Frauenstift

A woman pin is a religious community for women living without passing of vows in a monastery-like plant. Living in such a free secular pin ( usually noble in the Middle Ages ) Women are called canonesses, choir or women canonesses, hence the term Damenstift is often used.

A distinction is made thereof those nuns in a monastic orders ( Augustinian Canons women, Benedictine, Carthusian, Premonstratensian Choir Women, Cistercian nuns, etc.) live and for life in solemn vows to live a life according to the evangelical counsels under an abbess or prioress have committed. The monasteries of nuns and other monastic orders are, especially in Austria, often also called pins.

Foundation

A woman pin was often donated by a nobleman or a wealthy widow in order to perform a work pleasing to God. The Collegiate Women generally received the Foundation's mission to pray for the souls of the founders.

The pins were under either a kingdom pins directly to the king or emperor, or the bishop, who then had the right to appoint the abbess and to establish a confessor for the pin ladies.

The nobles of the area secured by their endowments that the pin was open only for their own daughters, but you could " buy " into a pen from outside. Also pin locations have been created for the daughters of officials deserved.

Life in the secular pins

The canonesses lived in monastery-like buildings, but they were often decorated generous than religious. The canonesses often brought their own furniture and their servants. They were obliged to participate in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass and take the food with the community in the refectory.

At her entrance, the canonesses took off only the vows of chastity and obedience to her Mother Superior, however, were able to get married if they renounced their sinecures. They had the freedom to consume flowing to them from the pen income where they wanted. Frequently cultivated even the abbess, and the head of a small number of the Canon in the monastery buildings reside, whereas the other pin ladies had their own apartments with a small servants in the area. The canonesses renounced neither on their private property or to their hereditary rights and the pen could always rely.

Your livelihood denied the pins from the introduced during the creation of the Foundation benefices, from the proceeds of all canonesses received an annual sum. But had a pen lady when they enter a certain sum zustiften.

Between pin monasteries and secular pins was some gray area. Because the secular pins oriented themselves in their statutes to the Augustine rule or the rule of St. Benedict, is not always unambiguously be inferred from today's perspective, from the sources, whether it was for a woman to pen a monastic or secular monastery. It was also common that noble widows were shopping in a monastic pin, to spend their twilight years following the monastic community of women religious, but without taking the vows. Secular pins were occasionally converted into regulated monasteries or vice versa.

History

The first woman pins are demonstrated for the early Middle Ages. The basis for the design of the Kanonissenklöster of Metz worked out by Amalarius Aachen rule ( Institutiones Aquisgranenses ) of 816 binding was she by the Synod of Aachen. The rule was, among others for spikes in food, Gander Home, Meschede, Gernrode, Cologne, Herford and Quedlinburg. One of the oldest woman pins, the monastery was Böddeken in (prince - ) diocese of Paderborn ( 836).

In the Middle Ages and the early modern period the woman pins important centers were to provide unmarried noble women and widows. The collegiate ladies were often taught, and doing the skilful handicrafts.

The Reformation came the one hand, contrary to the re-establishment of the female education devoting the Ursuline Order, while the secular tradition of the Canon on the other hand was preserved. The houses of the deaconesses have partially returned to this tradition. Many convents were transformed during the Reformation in secular canonesses pins in order to avoid the resolution.

Today, there are only isolated woman pins. In Germany the Lüneklöster or Ehreshoven are well known examples. Outside Germany, there are pens for example in Salles- Arbuissonnas -en- Beaujolais ( Rhône), in Maubeuge, in Remiremont, in Epinal, in Bouxières -aux -Dames ( Nancy ), in Mont Fleury ( near Dijon ) and in Mons (Belgium ).

The history of the woman pins see also Sanktimoniale.

Mixed denominational pins

As a kind of transition between the Catholic and the Protestant ladies pins originated in denominationally fragmented Westphalia, the free secular ladies pins from former Catholic pins and convents. The pins took on both Protestant and Catholic women also. After 1648 partly Calvinistinnen were added. In these devices, the prebends were divided according to a specific key on the various denominations. In Pen Schildesche there were six prebends for Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. The line had an abbess. Here it was found in the change of each of the denominations involved. A vow did not exist, and each pin lady kept most of their assets. Overall, in the Protestant territories become Westphalia about twenty such facilities for the supply of daughters of noble and patrician families originated. Partial persisted Catholic traditions. So the ladies wore in the pen Cappel continue a habit.

Protestant ladies pins in Germany

A special group are the Protestant ladies pins (see list of pins ) (also: "Miss pins " ) in Schleswig -Holstein and Lower Saxony. The Schleswig -Holstein knighthood today maintains the noble ladies pins Preetz monastery, Monastery Itzehoe, St. John's Monastery before Schleswig, and monastery Uetersen. The Bremen Knighthood maintains the monastery Neuenwalde. For general Hanover Monastery Fund, a foundation under public law include the Calenberger monasteries Barsinghausen, Mariensee, Marie Werder, Wennigsen and Wülfinghausen. The General Fund is managed by Hanover monastery the monastery Hanover Chamber. The so-called Lüneburg monasteries Ebstorf, Isenhagen ( at Hankensbuettel ), Luna, Medingen, Walsrode and Vienna Hausen, however, remained in each case as public corporations legally independent, but are since 1963 mainly financed from the general Hanover monastery funds and are under the legal authority of the President of the Klosterkammer. There are also in Lower Saxony nor the five free pins: pin Börstel, Bassum pen, pen Fischbeck, and pen top churches. These are exclusively under the legal authority of the President of the monastic chamber, but are not financed by the monastery chamber.

In Mecklenburg after the Reformation, the monasteries Dobbertin, Malchow and Ribnitz were in ladies pins for christian, honest Auferziehung domestic virgins, they would like to go in it converted.

In Brandenburg emerged in the 13th century various women's pins in accordance with the Cistercian Order, which is usually found, however, no admission into the Order. They were not filiations of Cistercian monasteries mother, but went back in the majority on foundations of local nobility. The Prignitzer family goose Putlitzstrasse founded in 1231, for example, the convent Marienfließ, which today still exists as a "pen Marienfließ " and engaged in diaconal care of the elderly. Moreover, the Brandenburg Klosterstiftskirche the Holy Sepulchre to 1945, and the Convent Drubeck passed ( province of Saxony, today Saxony -Anhalt) until 1946 when ladies pins.

Among the less well-known today facilities include the former protestant noble woman pens central Germany, for example, in the former dominions of the House of Wettin. This did not go back to medieval monasteries, but were pure start-ups of the early modern period or the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the most important buildings include the 1705 inaugurated Magdalene pin in Altenburg, Thuringia and in 1728 opened pin Joachimstein in Radmeritz in Görlitz. Both pins no longer exist in their former function. While in Altenburg but still diverse diaconal tasks are performed in the context of a social center, did not survive the Oberlausitzer pin Joachimstein the end of the Second World War. More woman pins passed about in Wasungen, Dresden, Großkromsdorf and Löbichau.