Menu
Global Europe
  • Eastern Europe
    • Economy
    • Music
  • European Union
    • Italy
    • Ireland
  • More Continents
    • Ports in Southern Africa
    • Music in Central America
    • Asia History
  • History
    • Albania Recent History
    • Andorra Recent History
    • Armenia Recent History
    • Austria Recent History
    • Azerbaijan Recent History
    • Belarus Recent History
    • Belgium Recent History
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina Recent History
    • Bulgaria Recent History
    • Croatia Recent History
    • Czech Republic Recent History
    • Denmark Recent History
    • Estonia Recent History
    • Finland Recent History
    • France Recent History
    • Georgia Recent History
    • Germany Recent History
    • Greece Recent History
    • Hungary Recent History
    • Iceland Recent History
    • Ireland Recent History
    • Italy Recent History
    • Latvia Recent History
    • Liechtenstein Recent History
    • Lithuania Recent History
    • Luxembourg Recent History
    • Macedonia Recent History
    • Malta Recent History
    • Moldova Recent History
    • Monaco Recent History
    • Netherlands Recent History
    • Norway Recent History
    • Poland Recent History
    • Portugal Recent History
    • Romania Recent History
    • San Marino Recent History
    • Slovakia Recent History
    • Slovenia Recent History
    • Spain Recent History
    • Sweden Recent History
    • Switzerland Recent History
    • Ukraine Recent History
    • United Kingdom Recent History
    • Vatican Recent History
    • Yugoslavia Recent History
  • Arts and Literature
    • Albania Arts and Literature
    • Austria Arts and Literature
    • Belarus Arts and Literature
    • Belgium Arts and Literature
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina Arts and Literature
    • Bulgaria Arts and Literature
    • Croatia Arts and Literature
    • Czech Republic Arts and Literature
    • Denmark Arts and Literature
    • Estonia Arts and Literature
    • Finland Arts and Literature
    • France Arts and Literature
    • Germany Arts and Literature
    • Greece Arts and Literature
    • Hungary Arts and Literature
    • Iceland Arts and Literature
    • Italy Arts and Literature
    • Latvia Arts and Literature
    • Lithuania Arts and Literature
    • Luxembourg Arts and Literature
    • Malta Arts and Literature
    • Moldova Arts and Literature
    • Montenegro Arts and Literature
    • Netherlands Arts and Literature
    • Northern Macedonia Arts and Literature
    • Norway Arts and Literature
    • Poland Arts and Literature
    • Portugal Arts and Literature
    • Romania Arts and Literature
    • Serbia Arts and Literature
    • Slovakia Arts and Literature
    • Slovenia Arts and Literature
    • Spain Arts and Literature
    • Sweden Arts and Literature
    • Switzerland Arts and Literature
    • Ukraine Arts and Literature
    • United Kingdom Arts and Literature
  • Mass Media
    • Mass Media in Czech Republic
    • Mass Media in Denmark
    • Mass Media in Eastern Europe
    • Mass Media in Finland
    • Mass Media in France
    • Mass Media in Germany
    • Mass Media in Greece
    • Mass Media in Iceland
    • Mass Media in Italy
    • Mass Media in Lithuania
    • Mass media in Netherlands
    • Mass Media in North America
    • Mass Media in Northern Europe
    • Mass Media in Norway
    • Mass Media in Oceania and Australia
    • Mass Media in Russia
    • Mass Media in South America
    • Mass Media in Southern Europe
    • Mass Media in Spain
    • Mass Media in UK
    • Mass Media in Ukraine
    • Mass Media in Western Europe
Global Europe
Maulbronn Monastery Complex

Maulbronn Monastery Complex (World Heritage)

Posted on August 12, 2021August 18, 2021 by globalsciencellc

The former Cistercian Abbey of Maulbronn was built in the 12th century and is one of the few completely preserved medieval monasteries north of the Alps. The center of the complex is the Romanesque monastery church with the monastery courtyard as well as various commercial and residential buildings. The late Gothic fountain house is the highlight of the monastery.

Maulbronn monastery: facts

Official title: Maulbronn monastery complex
Cultural monument: Monastery complex with a monastery church in the Romanesque-Gothic transition style, with a chapter house, refectory for laymen and gentlemen and a sophisticated network of drainage and irrigation canals
Continent: Europe
Country: Germany, Baden-Wuerttemberg, see oxfordastronomy
Location: Maulbronn, northwest of Stuttgart
Appointment: 1993
Meaning: one of the best preserved medieval monasteries north of the Alps

Maulbronn monastery: history

1147 Foundation of the monastery
05/11/1178 Consecration of the three-aisled monastery church
1196-1216 especially under Abbot Konrad I. Expansion of the monastery and redesign in the Romanesque-Gothic transition style
around 1200 Construction of the lay refectory
around 1370 Relief group rich in figures of the erection of the cross, crucifixion and entombment
1430 Construction of the benefice house with infirmary
around 1470 Completion of the carved choir stalls
1494/95 late Gothic building of the parlatorium and oratory
1519 Attack of the men by Franz von Sickingen
1530 secularization
1556 Establishment of a Protestant monastery school
1807 Establishment of the evangelical-theological seminar

Stone poetry

»The large Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn is located in the north-west of the country between wooded hills and small, quiet lakes. The beautiful old buildings are spacious, solid and well preserved and would be a tempting place to live, because they are magnificent, inside and out, and they have grown together nobly and intimately over the centuries with their quiet, beautiful, green surroundings. If you want to visit the monastery, you step through a picturesque gate that opens the high wall onto a wide and very quiet square. A fountain runs there, and there are old, serious trees and on both sides old stone and solid houses and in the background the front of the main church with a late Romanesque vestibule, called Paradise, of a graceful, delightful beauty beyond compare. ”

As idyllic as Hermann Hesse described Maulbronn in his novella “Under the Wheel”, the Cistercian monastery still presents itself to visitors today. It is difficult to avoid the beguiling effect of the ascetic Cistercian architecture. For Nobel laureate Hesse, who – like Johannes Kepler and Friedrich Hölderlin before him – attended the evangelical monastery school in Maulbronn, his school days were torture despite the beautiful surroundings: after just a few months, in the spring of 1892, Hesse fled from what he hated, still today existing educational institution.

The monastery exemplarily reflects the spirit of the order founded in Cîteaux in 1098. True to the wording of the Benedictine monastery rules, the Cistercians strived for religious perfection. For this purpose, the monks shut themselves off from the noise and screams of the world behind the thick monastery walls. They therefore only founded their abbeys in the solitude of a forest or in a valley that is difficult to access. In 1147 monks from the Alsatian Neuburg set out to plant the new order ideal in the valley of the Salzach at the request of Walter von Lomersheim, a Swabian knight.

The principle of “being alone with oneself”, the power of faith that grew out of the solitude of meditation, could only develop in the seclusion of a monastery like Maulbronn; With the ascetic simplicity of their buildings, the monks were a reminder of the poverty and unpretentiousness of early Christianity. The understanding of physical work as participation in God’s work is also evident in the functionalism of the Maulbronn facilities; colorful glass windows or even bell towers were frowned upon.

A strict life in denial of the world and apostolic poverty, renouncing the comforts that had become common in other monasteries, the Benedictine Rule should not only be fulfilled to the letter, but also according to its true meaning. The Cistercian monks did not want to live from basic rights and sovereignty, not from the interest and taxes of the peasants, but from what they wrestled with the sweat of their brow from the ground on which they had settled. A large space in the extensive, walled monastery complex was therefore reserved for the farm buildings. There is even a mill within the walls.

Due to its excellently preserved medieval structure, Maulbronn can undoubtedly be described as the most beautiful Cistercian monastery east of the Rhine. The buildings and facilities remained almost unchanged, as Maulbronn, due to the turmoil of the Reformation, was secularized in the first half of the 16th century and used as a Protestant monastery school. The elongated monastery church in particular impresses with its harmonious proportions; a choir screen separates the lay church from the eastern part reserved for monks, which ends in the windowless choir typical of the Cistercians. Another architectural highlight is the adjoining cloister with the high Gothic well chapel.

Maulbronn Monastery Complex

Recent Posts

  • Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
  • Kabansk, Republic of Buryatia (Russia)
  • Republic of Moldova
  • Croatia in the 1990’s
  • History and Politics of Macedonia

Categories

©2022 Global Europe