Gutenzell Abbey – Wikipedia

L’ Gutenzell abbey ( monastery O Reich Abbey Gutenzell ) It was a Cistercian female monastery placed in the Gutenzell-Hürbel municipality in the Bibarach district, in the current state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The origins of the monastery are unknown. According to legend it was founded in the twelfth century by two sisters of the aristocratic Schlossberg family (in the later traditional tradition also called Key mountain ), whose castle was nearby, and was called with the Latin name of Cell of , then in German God’s cell .

In any case, the first safe register of Gutenzell’s abbey dates back to its re -foundation or possible confirmation of its chapter in 1237 as a female Cistercian monastery under the name of Bona Cella , Good cell in German, from which the current Gutenzell. In his first years of life the monastery was favored and supported in particular by the noble family of the Aichheim. The first badge of Gutenzell was Mechthilda von Aichheim who reassembled the fate of the community from 1237 to 1243, even if other local noble families had the patronage of the abbey over the centuries and this we know since before 1237 the structure had been destroyed in A fire to whose reconstruction had contributed these aristocrats. The daughters of the best German aristocracy were mainly admitted to the monastery.

Already in 1238, the abbey was re -founded by Pope Gregory IX who placed it under the spiritual supervision of the Abbey of Salem under which it remained subjected to 1753 when the addiction was moved to the abbey of Kaisheim.

Much of the monastery was therefore reconstructed from 1369 following a new disastrous fire caused by the lighting to torches and the mainly wooden structure.

In 1474 the church of the monastery, dedicated to the saints Cosma and Damiano, also became the parish church of the village of Gutenzell who had developed around the abbey. What appears today is a medieval structure completely adapted to Baroque style. The origins of the Church, in any case, are datable to the XII century as can be recognized by some tracks in its foundation walls.

In the late Middle Ages, the abbey became an imperial abbey obtaining numerous privileges by the emperor Sigismondo between 1417 and 1437. Since 1521, the Ciambellano of the monastery, appointed by the abbess itself, would have represented the authority of this to the imperial parliament .

1522 is the turn of a new disastrous fire that destroyed much of the ancient cloister of the monastery, which was promptly reconstructed and in 1525 the abbey was involved in the revolt of the peasants who affected the area.

During the thirty -year war, the nuns moved for safety to Stiria since the invasion of the Swedish troops was imminent in 1632. The convent remained thereafter up to 1647, just before the end of the war in 1648: when the Monache returned to the old abbey found it destroyed by the passage of the Swedes who had set it back in 1646 again.

In 1685 the abbey resumed its religious activity at full speed and also received the right to personally administer high justice by the emperor.

In the second half of the eighteenth century there was the last renovation of the monastery, which lasted from 1755 to 1756 and which was also the most spectacular: the grit Xaver Feuchtmayer was called the old man and Dominikus Zimmermann followed the design of the work since hers Daughter Maria Alessandra was at that time nun at the monastery, of which she later became Badassa, from 1759 to 1776. The frescoes were performed by Johann Georg Dieffenbrunner. The pulpit, dating back to 1756, was performed by Stephan Luidl who also created the main altar in 1762, probably on a design by Dominikus Zimmermann.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the abbey possessed not only the small village of Gutenzell, but also most of other small and large villages, for a total of 1189 subjects by anime. Among others, Gutenzell had the regency of a third of Achstetten and Kirchberg and half the lordship of Oberholzheim.

In 1803 the abbey was dissolved during the German meditization and the structure passed to the toerring accounts, and from 1806 to the Kingdom of Würtremberg. At that time the structure welcomed 36 nuns which were largely transferred, but 28 remained to reside in the monastery cloister even if the administration of the same was entrusted to the secular clergy. The monastic tradition was extinct with the death of the last nun in 1851; The last abbess, Maria Justina von Erolzheim, had died in 1809.

• Maegraith, Janine Christina, The Cistercian monastery Gutenzell: From the Reichskloster to the tolerated women’s community , Epfendorf, 2006. ISBN 3-928471-66-X
• Beck, Otto (ed.), Gutenzell: history and work of art , Munich, 1988. ISBN 3-7954-0679-X.