Rolduc is a medieval abbey located on the edge of the town of

Kerkrade Kerkrade (; Kerkrade dialect, Ripuarian: ; ; or ''Kirchrath'') is a town and a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeast of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands. It forms part of the P ...

in the far south-east of the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It is today a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

with an affiliated conference center. The abbey is a ''

rijksmonument A (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands had 61,822 l ...

'' (Dutch national heritage site). It features on the official list of 100 top Dutch heritage sites, drawn up in 1990 by what is today the

Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands) often abbreviated as Cultureel Erfgoed, is a Dutch cultural heritage, heritage organisation working for the protection and conservation of National Heritage ...

(National Cultural Heritage Service).

History

In 1104, a young priest by the name of Ailbertus of Antoing founded an Augustinian

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

in the ''Land of Rode'', near the river

Wurm Wurm or Würm may refer to: Places * Wurm (Rur), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany * Würm (Amper), a river in Bavaria, southeastern Germany ** Würm glaciation, an Alpine ice age, named after the Bavarian river * Würm (Nagold ...

. The abbey was called ''Kloosterrade'', which later became ( or ), after the ducal castle that was built across the Wurm. Ailbertus died in 1111 and his bones were later interred in the

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

. In 1136 the land of Rode, including the abbey, became the property of the

Duchy of Limburg The Duchy of Limburg or Limbourg was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire. Much of the area of the duchy is today located within Liège Province of Belgium, with a small portion in the municipality of Voeren, an Enclave and exclave, excla ...

. Kloosterrade was considered to be their family church. Several

dukes of Limburg The counts of Limburg ruled a medieval county with its capital at Limbourg-sur-Vesdre, lying between Liège and Aachen. They rose to prominence when one of them was appointed Duke of Lower Lorraine. Though Lorraine was later confiscated, the d ...

are buried at Rolduc, such as Walram III, whose

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

can be found in the nave of the church. During the 12th and 13th century the abbey flourished. Several other communities were founded by Kloosterrade. In 1250 the abbey owned more than 3,000 hectares of land. During the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries times were harder for the abbey in both spiritual and material terms. The buildings were heavily damaged during the

Eighty Years War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, exce ...

. Materialistically, the abbey began to prosper again in the late 17th century when revenue was generated from the exploitation of

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

s. In around 1775, Rolduc employed 350 miners. The abbey was dissolved by the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

in 1796 and the buildings were not used for 35 years. In 1815, when the

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed from 1815 to 1839. The United Netherlands was created in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars through the fusion of territories t ...

was formed (see

Vienna Congress The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

), the border was drawn through the ancient land of Rode, separating the abbey from the castle. The eastern part (including the castle) became

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

Herzogenrath Herzogenrath (; ; ) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It borders the Dutch town of Kerkrade, the national border in one section running along the middle of a main road and even directly ...

and the western part (including the abbey) became part of the Dutch municipality of

. In the 19th century Rolduc became a famous boarding school run by

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s, and a seminary of the Diocese of Roermond. Many influential Dutch Roman Catholics (e.g. the writer

Lodewijk van Deyssel Lodewijk van Deyssel was the pseudonym of Karel Joan Lodewijk Alberdingk Thijm (22 September 1864, Amsterdam – 26 January 1952), a Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch peop ...

and the social reformer ) were educated at Rolduc. The former abbey is now a secondary school (''Charlemagne College'', formerly ''College Rolduc''), a Roman Catholic seminary, and the ''Rolduc Congress Center''.

Description

The 12th century abbey church is an example of

Mosan art Mosan art is a regional style of art from the valley of the Meuse in present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Although in a broader sense the term applies to art from this region from all periods, it generally refers to Romanesque ar ...

. The

and the choir and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

above have a cloverleaf pattern. The interior of both the church and the crypt contains richly carved

capitals Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

. Remarkable is the fact that the columns in the crypt all have a different design. In 1853, the young architect

Pierre Cuypers Petrus Josephus Hubertus "Pierre" Cuypers (16 May 1827 – 3 March 1921) was a Dutch architect. His name is most frequently associated with the Amsterdam Central Station (1881–1889) and the Rijksmuseum (1876–1885), both in Amsterdam. ...

was commissioned to restore the crypt and to reinstate as much as possible the original Romanesque fabric. The

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

s are largely 18th century. The abbey has a richly decorated

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

library with an important collection of books. During the Middle Ages, the Rolduc library was one of the most famous libraries in the Meuse region. The history of the abbey was recorded in the so-called ''Annales Rodenses'', a

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

about the years 1104 through 1157. Rolduc bibliotheek

The interior painting above the altar is by the

Nazarene movement The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of c ...

painter

Matthias Goebbels Joseph Matthias Hubertus Goebbels (19 March 1836 – 6 September 1911) was a German Catholic Priest and artist. Goebbels served as a Roman Catholic priest at the Church of Sankt Maria im Kapitol in Cologne, Germany and became a noted painter of c ...

Monastery garden, cemetery, and wooded surroundings

Rolduc is located amidst a wooded area near the small river Worm. On its own grounds, there are the cloister courtyard (behind the abbey church, with a remnant of the Romanesque cloister), the monastery garden (with two garden houses dating from around 1700), and the walled monastery cemetery (with a neo-Gothic cemetery chapel with a Calvary group). In the immediate vicinity, noteworthy are a small grove with ponds, the valley of the Vrouwezijp, and several old avenues (including the Chemin d'Abbaye). Abdij Rolduc5

References

External links

*
Website Rolduc seminary and conference centre
(in Dutch and English) {{authority control Former Christian monasteries in the Netherlands Christian monasteries in Limburg (Netherlands) Augustinian monasteries in the Netherlands Monasteries dissolved during the French Revolution Catholic seminaries Education in Limburg (Netherlands) Romanesque architecture in the Netherlands Mosan art Rijksmonuments in Kerkrade Seminaries and theological colleges in the Netherlands