The Itzehoe Monastery is a former

Cistercian abbey The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

Itzehoe Itzehoe (; ) is a town in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. As the capital of the district Steinburg, Itzehoe is located on the Stör, a navigable tributary of the Elbe, 51 km (31.7 mi) northwest of Hamburg and 24 km (14.9&nb ...

, which was converted into a

noble A noble is a member of the nobility. Noble may also refer to: Places Antarctica * Noble Glacier, King George Island * Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land * Noble Peak, Wiencke Island * Noble Rocks, Graham Land Australia * Noble Island, Gr ...

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

ladies' convent after the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. The

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

is headed by an

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

History

The monastery was originally founded in the 1230s on a

mound A mound is a wikt:heaped, heaped pile of soil, earth, gravel, sand, rock (geology), rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded ...

near Ivenfleth at the mouth of the

Stör The Stör () is a river in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, right tributary of the Elbe. Its total length is . The Stör rises east of Neumünster, and flows west through Neumünster, Kellinghusen, and Itzehoe. The Stör joins the Elbe near Glücksta ...

, which had not yet been diked at that time. In 1263, the

Cistercian nuns Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order of the Catholic Church. History The Cistercian Order was initially a male order. Cistercian female monasteries began to appear by 1125. The first Cistercian monastery ...

moved to Itzehoe, presumably because of the occasional flooding. The monastery was endowed with land when it was founded and was able to expand its holdings over the following centuries. The Itzehoe convent was also the

landlord A landlord is the owner of property such as a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate that is rented or leased to an individual or business, known as a tenant (also called a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). The term landlord appli ...

and judge in many areas and was able to demand taxes from the people living there; however, these areas did not form a spatially contiguous estate. Through donations and purchases, the monastery became the sole landowner of the village of

Langwedel Langwedel is a municipality in the district of Verden, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Weser, approx. 7 km northwest of Verden, and 30 km southeast of Bremen. Langwedel belonged to the Prince-Bishop ...

, more than 50 km away, in 1383. The free farmers had to pay their taxes quarterly; this legal relationship was only terminated in 1867 under Prussian administration. After the

, the monastery was converted into a

Protestant ladies' convent (''Damenstift'') in 1541, which it remains to this day. The nuns are unmarried or widowed women, mostly from noble families. At the head of the convent is an (usually) elected

, supported by a prioress. The so-called Verbitter represents the legal and economic interests of the convent vis-à-vis third parties. In 1683, Princess Dorothea Louise of Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1663–1721) was appointed abbess by

Christian V Christian V (15 April 1646 – 25 August 1699) was King of Denmark and Norway from 1670 until his death in 1699. Well-regarded by the common people, he was the first king anointed at Frederiksborg Castle chapel as absolute monarch since the de ...

, King of Denmark and Norway. She was not able to take up her post until 1687; nine years later (1696), she built the prestigious abbess's residence (Klosterhof 7). In Itzehoe, the monastery courtyard near the St. Laurentii Church, where former monastery buildings still stand today, and the rest of the area belonging to the monastery formed one of several jurisdictions and eventually an independent rural municipality, which hindered the expansion of the city of Itzehoe into the 20th century. The last area of this independent municipality was the monastery courtyard, which formed an enclave in the middle of Itzehoe. It was finally incorporated into Itzehoe in 1935/36. Ortwin Pelc: ''Das Kloster Itzehoe. Vom Zisterzienserinnen-Konvent zum adligen Damenstift.'' In: City of Itzehoe (publisher.): ''Itzehoe. Geschichte einer Stadt in Schleswig-Holstein.'' Bd. 1, Itzehoe 1988, p. 43–61, p. 108–112. The monastery has retained primarily land and forest property. For example, it owns the land on which the Itzehoe swimming center was built, based on a

heritable Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of Phenotypic trait, traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cell (biology), cells or orga ...

contract with the noble monastery. The Stormsteich, which is leased to the town of Itzehoe, also belongs to the monastery. It also owns the ''Itzehoe monastery forest'' and 75 hectares of forest 20 kilometers north of Itzehoe. Until 2013, the Hackstruck within Itzehoe also belonged to the monastery, but was sold to a local hospital.

Gallery

File:Itzehoe Grundriss 1848.jpg, The properties belonging to the monastery's judicial district are shown in yellow on this map from 1848 File:Itzehoe Klosterhof-mit-Teich Mai-2011 SL276383.JPG, Monastery courtyard with the monastery pond seen from the steeple of St. Laurentii Church File:Remise Kloster Itzehoe.JPG,

Carriage house A ''carriage house'', also called a ''remise'' or ''coach house'', is a term used in North America to describe an outbuilding that was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and their related tack. Carriage houses were often two ...

of Itzehoe Monastery File:Itzehoe Grabstein an der Kirche IMG 3793.JPG, Gravestone for abbesses from the noble Ahlefeldt family

External links

Website

References

{{Reflist 1230s establishments in Europe Lutheran women's convents Monasteries in Schleswig-Holstein 1230s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire Christian monasteries established in the 1230s