idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
From the 12th to the 16th century, the Kaltenborn monastery near Allstedt was a religious, cultural and economic center of the southeastern Harz foreland. Current research by the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) provides new insights into daily life at the monastery, but also into the time of the German peasants’ war (1525), likely Europe's largest popular uprising before the French Revolution.
The Augustinian monastery of Kaltenborn near Emseloh (Mansfeld-Südharz) was founded in 1118. The founders were the Saxon-Thuringian Count Wichmann and his wife Kunigunde. Favored by the high nobility and richly endowed with donations, Kaltenborn developed into one of the most prosperous and influential monasteries in the region.
The prosperity and power of the monastery, as well as its vigorous collection of taxes, aroused resentment in the affected population - refusal of services by Kaltenborn subjects has been reported as early as the mid-15th century. When the Peasants' War broke out in central Germany, the Augustinian monastery was plundered and devastated by insurgents from the nearby villages of Riestedt and Emseloh in April 1525. Many monks fled and did not return. The monastery did not recover from this and was finally abolished in 1538. Later, the church, cloister and all other buildings were removed so thoroughly that today only small rests of ruins have remained of the once magnificent abbey.
Current geophysical investigations, metal detector surveys and excavations under the direction of Prof. Dr. Felix Biermann (LDA) have now produced surprisingly rich relics of the monastery. The walls of the abbey church have been partially preserved under enormous masses of rubble up to a height of two meters. The stately three-aisled basilica with transept, rectangular main apse and semi-circular side apses was built in Romanesque forms in the first half of the 12th century and later expanded in Gothic style. In the south, the cloister buildings connected to a large, walled, roughly rectangular courtyard with a diameter of up to 230 meters, in which various buildings were located. Particularly impressive are the Romanesque architectural and decorative elements of the church, which include magnificent column bases, lintels with floral motifs and round arches with friezes - the latter with close parallels to the Ulrichskirche in nearby Sangerhausen, which has survived to this day and is one of the main works of Romanesque art in Saxony-Anhalt.
These architectural relics and a rich ensemble of small finds - coins, book fittings, belt buckles, pieces of jewelry, scales, signet rings, pens and the like - shed light on the monastery's proud early days. Other finds tell of its eventual downfall. The furor of the rebellious peasants resulted in burnt debris layers with smashed ceramic vessels, broken glass from windows, broken tiles and melted metal objects.
Prof. Dr. Felix Biermann
Project leader
fbiermann@lda.stk.sachsen-anhalt.de
Eastern end of the monastery church with rectangular main apse and semi-circular northern side apse, ...
Robert Prust
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt.
Romanesque column base in the main apse of the monastery church.
Felix Biermann
State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt.
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars, Students
History / archaeology
transregional, national
Research projects
English
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
