Heisterbach Abbey

Daughter monasteries

Abbey Marienstatt (1212)

The monastery Heisterbach is the remnant of a former Cistercian abbey in the Seven Mountains area (urban area king winter). It lies between Oberdollendorf and Heisterbacherrott in the valley of Heisterbach's, a true left tributary of the Dollendorfer Bach (also known as "Upper Dollendorfer mill brook" ).

History

Middle Ages

The Order of Cistercians originated in 1098 as a reform movement with the Benedictines. Its heyday time was under Bernard of Clairvaux.

At the instigation of the Archbishop of Cologne Philip I of Heinberg Abbey Himmerod in the Eifel sent twelve monks to found a monastery daughter into the Seven Mountains. On March 22, 1189 they moved first to the abandoned building of the Augustinian Order at the Petersberg (formerly Stromberg ). The name of the first abbot was Hermann. 1192 attracted the Cistercians in the valley below the mountain, Peter, where they founded the monastery Heisterbach ( " Heist " = beech), which was also called Saint Peterstal.

1197 Abt Gervadus an obligation under a contract with Abbess Elizabeth of Vilich to deliver 15 bushels of wheat instead of tithe to the monastery Vilich.

It was not until 1202 until the move to Heisterbach in the valley of St. Peter, as they called it, was completed and the foundation stone of the new monastery was laid. As of 1211, the monastery was called " Mary in the Peterstal in Heisterbach ". Later it was known only as the monastery Heisterbach. This name is also above the entrance to a coat of arms. The most famous monk of the Abbey was Caesarius of Heister Bach ( 1180-1240 ).

1215 was settled by Heisterbach from the Abbey Marienstatt in the Westerwald.

On October 18, 1237 construction of the new abbey church was consecrated with a length of 88 meters and a width of 44 meters. In size it was surpassed only by the Cologne Cathedral. The apse was followed by the force from the mid-12th century ideal of dealing with the choir chapels, as later in the Altenberg Cathedral. The usual Zweischaligkeit the apse, which already exists in Cologne several times, experiencing here by the ambulatory a unique transformation. The column position between handling and chorus is doubled, thus taking up the clamshell principle of the apse wall in an unusual form. Because here in Cologne is not like in the Romanesque triconch choirs under the upper chamber shell of the apse on the ground floor a series of niches between columns, that is not the wall down in an area by, but behind the lower columns a whole handling round. There is thus not a smooth outer skin more with the multi-storey decoration ribbons as in Speyer, Cologne and Bonn, but form the ambulatory and the outer ring of chapels an expansive ground floor for themselves.

1327 the entire monastery complex was completed. Parts of a finished before 1448 by the Master of Heisterbacher altar of the Cologne school of painting altar can be found today among other things in the Wallraf - Richartz Museum, and the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Modern Times

1650 Pontifikalien were purchased, here is the episcopal character miter and staff. From 1763 to 1767 was built on the River Rhine in the so-called Winter King Heisterbacher farm guesthouse of the abbey Heisterbach whose abbots lived last there.

With the secularization of the abbey Heisterbach was repealed in 1803. The bergische state government offered on October 18, 1804, the monastery in vain for sale. The church was sold for demolition to a French entrepreneur 1809. The stones they used to build the North Channel between Venlo and Neuss. Later they were also used for the Ehrenbreitstein in Koblenz. The rest of the building bought at a Cologne consortium. Only 1818 more explosions were suppressed by an order of the President of the Upper Rhine province, so that the Chorruine could be obtained. Count Wilhelm Ernst of Lippe - Biesterfeld acquired the site in 1820 and had to create an English landscape garden, where the Chorruine was included. Otherwise, only a barn and the brewery have been preserved from the old monastery.

1885 was one of the living space Heisterbach the community Oberdollendorf 10 inhabitants. 1918 acquired the Cellitinnen by the Rule of St.. Augustine, the territory of the Count of Lippe, and returned the monastic life. The previous inhabitants of the places Hattenrott, Altenrott and Heisterbach were reported and (formerly Roda ) resettled on top of the plane in today's Heisterbacherrott. In 2008, the Provincial Council of the Cellitinnen has requested the closure of the only 13-member Convention in Heisterbach.

1984, the Foundation abbey Heisterbach was founded with the aim to maintain and explore the cultural heritage. In 1993, the club leased the building blocks for life eV a former retirement home on the monastery grounds and converted it to a help and information center for pregnant women and single mothers in emergency situations in order. House Heisterbach began operations in 1995.

In 1994, a symposium was an opportunity to consider more closely with the landscape around the monastery Heisterbach. 2001 Heisterbacher Valley study results were published on the historical, archaeological, scenic, and economic development of the former monastery area under the working title monastery landscape. The project of the same name will be a priority in the Local 2010 of the state of North Rhine -Westphalia with the objective of sustainable development of these small-scale cultural landscape. All measures aim to make the different historical layers of time in the monastery landscape to life. From the medieval monastery was founded on the baroque extensions and the scenic transformations after the secularization to the new construction of Cellitinnen in the 20th century important historical traces for visitors should be experienced. The restoration of the historic space structure is in the foreground.

Chorruine in winter, mid 19th century

Chorruine, 1900

Abbey Heisterbach (steel engraving of 1844 )

Baroque entrance building of the abbey built in 1750 under Abbot Augustine Mengelberg ( 1748-1763 ).

Abbots of the monastery Heisterbach

• Hermann I (17 March 1189-1195/96, † March 31, 1225, as he had been Abbot Heinrich canon of St. Cassius in Bonn, before joining the Order, he was Dean of St. Apostles in Cologne, before Heisterbach he was abbot of Himmerod, later abbot of Marienstatt )
• Gerard ( 1196-15. February 1208, before the canons of St. Maria ad Gradus in Cologne)
• Henry I (1208-1242)
• Gerhard (1244-1261)
• Christian I ( 25./31. March 1261-15. February 1266 )
• Henry II of Willich (1267-1269)
• Alexander ( 1272 )
• Ekbert I. (2 July 1273-23. April 1278 )
• Dietrich I ( 1291 )
• Egbert II ( 1294 )
• Nicholas I ( 1299 )
• Konrad (1301 )
• Nicholas II ( 1303)
• John I (28 July 1305-4. April 1316 )
• Anselm (c. 1357 )
• Christian II ( 1412 )
• Johann Vitensis (of St. Vith ) ( 1566-1597 )
• Nivard Wirotte (1692-1704)
• Ferdinand Hartmann (1704-1728)
• Adam Prangh (1728)
• Engelbert Schmit (1728-1747)
• Augustine Mengelberg (1748-1763)
• Kneusgen Hermann (1763-1768)
• Andreas Kruchen (1768-1796)
• Edmond Verhoven (1796-1803)

Other monks of the monastery Heisterbach

• Caesarius of Heisterbach medieval chronicler, wrote among other things, the Dialogus miraculorum
• Count I. Dietrich of Wied, handed his county in 1197 his son and spent his twilight years as a monk in Heisterbach
• Father Aloys Olzem, the last monk of Heisterbach, died in 1859 in King Winter ( cross -preserved grave in the cemetery at the palace pond )

Heisterbach in romance

Born in King Winter poet Wolfgang Müller (1816-1873), who called himself on the basis of the same name with a painter " of King Winter", combined with a widespread legend Heisterbach and created a well-known poem.

The poem mentioned in the Bible passage is: " The one, brothers, you must not be overlooked: that one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day with the Lord. " (2 Peter 3.8 EU); this passage refers to " For a thousand years for you as the day that has passed yesterday, like a watch in the night." (Psalm 90.4 EU)

The monk Heisterbach

By Wolfgang Müller of King Winter

He reads what Peter the apostle said: The men 's a day like one thousand years And a thousand years are like a day to him. But as he meditates, it is never clear to him.

In the course he reaches For the garden quickly; A stranger he opens the door. He supported - but look, even the church is bright And out of it the brothers are louder chorus.

The back end is being stared all around, One wonders by name, asks about the desire, He says it, as it murmurs through the sanctuary: Three hundred years was so no longer.

He called the abbot and called the year. It is the old convent book at hand, Since a great miracle of God is clear: He is the one who disappeared three centuries.

What he conceals, makes only a miracle clear. Drum ponders not think my fate. I know it is a day like a thousand year And a thousand years are like a day to him.