White women's monastery Aachen
The Weißfrauenkloster Aachen was the branch of the white women , named after their white habit and as "Magdalenerinnen" after their patroness Maria Magdalena , in the Jakobstraße in Aachen . It was founded in the middle of the 13th century and abandoned by the order in 1729. Then the Cölestine women from Düsseldorf took over the monastery complex and continued their activities there until secularization in 1802. After subsequent interim solutions, the new order of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus acquired the monastery grounds in 1848 and set up a new monastery complex there.
history
The order was created in the German-speaking area around 1230 and is considered the oldest women's order in the Catholic Church. In the form of a common monastic life, he looked after prostitutes who were willing to repent and women at risk as well as fallen girls .
In the middle of the 13th century religious women came to Aachen and set up a new branch on a site between Jakobstrasse and Bendelstrasse that had been given to them by influential donors from the local patrician families . A small chapel was built next to an accommodation building, which was first mentioned in a document dated February 10, 1245 as “ecdesia sancte Marie Magdalene de Aquis” and dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene was consecrated. It was subordinate to the Aachener Stiftspropst and a vicar of the Marienstift Aachen provided the service there. In the change from the 13th to the 14th century, the branch was reorganized and from then on innocent, mostly noble virgins were accepted. In front of the monastery on the banks of the Paubach in Jakobsstrasse was the atonement memorial for the defensive blacksmith , which commemorated the slaughter of Count Wilhelm IV von Jülich and his three sons, and in which an eternal lamp burned. Later, when the old monument became dilapidated, it was brought to the church of the White Women's Monastery, where there was already one of four altars that the city had to donate for the peace of mind of the slain.
Sources indicate that at the beginning of the 15th century there were first new buildings and extensions due to fire damage to the monastery and the Aachen chronicler Johann Nopp also mentioned a renewed restoration of the monastery and the church shortly before the year 1632. The monastery belonged above In addition, shares in various lands and a dairy in the Jakobsviertel.
The great city fire of Aachen on May 2nd, 1656 caused a renewed complete destruction of the monastery complex. Since both the order and the city lacked the money due to the numerous reconstruction costs, it was not until 1668, with the help of mostly influential private sponsors and the provision of free building materials, that the complete new building as well as an additional building in the area of Bendelstraße are started, which was consequently the third execution of the monastery buildings. On July 31, 1687, the monastery church was consecrated again by the auxiliary bishop of the Liège diocese , Jean Antoine Blavier.
However, the monastery's financial worries persisted and there were also internal disputes within the monastery community, which led to a gradual decline in the settlement. The number of nuns declined continuously and decreased to only five at the beginning of the 18th century and later to two people. In order to prevent the structural deterioration of the monastery that went with it, in 1721 they offered their monastery to the financially healthier Düsseldorf celisteresses to set up a branch convent. An initial protest by the Aachen city council delayed this takeover, which could only take place on September 6, 1729 with reservations after the mediation of Abbot Nikolaus Heyendal . Another dispute between the new monastery users and the city arose from the sale of several works of art previously donated to the Magdalen women as well as the church organ, which could only be settled by a settlement of October 15, 1738 in favor of the Cölesterinnen. Now the official takeover was carried out by billing all the sisters to the Burtscheid Abbey the day before , from where they drove to Aachen the next morning in a solemn column of carriages with bells ringing and formally moving into their monastery.
After the French invaded in 1794, the former white women and now Cölester nunnery was secularized in 1802. Five years later, the Aachen cloth manufacturer Ignaz van Houtem initially acquired the building as space for his wool magazine, which in 1848 assigned it to the newly founded Order of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus. They had the old monastery buildings torn down and the new building of today's Kind-Jesu-Kapelle built as an extension to the neighboring Dominican monastery in Aachen , which they also acquired . The three altars were removed, with the main altar with the image of the Annunciation and the large statues of St. Augustine and St. Maria Magdalena was handed over to the old Dominican church of St. Paul and the two side altars were placed in the parish church of St. Michael . The only reminiscent of the old White Convent is a round arched door set into the south wall, on the keystone of which the coat of arms of the Aachen lay judges von Hartman and the year 1691 are carved. During excavation work, a grave slab of Elisabeth von Woestenrath, who was buried in the monastery, was also found, which was embedded in the wall of the cloister.
It was not until 1848 that a new institution emerged in Aachen with the Good Shepherd Monastery, built by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd , which dealt with the problem of "fallen and difficult to educate girls" and in which, according to the specifications from the French mother house, also a contemplative branch of the order the "Magdalenen" had been established.
literature
- Christian Quix : The convent of the white women. In: Contributions to the history of the city of Aachen and its surroundings . Verlag JA Mayer, Aachen 1838. pp. 145–160 ( digitalized )
- Paul Clemen : Aachen city monasteries and their history , In: Karl Faimonville, among other things: The monuments of the city of Aachen . Bd. II .: The churches of the city of Aachen Düsseldorf 1922
Individual evidence
- ↑ Construction site of the Kind-Jesu-Kapelle, Jakobstraße , on the pages of the Diocese of Aachen from October 29, 2017
- ^ Helga Giersiepen: DI 32, City of Aachen, No. 86 , in: www.inschriften.net
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 29.35 " N , 6 ° 4 ′ 50.74" E