Valduna monastery. In 1465 she heard a voice that prophesied that her funeral would not be in Valduna, but in Villingen, from which she had not heard anything until then. According to legend, a hand should have shown her the direction to Villingen. In a later vision she saw the wind blowing rose petals over the monastery walls in the direction of Villingen, which she understood to mean that she should go with several nuns from Valduna to Villingen.

Villinger early years

On January 25, 1480, Haider received the order from Pope Pius VI. to go from Valduna to Villingen to reform the local “Bickenkloster” on behalf of the city of Villingen and the Franciscan provincial Heinrich Karrer according to the rules of St. Clare. On April 18, 1480, she started the eight-day trip to Villingen with seven other sisters and with a contribution of 100 guilders. The nuns were only allowed to enter the city of Villingen after they had assured the council that they would pay taxes and compulsory labor. The monastery of St. Klara in Villingen was "forever decided" on April 29, 1480 with the introduction of the stricter order rule according to the Poor Clares. Six of the seven sisters in the earlier “collection” left the monastery within the three-month probationary period because of the difficult rule. Haider's exemplary work led to the blossoming of the Bickenkloster. In a few years, Haider built up an impressive convent of young women. Members of the richest patrician families , such as the Muntprat and Mötteli from Ravensburg , made gifts to the monastery or their daughters joined the monastery. Today in the Franciscan Museum exhibited tapestries , like the Muntpratteppich or Epiphany carpet, still bear witness.

Appearance of the Queen of Heaven

According to a story in the chronicle of the Bickenkloster, a three-hour storm hit Villingen on a hot July day towards the end of the 15th century. It was so violent that the storm hurled the men against the walls like leaves. The population feared the Last Judgment or the downfall of Villingen. Ursula sacrificed herself in prayer for the sins of the Villingen people and asked God to spare Villingen. The Queen of Heaven with the baby Jesus appeared to her in a shining circle in the dark sky. She promised the Villingians blessings and protection at all times if Ursula arranged for all 150 psalms to be prayed in a certain mode, the “Great Psalter”, every year. The baby Jesus then blessed the city of Villingen before the apparition disappeared and the storm stopped. Haider arranged that the Great Psalter in the Bickenkloster was prayed every year in Lent by the nuns over the centuries. The monastery was closed in 2015. It is unclear whether the psaltery will continue.

Work and death

Haider constantly expanded the monastery, whose church in 1480 was more reminiscent of a dark cellar than a house of worship. In 1489 she fell ill and resigned from the office of abbess. Although she stayed in the sickroom since then, Haider reached for the monastery of St. Clara with Pope Innocent VI. as the first women's monastery at all on June 13, 1491 all indulgences of the main churches of Rome and Jerusalem, as well as all holy places of the promised land. The book in which Haider recorded her notes no longer exists. In the monastery chronicle created in 1637/38 by Juliana Ernst (the prioress and abbess of the monastery, also known as Juliana Ernestin), the so-called chronicle of the Bickenkloster in Villingen , only the historical content was summarized. The mystical content, which the chronicler Ernst believed was too high for her “childlike mind”, was lost. Haider was buried in 1498 in the Ölberg chapel in the Bickenkloster, her favorite place. When Abbess Sophie Eschlingsbergin was buried next to her almost 100 years later in 1591, the grave of the first Abbess from Villingen was opened. Her brainshell is said to have been "completely overwritten with beautiful large letters". Nobody could read the letters and it was assumed that it was either Greek or Hebrew. In 1701 Haider was buried next to the Antonius Altar of the monastery church after the previous burial site had been demolished and this part of the monastery was rebuilt. When the city fathers wanted to demolish the Bickentor in the 19th century to expand traffic, the grave of the abbess, who was venerated by the citizens of Villingen, should have been removed. Ultimately, this led to the city council abandoning its plan.

St. Ursula High School

According to Haider, a teaching institute that resulted from the conversion of the monastery, the private “St. Ursula Schools “with grammar school and secondary school. It was worn as a girls' school by the Villingen Ursuline convent from 1782 to 1990.

literature

• M. Hildegard Rech: Abbess Ursula Haider (1413–1498), a contribution to the local history of Villingen. Commission publisher FK Wiebelt, Villingen in the Black Forest, 1937
• Haider, Ursula. In: Burghart Wachinger et al. (Hrsg.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, ISBN 3-11-022248-5 , Volume 3: Gert van der Schüren - Hildegard von Bingen. Berlin / New York 1981, col. 399 ff.

Remarks

1. ↑ Not at the age of 36.
2. ^ KJ Glatz (Ed.): Chronicle of the Bickenkloster in Villingen 1238 to 1614 (= StLV . Volume 151), 1881.