Ursuline Monastery (Freiburg im Breisgau)
The Friborg Ursuline Monastery is a building complex in the Altstadt-Mitte district of Freiburg im Breisgau , which was built by Anne de Xainctonge from 1708 to 1710 as a monastery of the Society of St. Ursula . The sisterhood was mainly devoted to the education of the female youth. Her educational work lives on in the St. Ursula High School Freiburg im Breisgau and the St. Ursula Schools in Freiburg . The baroque former monastery church of St. Ursula and its sacristy are now used by the old Catholic community of Freiburg. The other rooms are used by the adult education center . After the costume of the nuns , the building complex is also known as the “Black Monastery”, in contrast to the “White Monastery” of the Dominican Sisters , the Freiburg Monastery of Adelhausen .
Monastery history
founding
Since the 17th century at the latest, Freiburg women's convents have played a major role in school lessons for girls. Since 1600 the Dominicans of the monastery of St. Catherine of Siena or St. Catharina of Senis on the Graben gave girls regular lessons. In 1786 they were incorporated into the Dominican Convent of the Annunciation of Mary, the Virgin and Mother of God, and St. Catharine , and the unified Adelhausen Monastery was obliged to maintain a girls' school in three rooms.
As early as 1667, the monastery of the Society of St. Ursula by Anne de Xainctonge in Lucerne tried to establish a subsidiary in Freiburg, only in 1696 after the city of Freiburg and the Bishop of Constance Marquard Rudolf von Rodt agreed. Teaching for girls was (and is) the focus of this congregation. Founded by Anne de Xainctonge from Dijon , she has with the on Angela Merici of Brescia declining Ursuline only the name of the holy Ursula from Cologne and the ideal of the vita activa together. Lucerne superior Maria Cäcilia Hirt (around 1648–1725; from Freiburg im Üechtland ) took three other sisters to Freiburg and became the first superior. Everyone spoke French fluently, which is important for the city that has belonged to France since the Peace of Nijmegen . In 1699 Maria Cäcilia returned to Lucerne. Her successor was Maria Placida Sommervogel (1656–1706; from Waldshut ), with whom Euphemia Dorer (1667–1752, from Baden AG in Switzerland ) came to Freiburg, the most important woman from the Freiburg convent. “Her mystical-baroque piety must have been convincing and downright contagious.” She was elected matron twice, from 1706 to 1715 and from 1724 to 1734. Under her, the Freiburg Convent broke away from the Lucerne motherhouse in 1709, and under her - after provisional settlements - on the corner between Egelgasse (today Rathausgasse) and the Stadtgraben (today Rotteckring), west of St. Catharina von Senis on the Graben , Monastery and church built. Dorer's special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus shaped her community of sisters and the symbolism of the high altar of her church. In 1752 she was buried in the crypt under the altar of the church.
The monastery was located directly on the fortifications built by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban . When these were razed by the French in 1744/45, it was badly damaged. Part of the convent therefore moved to Staufen im Breisgau and founded a branch there, the so-called "colony" by the Ursulines, with a chapel and a girls' school. The rooms were located in the so-called Hogschen Haus, Hauptstrasse 34, and can still be recognized today by a cross on the roof ridge of the stately building. This branch had to be closed again in 1777 by order of Joseph II , because the monastery of St. Blasien , which had acquired the rule of Staufen and Kirchhofen as a fief from Austria in 1738 , had stopped providing financial support.
Two further branches were later founded in Freiburg, in 1782 in Villingen and in 1820 in Breisach . In 1809 Karoline Kaspar (1780–1860; from Umkirch ) became superior; she stayed that way for 51 years until her death. Around 1810 St. Ursula had around 500 students - probably the largest girls' school in Baden .
The end of the convent threatened three times: During the secularization, the Baden Kulturkampf and the time of National Socialism:
secularization
Because of their importance for the community, the monastery of Adelhausen and St. Ursula were not abolished in the secularization , but in 1811 they were made subject to a regulation for the female teaching and education institutes of the Grand Duchy of Baden , with 30 paragraphs such as: “The so-called monastic silence is completely repealed (§ 19). ”“ The previous monastery retreats have to cease (§ 24). ”“ <It is> forbidden for the candidates to deviate from the new order, for example to pray the Latin breviary or to observe other pointless devotions (§ 30). ”“ Mother Caroline understood <but> how to preserve the monastic spirit in her sister community in spite of the regulation. ”She simplified the costume of religious women. The curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, orthography, language teaching, essay, handicrafts, geography, natural history, gymnastics, health care and devotional teaching, French in the upper class, and English since 1857. In 1850 St. Ursula had 590 students. Karoline Kaspar rests with eight other sisters in Freiburg's old cemetery , to the left of the path from the south entrance to the chapel, where the city had a tomb erected in 1918 for the “Ursuline nuns” ( sic ).
Badischer Kulturkampf
Under Katharina's second successor, Pia Waßmer († 1898), simultaneous schools became compulsory in Baden in 1876 , i.e. schools with shared lessons, regardless of the denomination of the children. Even St. Ursula should be non-denominational. When the sisters refused, a ministerial resolution was opened to them - and with it their approximately 1,100 pupils - to “dissolve the St. Ursula Teaching and Education Institute and use the assets of the abolished corporation as a secular foundation for public primary school education for Catholic women Youth in the City ”explained. Most of the sisters entered other monasteries. The church was initially made available to the parish of St. Martin , then to the old Catholic parish, which celebrated its first service there on June 3, 1894. Adelhausen Monastery had already been closed in 1867; his fortune had flowed into a "higher girls' school" fund. This ended the story of the Dominican women in Freiburg. The "Higher Girls' School Fund" and the Foundation "formerly St. Ursula" were merged in 1978 in the "Adelhausen Foundation Freiburg i.Br.".
But Pia Waßmer did not give up. She dared to set up a private secondary school for girls with boarding school, the Institut Waßmer , with four teaching wives - all in civilian clothes - in the Vincentius House on the site of what is now (2011) the Unterlinden district . In 1889 the Freiburg auxiliary bishop Justus Knecht took it over as a Catholic institute . The state of Baden approved it. In 1892, two Ursulines with Superior Ignatia Fischer (1842–1895; from Pfaffenhausen ), who came from the House of the Society of St. Ursula von Anne de Xainctonge in Freiburg im Üechtland, revived the Freiburg convent. In 1893, the wealthy Friborg woman Amalie Gramm (1841–1906) made her property in Eisenbahnstrasse 45, a former malt factory, available to the sisters and the 190 schoolgirls. From 1922 onwards the sisters were allowed to wear traditional costume again, and in 1923 all rights were returned to them. In 1926 they bought a villa at Hildastraße 37, today Landsknechtstraße 4. This is where the St. Ursula Schools developed .
National Socialism and World War II
In 1941 the Conchylia collection was rediscovered and saved by Gottfried Nägele in the monastery . On the other hand, the convention seemed irredeemable when the National Socialist authorities closed and then expropriated all of its schools and the bombing raid on November 27, 1944 largely destroyed the building on Eisenbahnstrasse. However, after the war the property was restituted and the building on Eisenbahnstrasse was rebuilt by 1968. “But with increasing prosperity, the monastic offspring shrank.” The schools were taken over by the school foundation of the Archdiocese of Freiburg . The St. Ursula High School on Eisenbahnstrasse, with its linguistic, scientific and music profiles, had its largest number of female students in 1972 with 1596 and is still the largest Freiburg high school with over 1,100 girls. The St. Ursula schools with a nutritional high school, a social science high school and a secondary school for girls look after 450 female students. All of them accept girls regardless of their religion. Apart from the church and sacristy , the “Black Monastery” is now used by the Freiburg Adult Education Center.
Finally, at Landsknechtstrasse 4, a monastery community - which has become small - still exists.
Web link
Ursuline Monastery Freiburg in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Engelbert Krebs : The abolition of the “white” and “black” monastery in Freiburg and the establishment of the Catholic teaching institute III. In: Freiburg Catholic. Parish sheet 1926; 21: 60-61.
- ↑ a b Association of Friends of St. Ursula High School (Ed.): 1696–1996 - 300 years of St. Ursula Girls High School in Freiburg.
- ^ Anton Kottmann: Ursulines Lucerne. In: Patrick Braun (Ed.): The Congregations in Switzerland, 16. – 18. Century. In: Helvetica sacra. Division VIII, Volume 1, pp. 195-218. Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel and Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7190-1367-7 .
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Hug: 300 years of the Ursulines in Freiburg im Breisgau. In: Freiburg Diocesan Archive. Volume 116, 1996, pp. 123-134, online access
- ^ Peter Kalchthaler: Freiburg and its buildings , 2nd edition. Freiburg, Promo Verlag 1991, page 41 ISBN 3-923288-12-3
- ^ Ursuline convent Staufen in the database of monasteries in Baden-Württemberg of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives
- ↑ Engelbert Krebs: The abolition of the “white” and “black” monastery in Freiburg and the establishment of the Catholic teaching institute V. In: Freiburger kath. Parish sheet 1926; 21: 70-71
- ↑ a b Foundation Administration Freiburg (ed.): Education for girls. The Adelhausen Foundation and its roots in Freiburg women's convents. Foundation administration Freiburg 2007
- ↑ Engelbert Krebs: The abolition of the “white” and “black” monastery in Freiburg and the establishment of the Catholic teaching institute XII. In: Freiburg Catholic. Parish sheet 1926; 21: 151-153
- ^ Hermann Brommer : St. Ursula Freiburg i. Br. Munich and Zurich, Schnell & Steiner 1987
Coordinates: 47 ° 59 ′ 46.8 " N , 7 ° 50 ′ 49.5" E