Schönrain Priory

Schönrain Priory
	Kloster Schönrain
	The ruins in 2006
	Location within Bavaria
Monastery information
Order	Benedictines
Established	circa 1100
Disestablished	1526
Architecture
Groundbreaking	circa 1100
Site
Location	near Lohr am Main
Coordinates	50°01′50″N9°39′23″E / 50.03056°N 9.65639°E Coordinates: 50°01′50″N9°39′23″E / 50.03056°N 9.65639°E
Public access	yes

Last updated February 21, 2019

Schönrain Priory (German: Kloster Schönrain) was a house of the Benedictine Order located near Lohr in the Spessart, in Bavaria in southern Germany. Few signs of the monastic buildings are visible today. The ruins that remain mostly consist of later additions when the structure served as a temporal dwelling and foresters' lodge.

Lohr am Main is a town in the Main-Spessart district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) in Bavaria, Germany and the seat of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft of Lohr am Main. It has a population of around 15,000.

Spessart is a Mittelgebirge, a range of low wooded mountains, in the States of Bavaria and Hesse in Germany. It is bordered by the Vogelsberg, Rhön and Odenwald. The highest elevation is the Geiersberg at 586 metres NN.

Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a landlocked federal state of Germany, occupying its southeastern corner. With an area of 70,550.19 square kilometres, Bavaria is the largest German state by land area. Its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany. With 13 million inhabitants, it is Germany's second-most-populous state after North Rhine-Westphalia. Bavaria's capital and largest city, Munich, is the third-largest city in Germany.

History

There is a legend that it was founded in the Carolingian period, in about 750, by Saint Lioba, and some have argued that a few traces of architecture from that period survive.

However, firm information on this place is available only from the 11th century, when the monastery, with some property to endow it, was given by Landgraf de:Ludwig der Bärtige of Sangerhausen or his sons Berengar and Ludwig to Hirsau Abbey, reportedly after the younger Ludwig had killed Markgraf Friedrich III during a hunt in 1065. After being incarcerated, Ludwig escaped. He founded Reinhardsbrunn Abbey near Coburg and possibly gifted his possession at Schönrain to Hirsau. Around 1100, abbot Wilhelm von Hirsau built the monastery, from which the monks served the whole region between Lohr, Gemünden am Main and Karlstadt am Main.^[1]^[2]^:120

Sangerhausen is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, capital of the district of Mansfeld-Südharz. It is situated southeast of the Harz, approx. 35 kilometres east of Nordhausen, and 50 km (31 mi) west of Halle (Saale). About 31,000 people live in Sangerhausen.

Louis the Springer, sometimes called Louis the Jumper, or Louis the Leaper, also known as Count Louis of Schauenburg was a German nobleman. He was the ruling count of Thuringia from 1056 until his death. Little is known about him, although he is mentioned in many legends.

Hirsau Abbey, formerly known as Hirschau Abbey, was once one of the most important Benedictine abbeys of Germany. It is located in the Hirsau borough of Calw on the northern slopes of the Black Forest mountain range, in the present-day state of Baden-Württemberg. In the 11th and 12th century, the monastery was a centre of the Cluniac Reforms, implemented as "Hirsau Reforms" in the German lands. The complex was devastated during the War of the Palatine Succession in 1692 and not rebuilt.

In 1159, Schönrain swapped property at nearby Massenbuch for Hofstetten (today both are part of Gemünden). The local feudal lords were the Counts of Rieneck, kin of the founders, who persistently over the next centuries tried to acquire the property for themselves. They built a castle nearby to protect the priory. After a power struggle with the Bishop of Würzburg, they had to demolish it in 1243.^[1]^[3]^:99

The County of Rieneck was a comital domain within the Holy Roman Empire that lay in what is now northwestern Bavaria. It bore the same name as its original ruling family, the Counts of Rieneck, from whom the county and its main seat, the town of Rieneck, got their names.

In 1376, the Rieneck family sold their local properties to Würzburg, but retained the position of Vögte (or lay stewards) of Schönrain.^[1]

A Vogt in the Holy Roman Empire was a title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice over a certain territory. The territory or area of responsibility of a Vogt is called a Vogtei. The term also denotes a mayor of a village.

Eventually, after severe damages sustained during the German Peasants' War, the then Abbot of Hirsau dissolved the monastery at Schönrain and sold the premises to Philipp von Rieneck in 1526, who re-built it as a residence for his wife Margaretha around 1535. After his death, it served as Margaretha's dowager house for another 15 years.^[1]^[3]^:99^[2]^:120

The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of the intense opposition by the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers. The survivors were fined and achieved few, if any, of their goals. The war consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Anabaptist clergy, took the lead. The German Peasants' War was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789. The fighting was at its height in the middle of 1525.

In 1559, Schönrain came to Anton von Isenburg-Büdingen. When that family line failed in 1601, the site passed permanently to the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg,^[1]^[3]^:99 who used it as accommodation for their forestry officials until 1625. It was heavily damaged in the Thirty Years' War and served as a local source of construction materials. The Bishopric was secularised in 1803 and Schönrain later continued in use by the forestry officials of the Kingdom of Bavaria. When their headquarters was moved elsewhere in 1818,^[1] the buildings at Schönrain were stripped for building materials, and the site has been in ruins since that time.

Today

Since 1973 the site and the ruins have been under the protection of a local environmental and historical preservation group, the Lohrer Heimatfreunde.

The de:Schönraintunnel, completed in 1993, passes beneath the ruins.

Related Research Articles

Rieneck Castle is a hill castle located in the town of Rieneck, in Bavaria, southern Germany. It was built by Ludwig I, Count of Loon and Rieneck, around the year 1150. It is today used by the German Christian Guide and Scout Association.

William of Hirsau was a Benedictine abbot and monastic reformer. He was abbot of Hirsau Abbey, for whom he created the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, based on the uses of Cluny, and was the father of the Hirsau Reforms, which influenced many Benedictine monasteries in Germany. He supported the papacy in the Investiture Controversy. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is a Blessed, the second of three steps toward recognition as a saint.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 "Massenbuch(German)". Stadt Gemünden. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
1 2 Schaub, Franz (1974). Spessart und Rhön (German). Süddeutscher Verlag, München. ISBN 3-7991-5924-X.
1 2 3 Tubbesing, Ulrich (2010). Rother Wanderführer Spessart (German). Bergverlag Rother, München. ISBN 978-3-7633-4269-3.

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[Gemünden-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Massenbuch(German)". Stadt Gemünden. Retrieved 20 June 2016.

[Schaub-2] 1 2 Schaub, Franz (1974). Spessart und Rhön (German). Süddeutscher Verlag, München. ISBN 3-7991-5924-X.

[Rother-3] 1 2 3 Tubbesing, Ulrich (2010). Rother Wanderführer Spessart (German). Bergverlag Rother, München. ISBN 978-3-7633-4269-3.