Location: Salem, Baden-Württemberg Map
Constructed: 1136 by Gunthram of Adelsreute
Order: Cistercian
Tel. (07553) 814 37
Open: Apr- Oct: 9:30am- 6pm Mon- Sat
10:30am- 6pm Sun
Salem Abbey is a Cistercian monastery located in Salem,
Baden-Württemberg region in Germany. The religious complex of the
Salem Abbey was constructed in 1136 by Gunthram of Adelsreute. The
first head of the Salem Monastery became Frowin of Bellevaux. Soon
Salem Abbey grew in size and prosperity. Frederick Barbarossa
specifically dedicated the abbey as a religious complex under
special protection of the Imperial throne, thus getting an
honourable title of Reichsabtei or Reichskloster. Salem Abbey was
badly damaged by a fire in 1697. Subsequent reconstruction gave the
complex its current Baroque appearance. Monks who lived gathered a
massive library with over 30,000 volumes of books and documents.
Most of these items were collected by a librarian Caspar Oexle who
was latter elected abbot.
Unfortunately Salem Abbey life
came to an end in the 19th century. In 1803 after
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (Principal Conclusion of the
Extraordinary Imperial Delegation) resolution the site was
nationalized. All the monks left Salem Abbey and it became a museum.
The massive collection of books and documents were transferred to
the Petershaysen Abbey and later sold to the University of
Heidelberg.
Salem was founded during
the time of Bernhard von Clairvaux (* around 1090; † 1153), who
within a few decades succeeded in spreading the Cistercian order
across Central Europe. (Bernhard von Clairvaux never visited Salem
himself; Frowin, the first abbot of Salem, is said to have known
Bernhard and accompanied him as an interpreter on the advertising
trip for the Second Crusade in 1146.) The Cistercians were organized
in five primary abbeys and were populated by France systematically
and almost comprehensively the Roman Empire and the neighboring
countries. Salem was created through filiation from the monastery
Lützel in Alsace (founded 1123/1124), which was a foundation of the
monastery Bellevaux (Franche-Comté). Bellevaux, in turn, was the
first daughter monastery of the Morimond primary abbey. Salem was
the first Cistercian settlement in the northern Lake Constance area
and one of the first foundations in the Roman Empire to descend from
Morimond.
The chronicles of the monastery report that the
baron and knight Guntram von Adelsreute (see Herrschaft Adelsreuth)
turned to the abbot von Lützel in 1134 to donate part of his
property to found a monastery. Guntram's donation comprised a few
scattered plots of land totaling around 200 hectares, some of which
were already settled or cultivated as fields. The piece of land on
which the monastery was built was six kilometers inland from the
shore of Lake Constance in the valley of the Linzer Aach. The
Franconian settlement Salemanneswilare (later: Salmannsweiler) with
a small chapel was already located there. The monastery was not
located in a secluded wilderness, as the order actually prescribed
for start-ups, but in the midst of a fragmented and widely ramified
system of territories divided into tenure rights. Nevertheless, the
swampy land still offered opportunities to satisfy the colonization
ambitions. The Lützel Monastery initially had concerns about the
small size and wide spread of the donated properties. Finally, in
1137, the necessary founding convention of twelve monks and a few
lay brothers under the designated Abbot Frowin was sent to
Salmannsweiler to build accommodation and workshops.
In 1137
or 1138 Salem was elevated to an abbey. To this day there are
different opinions about the actual year Salem was founded. Both the
dating of the foundation (1134) and the elevation to the abbey are
not recorded in documents, but only in a chronicle from the 13th
century. Recent research names May 15, 1138, the Sunday after
Ascension Day, as the foundation day. In the monastery tradition,
1134 (but partly also 1137) was designated as the year of
foundation, so that the 850th anniversary of the abbey was
celebrated in 1984. This question is not only interesting for
historiography, but was also important for the monastery itself, as
the age of the abbey determined the order of precedence of the
monasteries within the order.
The
monastery in Salemanneswilare was given the spiritual name “Salem”
after the biblical “place of peace”, which is mentioned in the Old
Testament as the seat of King Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18; Ps. 76,2).
The biblical Salem was interpreted as the older name of Jerusalem in
the Middle Ages. The Salem Monastery has therefore always been
associated with the heavenly Jerusalem in artistic allegories.
The names Salem and Salmannsweiler were used equally alongside
each other until the 18th century. Of all things, the secularization
in 1804 let the secular name fall into oblivion and made the
spiritual name the place name of the community.
Salem and the
Hohenstaufen
Guntram's foundation was politically motivated:
through him, Salem, like the mother monastery in Lützel, was
connected to the Staufers. In the power struggle between Staufern
and Welfen, the founding ensured that the former, who already had
important bases of their power in the Lake Constance region in
Altdorf, Ravensburg, Buchhorn, Reichenau Island and Kreuzlingen,
were able to expand their influence over the northwestern Lake
Constance area. The legal consolidation followed quickly: In 1142
Salem was taken over by the Staufer King Konrad III. elevated to
imperial abbey; his heir to the throne, Friedrich Barbarossa,
confirmed the privileges. The immediate neighbors of the monastery
approved the establishment, as it offered support against the Guelph
Counts of Pfullendorf. Due to the documented rights, Salem was
exempt from other bailiwicks and had the king of the Roman-German
Empire as the direct patron - a position that the Salem abbots knew
how to secure and develop over time.
When in 1198 the Staufer Philipp von Schwaben and
the Guelph Otto von Braunschweig were elected by their respective
factions as rival kings of the Roman-German Empire, Salem sided with
the Staufer. Pope Innocent III however, confirmed Otto IV as the new
king in 1201. Abbot Eberhard von Rohrdorf therefore sought support
from Eberhard II, the Archbishop of Salzburg. Together they tried to
pope Innocent III. to move to recognize the Hohenstaufen succession,
but this did not succeed. When Philipp von Schwaben was murdered in
1208, Salem officially confessed to Otto IV, who in return confirmed
the abbey in its rights. Nevertheless, Salem kept in secret contact
with the Hohenstaufen throne, Friedrich II. The loyalty paid off:
The Staufer, elected emperor in Bamberg in 1211 and finally
recognized by the Guelphs in 1219, thanked Salem for his loyalty
with a wealth of protective documents.
The protection of the
Hohenstaufen helped Salem under Abbot Eberhard von Rohrdorf
(1191–1240) to an astonishing economic prosperity. Eberhard
succeeded in amalgamating the existing free float in monastic
administrations. For the first time, the monastery generated large
surpluses that were reinvested in real estate. The overproduction of
fruit, grain and fish was sold in duty-free city farms in Constance,
Überlingen, Ehingen and Esslingen, among others. With Gut Maurach,
located directly on the shore of Lake Constance, Salem also secured
access to freight shipping and trade routes to sell the goods
produced. Numerous nobles transferred part of their property to the
monastery. Among them was a salt works near Hallein, which
Archbishop Eberhard II of Salzburg donated to the monastery in 1201
and at the same time guaranteed the duty-free transport of the
extracted salt, which opened up an important source of income.
Well-trained Salem lay brothers gradually took over the
administration of the entire archbishopric salt pans. In return, new
sales markets opened up for salt mining in the west of the Reich.
In terms of canon law, the
newly founded Salem Monastery was in the diocese of the Bishop of
Constance. After Pope Innocent II had recognized the monastery in
1140, Pope Alexander III raised it. in 1178 to the consistorial
abbey, which made it directly subordinate to the Holy See and newly
elected abbots no longer had to be confirmed by the local bishop,
but only by the pope.
Abbot Eberhard von Rohrdorf continued
to secure his monastery against claims by the Bishop of Constance by
entering into an alliance with the Archdiocese of Salzburg and
transferring the land of the monastery to him. In 1201, Salzburg
therefore became the “mother and mistress” of Salem. However, it is
questionable what the change in canonical law consisted of, since
Salem continued to maintain its rights as a consistorial abbey. The
real benefits were mainly political assistance and mutual economic
advancement. Eberhard II also became the unofficial successor to the
founding family, whose last descendant Mathilde von Adelsreute died
in 1192. As a result, he was therefore venerated in Salem as the
“second donor”.
The good relations between the monastery and
the Holy See gave the monastery the seldom granted privilege in 1384
to include the pontifical insignia miter, pectoral cross and papal
ring in the coat of arms of the monastery and its filiations.
Within the first century and a half of the history of the monastery, Salem delegations settled three filiations: The first was the Bavarian Raitenhaslach Monastery, founded in 1143, the settlement of which by Salem monks is not directly documented, but is sufficiently evidenced by the undisputed right to visit. The Tennenbach Monastery near Freiburg im Breisgau, which was settled by Frienisberg Monastery around 1158, was incorporated into Salem in 1182 as a "fake" daughter. The second own establishment was Wettingen, founded in 1227 in northern Switzerland. The great expansion of the order had already slowed down when the Habsburg Albrecht I founded the Königsbronn monastery in 1303 and offered Salem to be settled in order to continue Rudolf I's church policy.
Abbot Eberhard von Rohrdorf in particular also made a name for himself by the Cistercian women. The Cistercian order leadership found it difficult to accept women's monasteries in the years around 1200, so that even bans on founding new ones were issued. Abbot Eberhard did pioneering work here and in 1217 took charge of the Wald nunnery, which had been founded five years earlier. In the course of the 13th century, other women's monasteries followed in Rottenmünster, Baindt, Heiligkreuztal, Heggbach and Gutenzell in Upper Swabia, as well as the Thurgau convents in Feldbach and Kalchrain. Salem retained the right to visit these monasteries, unless they had previously been dissolved, until its own closure. In the Swabian Imperial Prelate College, some of the women's monasteries were later to be given political weight.
After the fall of the Staufer, the
political chaos of the interregnum (1254-1273) began, in which Salem
was dependent on self-protection and suffered severe economic
losses. The regional nobility challenged previous donations or
simply confiscated them. Shortly after the election of King Rudolf I
in 1273, which was supposed to bring peace to the empire, at least
temporarily, Salem therefore established close ties with the
Habsburg family. Rudolf offered his protection as the imperial
monasteries played an important role in his political plan to
restore the Duchy of Swabia. For Salem, in turn, this connection was
the necessary opportunity to ensure the survival of the abbey.
A second period of prosperity began in 1275 under the protection
of the Habsburgs and lasted until around 1320. Around 1300 Salem was
one of the largest and richest monasteries in a wide area; it owned
fishing rights in Lake Constance as well as goods in a radius of
more than 100 km, including near Ulm, Biberach an der Riss, Saulgau
and Meersburg. The possessions lost in the interregnum were largely
transferred back to the monastery and documented. Thanks to the
newly achieved financial strength, construction of the Salem Minster
began around 1285, but was not completed until 1425 after a
construction freeze triggered by lack of money and the plague
epidemics.
For the monastery, the close ties to the empire
meant, at least in theory, stability and protection against claims
from the local nobility and other imperial estates. However, the
securitized security was not very reliable in practice. During the
reign of the Pope's opponent Ludwig of Bavaria from 1314 to 1347,
Salem was even completely dependent on self-protection. The
monastery always refused offers from regional noblemen to take over
the bailiwick of Salem, as such offers were associated with claims
to property and power. The neighboring Counts of Heiligenberg were
particularly stubborn, and until the 17th century they tried again
and again to assert legal claims on Salem property, to seize or
imprison Salem subjects and to impose their jurisdiction on them.
Ludwig's successor, King Charles IV, even attempted to
completely transfer the monastery to the Heiligenbergers in 1347,
but had to reverse this step the following year after protest from
Salem. However, Charles IV not only withdrew this overwriting, but
also guaranteed Salem further privileges: a document from 1354
obliged the surrounding cities and the nobility to protect the
monastery and granted it lower jurisdiction over its citizens. The
high jurisdiction remained with the Landvogtei Oberschwaben until a
contract between Salem and Heiligenberg in 1637 redistributed the
land and gave Salem full legal authority over most of its
territories.
Political
role around 1500
As an imperial monastery, Salem also served the
traveling emperors occasionally as accommodation, which in turn made
it easier for the politically ambitious abbots to contact the
mighty. On August 20, 1485, Emperor Friedrich III. the Salem
Monastery. During this visit the abbot Johannes Stantenat managed to
negotiate important privileges: An imperial charter of May 26, 1487
allowed the monastery to collect taxes from its subjects and to
punish defaulting payers themselves. In addition, Salem was now
allowed to choose his guardian himself and remove him again. Salem
had thus achieved full imperial immediacy with most of the
privileges of an imperial estate. While the monastery had served as
a political instrument after its foundation, it had now succeeded in
achieving the greatest possible autonomy through its privileges.
At the Diet of Worms in 1521, Emperor Charles V once again
confirmed the privileges and protection of the empire. Salem's
imperial political importance reached its peak in these years: in
1500 and 1521 the Salem abbots were appointed to the twenty-person
imperial regiment, which was to lead the permanent imperial
government under the chairmanship of the king. Since around 1470,
the Salem abbots also regularly took part in the Reichstag for the
first time. While other orders provided far more imperial prelates,
among the German Cistercian monasteries, apart from Kaisheim, only
Salem achieved the undisputed imperial status. No German Cisterce
succeeded in becoming a prince abbey. Salem was represented in the
Reichsfürstenrat of the Reichstag only by the vote of the Swabian
Reichprälatenkollegium. Salem was at the top of the ranking, but
(with one exception: Abbot Anselm II) was never able to provide the
director of this college.
At the same time, the imperial
protection helped to prevent attacks by the most powerful neighbor:
The power-conscious Johann von Weeze tried several times to
disempower the abbey and, as a comer, to subordinate it to the
diocese of Constance. Weeze had already succeeded in integrating the
venerable Reichenau Abbey in 1540, while Salem was able to maintain
its independence twice (1540 and 1562) with the help of the emperor.
The actual influence of the abbey on imperial politics, however,
was little, however hard one tried. Salem's contribution consisted
mainly of the payment of contributions for the warfare of the empire
(Roman month), to which it was obliged as an imperial estate. After
the Kaisheim Cisterce, Salem usually made the highest contributions
of all German abbeys. In the Thirty Years' War Salem supported the
Catholic League; later it had to raise contributions for the Turkish
Wars, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) and the War of
the Palatinate Succession (1788–1797). As an imperial estate, Salem
also had the obligation to maintain a contingent of troops that was
available to the empire in times of war. Such a force may have
existed as early as the early 14th century; from 1422 it is
documented. In the 18th century it comprised around 60–80 ordinary
soldiers and a few officers, while reservists were also available in
times of war.
The imperial patronage was of little use to the monastery against its own subjects. In the 15th century, the monastery management had transformed the land lordship over their territories into a comprehensive state rule and demanded high taxes from its serfs to a far greater extent than was the case with other monasteries. Much stricter requirements than in other southern German territories should probably prevent the population from building up wealth. The strict regulations provoked conflicts: as early as 1473 a rebellion had to be settled by a treaty in favor of the population; In 1515 a monk was even killed by farmers in Bermatingen. When the German Peasants' War broke out in 1524, the rebellious peasants of the lake heap were fed by the monastery; only the peaceful end of the uprisings in Linzgau prevented major looting. The monastery immediately lowered taxes to prevent future uprisings.
The
Reformation and the spread of Protestantism in the 16th century were
a hard blow to the Cistercian order. Around 50 of 109 German
monasteries were dissolved, including the Salemitan subsidiary in
Königsbronn. Salem was on Catholic territory and therefore remained.
Its importance grew all the more in the smaller German monastery
landscape. In 1596, the Abbot General of Morimond appointed the
Abbot of Salem as Vicar General of the Order Province of Upper
Germany with the right to ordain abbots himself.
Aware of
this pioneering role among the Upper German Cistercians, Abbot
Thomas I. Wunn (1615–1647) established the Upper German Cistercian
Congregation. In the Romance countries, similar alliances had
already emerged in the 16th century. In November 1617 the abbots of
Salem, Wettingen, Tennenbach, St. Urban and Neuburg (near Haguenau)
and the commissioner of Hauterive agreed on the statutes of the
Upper German congregation. On January 22nd, 1619 they were confirmed
by the General Chapter in Cîteaux. Salem was designated as the seat
of the provincial chapter; as the first president (Vicarius
generalis Germanieae Superioris) his Salem initiator Thomas Wunn was
elected. The philosophical-theological academy for novices, provided
for in the statutes, began studying on January 1, 1625 in Salem.
Salem thus became not only an organizational center, but also a
training center for the novices of all abbeys in the congregation.
The tax
losses and looting in the wars of the 16th century had put the
abbey's finances in dire straits. The monastery suffered major
financial damage during the Schmalkaldic War (1546–1547), when
troops who passed through extorted protection money or had the
monasteries provide them with room and board. The indebtedness and
high imperial taxes forced the monastery to sell entire villages and
tithe rights well below price. The abbey's economic situation did
not recover until the 18th century.
Despite the difficult
financial situation and the war in the empire, Abbot Thomas I. Wunn
decided to build extensive new buildings immediately after taking
office in 1615. It not only documented the abbot's ambition, but
also the increased self-confidence of the monastery. In its time,
the Wunn monastery complex was one of the largest building projects
in the Lake Constance region and its exterior design was based on
the feudal castles of the surrounding counties. The spacious complex
replaced the old monastery buildings, which had grown and repaired
over centuries, with a new, uniform overall structure, which,
however, suffered severe damage in the following war years.
In the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) the
monastery fell between the fronts. Even in the run-up to the war,
troops had to be quartered and fed, with the soldiers passing
through often looting and stealing. In 1610 the inhabitants of the
areas belonging to the monastery were allowed to form and arm a
"People's Army" of 1500 men; in the year the war actually started in
1618, however, it was dissolved again. Salem had joined the Catholic
League in 1609, but blocked the payment of contributions from 1623
because troops of the League had repeatedly extorted contributions
from Salem and because it was feared that the Protestant Württemberg
would make short work of a member of the Catholic League if it won.
The Swedish Wars that reached southern Germany in 1632 hit Salem
hard. The feared attack by the Swedish troops on April 26, 1632 went
smoothly; The imperial regiments hit Salem much harder. In the years
1632–1647 Salem was looted several times and used as troop
accommodation. The troops passing through extorted protection money,
harassed or murdered the population, looted their houses and set
them on fire. In the spring of 1634, the Swedish Field Marshal Horn
had the monastery plundered; in August of the same year soldiers
destroyed parts of the minster and stole some church bells. The
abbot had to flee to Constance several times with the remaining
priests. In autumn 1641 the abbot was forced to dissolve the convent
and send the monks to other monasteries.
Only with the
armistice between Bavaria, Sweden and France in March 1647 did peace
return to Salem; the scattered monks, as far as they were still
alive, could return. At that time the abbey had debts of around
190,000 guilders and was on the verge of ruin. The abbot Thomas II.
Schwab, elected in 1647, was only confirmed by the Pope ten years
later because Salem could not pay the required annates. In order to
pay off debts, court estates, tithe rights and other property had to
be sold to private individuals or other monasteries. However, Salem
remained heavily in debt for decades and was barely able to pay for
the necessary repairs to the monastery buildings.
On the night of March 9th to 10th, 1697,
the monastery suffered a fire disaster in which most of the
buildings were destroyed. The fire spread from a defective stove in
the guard room in the northeast of the monastery building, soon
reached the wooden roof structure and from there spread to the other
convent buildings, the abbey and the hospital. Fire-fighting trains
from the surrounding communities were only able to save the
cathedral and the west wing of the convent building. The fire
destroyed a large part of the art treasures and the abbot's valuable
reference library, while the library and the monastery archive were
preserved.
Only a few weeks after the fire, it was decided to
build the monastery from scratch. Franz Beer from Vorarlberg, who
had been involved in the construction of the monastery church of
Obermarchtal, was appointed as the master builder. The new facility
was to be built according to a generous overall plan. Abbot Stephan
I. Jung managed to raise around 350,000 guilders for the
construction, despite the monastery's still high debt; it is
believed that old monastery treasures were paid for, which had been
removed in time during the Thirty Years' War. Beer built the new
buildings within a decade. Some of them were already available in
1706.
The spacious new construction of the
monastery heralded a new era of prosperity in Salem. Under the
abbots Konstantin Miller (1725–1745), Anselm II. Schwab (1746–1778)
and Robert Schlecht (1778–1802) the monastery reached the height of
its wealth and splendor in the 18th century. Tax breaks for the
abbey restored the prosperity that had been lost in the 17th
century. In terms of importance in the empire, the wealthy abbey had
long since equated to a small principality.
In Salem, people
were well aware of the secular representational duties of an
imperial estate and this awareness was also represented externally.
Abbot Anselm even had himself appointed Imperial Privy Councilor by
Emperor Franz I; To his regret, however, like his predecessors, he
did not succeed in bringing the monastery to the rank of prince
abbey. Outwardly, they had distanced themselves far from the poverty
laws of the order, while strict discipline still prevailed within
the convent.
What the
Salem abbots could not achieve in terms of political power, they
made up for as patrons. In the course of the Counter-Reformation in
the 17th century, the Catholic Church had begun to develop
overwhelming imagery in sacred buildings to demonstrate its power
and to convince the believers of God's splendor with great pathos.
The Cistercians actually went against such splendor, as it
contradicted the rules of St. Bernard, who imposed a ban on pictures
in the rooms used by the convent. However, Bernhard already made an
exception in his rules: modesty only applied to the monastery
members, who were distracted from proper devotion by too much
pictures, while the lay people were more easily convinced of the
faith through pomp.
With this backing and with the awareness
of their representative duties as an imperial abbey, the art-loving
abbots of the 18th century made Salem the center of the Rococo.
Numerous painters, sculptors and builders were called to Salem to
take care of the decoration of the monastery buildings and the
further development of visible beauty. Several members of the
Wessobrunn school worked temporarily for Salem; the Feuchtmayer
family of sculptors and their employees lived on site and served the
monastery for generations.
The largest construction project
of the middle of the century was the Birnau pilgrimage church, which
the Vorarlberg master builder Peter Thumb built from 1746–1750 on a
hill promontory on Lake Constance, visible from afar. As a pure lay
church, its frescoes and room layout were designed entirely for
theatrical effect. The huge bell tower on the cathedral, which
Johann Caspar Bagnato, master builder of the Teutonic Order planned
and built from 1753 to 1757, was built in the same spirit. From the
outside, it mainly attracted admiring glances, while inside the
monastery it was highly controversial and Abbot Anselm even brought
in an investigation into wastefulness. However, Anselm not only
promoted the Rococo artists, but also learned to appreciate early
French classicism during a stay in Paris; the classicistic
furnishings of the minster commissioned by him are considered unique
in southern German sacred art.
Social welfare has always been a main task of the monastery.
In addition to nursing the sick and supporting the poor, this also
included caring for orphans. Since their assets were usually freely
and often improperly available to the step-parents or "orphan
bailiffs", Abbot Anselm II founded the "Ordliche Orphansenkassa" in
1749 for the interest-bearing administration of these funds. It was
first documented in 1775.
The Salemer Waisenkasse is
considered to be the first savings bank in Germany because it was
not a private credit institute for merchants, but was operated by
the “public sector” and managed the money from small savers. The
orphanages in Bonndorf in the Black Forest (1765) and Heiligenberg
(1784) were opened based on their model. In 1806, the Grand Ducal
Margravial Badische Orphan Fund emerged from the Salem orphan fund;
Today's Sparkasse Salem-Heiligenberg refers to this tradition and
was able to celebrate its 250th anniversary in 1999.
The Konstanz diocese was administered by the Josephinist Ignaz
Heinrich von Wessenberg at the end of the 18th century. The
enlightenment mood in the bishopric was directed primarily against
the surrounding abbeys, but could do little against Salem. The
French primary abbeys of the Cistercians were dissolved in the
course of the French Revolution in 1792, leaving the German
Cistercians on their own. The French troops, who invaded the Lake
Constance area in the course of the First Coalition War in 1795,
carried the anti-clerical mood into the country and repeatedly
forced the convention to flee to the Swiss monasteries of Wettingen
and St. Gallen. Both the French soldiers and the Russian troops who
invaded in 1799 received protection money from Salem.
The
convention was already isolated from the structure of the order and
unsettled by the chaos of war when the extraordinary imperial
deputation met on August 24, 1802 to resolve the dissolution of the
ecclesiastical imperial estates. The monastery's possessions were
supposed to be secularized in order to compensate the German
principalities for the loss of their possessions in the coalition
wars. Many regents had the monasteries on their territories
confiscated in the autumn of the same year, including Margrave Karl
Friedrich von Baden, who took possession of the Salem monastery
provisionally on October 1 and officially on December 4, 1802 for
the margraviate of Baden. The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of
February 25, 1803 ratified the resolution and thus sealed the fate
of Salem. However, the territory of the abbey did not simply become
part of the margraviate of Baden, but was largely merged into a new
"Reichsgrafschaft Salem" in Baden hands. Karl Friedrich, who had now
risen to become Elector of Baden, transferred this county to his
sons Ludwig and Friedrich. For sentimental reasons, both initially
wanted the Convention to continue to exist; When this did not seem
feasible, they decided a little later to smash it completely.
On November 23, 1804, Salem Monastery was closed. Most of the 61
spiritual convent members left the monastery; many settled as clergy
in the surrounding towns. In contrast to other secularizations,
Salem was not forcibly broken up. Rather, the repeal was regulated
by contract, and the fathers were compensated with pensions.
Most of the monastery library was bought by the Heidelberg
University Library, whereas the coin collection and many art objects
have been lost to this day. The organ of the Salem Minster, built by
Karl Joseph Riepp between 1766 and 1768, was sold to the town church
in Winterthur, Switzerland, and another organ to Constance. Five
bells went to Herisau, to Straubenzell, an incorporated part of St.
Gallen, and to Wollerau in Switzerland. Herisau bought the large
bell from Salem, cast by Franz Anton Grieshaber in 1756 with
decorations by Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer. It was hung on November 3,
1807 in the tower of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Herisau.
Many other church treasures and properties were also sold to pay off
the heavy burden of war.
At the time of its abolition, Salem
had enormous annual revenues and had assets of around three million
guilders, including 330 square kilometers of land with about 6,000
residents. These included, among other things, the Salem, Ostrach
and Schemmerberg regional offices, the Stetten am kalten Markt and
the Münchhöfe offices as well as the Ehingen and Unterelchingen care
offices.
Occasionally the house, now known as Salem Castle, served as the summer residence of the grand ducal family. With the end of the empire in 1806, the short-lived imperial county of Salem changed into a county that had the status of a civil status in the Grand Duchy of Baden. It belonged to the so-called "Bodenseefideikommiss", a stock of assets that was used to support the younger sons of the Baden family. With the death of his brother Friedrich, Margrave Ludwig assumed sole rule and retained it when he rose to Grand Duke in 1818. After Leopold became Grand Duke of Baden in 1830, the salem rule fell to his younger brothers Wilhelm and Maximilian, who no longer bore the title "Count of Salem". After Wilhelm's death in 1859, the Bodenseefideikommiss passed to the brothers of Grand Duke Ludwig II. Since the older of them succeeded Ludwig II as Grand Duke Friedrich I as early as 1856 because of Ludwig II's incapacity to govern, Salem remained with the younger, Prince Wilhelm. His son was Max von Baden, known as the last Chancellor of the German Empire. Since the last Grand Duke Friedrich II had no male heir, he adopted Max von Baden's son Berthold, which saved the house property that could only be inherited in the male line from being transferred to the Republic of Baden. With the death of Frederick II in 1928, Berthold succeeded him as head of the Baden family, making Salem the seat of the main line of the von Baden family.
After the end of the First World War and the Grand Duchy
of Baden, Salem Castle remained with the von Baden family as a
private property. In 1919, the disempowered Chancellor Max von Baden
established his permanent residence in the castle. The castle now
served the descendants of the Grand Dukes of Baden as an "exile
home" in what was once their own country. Part of the former abbey
building is still used today as living space.
In 1920 Max von
Baden invited the pedagogue Kurt Hahn to open a reform school in the
monastery building. His own children should be able to go to school
there safely; In addition, the prince saw himself as a promoter of
reform pedagogy. The boarding school Schule Schloss Salem is one of
the most renowned private schools in Germany and is still
headquartered in the western part of the castle. In the castle
itself, however, only middle school students are taught.
In 2006 the House of Baden tried to win the state of
Baden-Württemberg for a foundation that was supposed to secure the
preservation of the facility. The financing of this foundation with
a total amount of 40 million euros was to be done through the sale
of cultural goods. 30 million euros should be used to repay the debt
of the House of Baden. However, the project failed due to public
protests (see manuscript sales by the Badische Landesbibliothek). In
this context, a subsequent discussion arose about the actual
ownership of the margravial collections, which since 1957 were no
longer officially managed by the Baden House, but by the Zähringer
Foundation. The value of the collections is estimated at around 300
million euros.
In October 2007, Bernhard von Baden announced
that he wanted to sell Salem Castle in order to pay off family debts
of 30 million euros. On November 3, 2008, he reached an agreement
with Prime Minister Günther Oettinger that the state of
Baden-Württemberg would take over Salem Castle and the associated
art collection for 57 million euros. Of this, 25 million euros go to
Salem Castle and 17 million to art treasures from the House of
Baden. The state wants to pay a further 15 million euros so that the
aristocratic family waives their claims to ownership of the
controversial Zähringer Foundation. The sale was sealed on April 6,
2009.
The Salem monastery complex, the castle of the Margraves of Baden since 1802, is located on the slope of a hill in the terminal moraine landscape of Linzgau in southern Baden-Württemberg, six kilometers from the shore of Lake Constance. The closest neighboring cities are in the west the former free imperial city of Überlingen and in the south Meersburg, former residence of the prince-bishops of Constance. In the northeast of Salem is Heiligenberg, today a small town, but at the time of the Holy Roman Empire a residence of the Fürstenberg dynasty and a controversial neighbor of the monastery. The monastery competed with these three neighbors not only politically and economically, but also structurally.
To this day, the Salem area has been dominated by agriculture and sparsely populated, so that the surrounding hills still give an imposing overall impression of the former monastery buildings. The area, which is fenced off by a wall, extends over an area of approximately 500 × 400 meters, making it one of the largest Cistercian monasteries in German-speaking countries. In the center of the area is the mighty baroque complex of the convent and abbey building with the minster. The service wing to the north of it is older, but also of imposing size. Further farm buildings are scattered over the extensive area with its gardens and meadows.
Salem's first monastery church, begun around 1150
and consecrated in 1179, was probably a three-aisled basilica with a
transept, divided into six chapels. Because it became too small for
the larger convent, it was demolished about a hundred years after
its completion to make way for a more spacious new building.
The second monastery church, the high-Gothic cathedral, is
integrated as a building into the monastery area. The strict,
towering forms of the church contrast with its sweeping baroque
style. According to the latest building studies, construction began
around 1285 and was completed around 1425. Except for a few details
on the facade, the structure still corresponds to the original
shape.
It is a three-aisled basilica with a non-protruding
transept and an ambulatory choir on a rectangular area of 67 × 28
m. The monumental harp gables (eyelashes) on the front of the nave
and transept are striking. Together with the lancet windows, they
give the rather coarse building on the outside a certain filigree.
The interior was architecturally simplified after 1750 by
partially removing the internal structure of the choir, thereby
lengthening the central nave. The interior, which was furnished in
the Rococo style between 1720 and 1765, was redesigned from 1769 to
1783 according to the classicist style. The furnishings include
classical choir stalls from the workshop of Josef Anton Feuchtmayer,
early Baroque wooden sculptures of the twelve apostles and a late
Gothic tabernacle.
From around 1756–1807 the cathedral roof
carried a high wooden bell tower that towered over the cathedral by
over 50 meters. Because it was dilapidated, it had to be torn down
and replaced by a low roof turret. The tower owed itself to Abbot
Anselm II's thirst for representation and caused severe criticism
within the monastery.
Since secularization, the minster has
served as the parish church of the Catholic community. Today it is
also accessible to tourists for a fee.
First facility: The first monastery buildings
were erected after 1137. It is very likely that they followed the
ideal plan that Bernhard von Clairvaux had built in Clairvaux from
1133 to 1145 and which subsequently became binding for the
Cistercian monasteries of the Middle Ages. It provides for a
rectangular building block, which symbolically identifies the
monastery as a place closed off from the world. One side of the
square is occupied by the church, which should be laid out as a
three-aisled basilica with a cross-shaped floor plan. The church was
accessible through doors from the enclosure building as well as from
the cloister of the inner courtyard. The abbey building and the
hospital were connected to the east of the enclosure.
The
entire complex was enclosed by a defensive wall and partly by a
moat, which Abbot Ulrich II of Seelfingen (1282-1311) had built.
This etter should not only deter looters, but also reaffirm the
independence of the judiciary district. Ulrich also had utility
buildings and houses built for the craftsmen and the library and art
collection expanded. To the north-west of the complex, a parish
church was built at the end of the 13th century, consecrated to
Saints Leonhard of Limoges and Bernhard of Clairvaux. A number of
buildings were renovated or demolished and rebuilt during the 13th
to 16th centuries. Particularly for the decades from 1470 to 1530,
when the abbey had reached the zenith of its imperial political
importance, lively building activity is documented, during which
almost all the buildings used by the convent were gradually rebuilt.
However, apart from the cathedral, no visible remains of any of the
buildings from this period have survived.
Second plant: From 1615 to 1630 Abbot Thomas Wunn had the
complete convent and abbey buildings and some farm buildings rebuilt
by the master builder Balthasar Seuff from Kempten. Parts of the
building were also planned and executed by Salem foremen. In the
overall picture, the complex appeared to be much more closed than
the probably quite heterogeneous ensemble of the previous buildings
after almost five centuries of additions and renovations. Detailed
views and plans of these buildings have not survived; however, the
arrangement of the rooms can largely be reconstructed from the
documents that have been preserved.
The building had three
courtyards, the largest of which, the square inner courtyard of the
convent building, was surrounded by a fully glazed cloister. The
large square with a footprint of 78 × 78 m housed the living
quarters of the monks, in the east wing the sacristy, the reliquary
chamber, the chapter house and a warming room, in the south the
kitchen and the dining room (refectory); in the west wing the summer
refectory and the priory. The north wing of the three-story quarter
was formed by the cathedral. In the east the abbey rooms, the
hospital, the novice school and the house or sick chapel were
connected in a horseshoe shape. The library was located on the upper
floor above the chapel. The facades were kept in a uniform white and
provided with large stepped gables.
The ambitious project was
modeled on the feudal residential buildings of the Upper Swabian
counties: The Heiligenberg Castle was built in 1559; the residence
in Meßkirch in 1557, the castle of the princes of Wolfegg between
1578 and 1583. In addition to the large international model of the
Escorial, the Seuff complex became the model for baroque monastery
buildings in Austria such as Schlierbach monastery (rebuilt in 1672)
or Lambach monastery (1678-1702). Of the Wunn'schen building, only
part of the utility building, the upper long building, which today
houses the cooperage museum, has been preserved; the rest was
destroyed in the fire of 1697 or removed shortly afterwards in the
course of the new building.
The baroque complex of the abbey and convent building
that exists today is one of the largest of its kind in southern
Germany with a floor area of 180 × 90 m. The building was planned
by the Vorarlberg master builder Franz Beer after the devastating
fire in the monastery in 1697 and built within a decade. In the new
building, Beer oriented itself towards both the Seuff predecessor
buildings and the southern German baroque palaces. Models can also
be found among the illustrations by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Bautista
Villalpando (1552–1608). The Beersche plant itself was
trend-setting: In 1702 the Einsiedeln monastery took over some of
the building elements of the Salem design; Beer himself erected a
similar building for the Imperial Abbey of Kaisheim from 1716.
The complex consists of two oblong four-story quarters, which
are connected to the south by a long transverse wing and to the
north by the cathedral. The mirror-symmetrical complex is structured
by protruding corner and central projections that are raised by half
a storey. The western quarter was the convent building with the
cloister and the convent garden which is closed on the north side by
the minster. The eastern square was the abbey building with the
so-called prelate court; the middle courtyard was called the novice
garden.
The outer facades and their false gables decorated
with volutes were decorated by Johann Georg Wieland at the end of
the 18th century in a classicistic style with ocher-yellow bushing,
yellow window frames and shutters. The original Baroque trompe l’œil
decorative frames can be seen again in the inner courtyards. The
reference to court architecture is most clearly visible on the north
side of the abbey building. Here, with the large portal, a worthy
setting for courtly reception ceremonies was created that no other
Swabian abbey had in this way.
Many of the rooms are splendidly furnished with stucco, paintings
and art objects from the Baroque, Rococo and Classicism periods. The
plasterers Michael Wiedemann, Johann Schmuzer and his sons Franz and
Joseph, who belong to the Wessobrunn School, made the stucco from
1707 to 1710 in the sacristy, the priory, the refectory, the
reliquary and the Bernhardusgang. From 1706 Franz Joseph Feuchtmayer
worked in Salem. Among other things, he furnished the imperial hall
and the abbot's audience room (today the coin cabinet) with statues,
busts and relief scenes. With Feuchtmayer's son Joseph Anton
Feuchtmayer, who took over his father's workshop in 1718 after his
father's death, Salem became the rococo center of southwest Germany.
Further decorations come from Feuchtmayer's partner Johann Georg
Dirr, his brother Franz Anton Dirr and his son-in-law Johann Georg
Wieland, who introduced the change of style to classicism in Salem.
Convent building
The convent building (western quarter) once
housed the living quarters of the fathers, lay brothers and novices,
the offices of the prior and subprior, the disputation room and the
chapter room. The refectory, the kitchens, the bookbinding and
tailoring workshop were located in the south transverse wing, which
connects the two parts of the building. Most of the rooms are now
used by the Schloss Salem School and are not open to the public.
An artistic masterpiece is the Bernhardusgang, which belongs to
the cloister of the inner courtyard and connects the cathedral with
the convent building. The Schmuzer family's earliest stucco work can
be found here. A cycle of paintings by Andreas Brugger depicts the
life of the religious saint Bernhard von Clairvaux. In the south and
west of the cloister there are stucco work by Joseph Anton
Feuchtmayer and a series of portraits of the Salem abbots. The
cloister originally enclosed the courtyard on four sides; however,
the northern part was demolished in the 19th century to give the
cathedral more light.
The summer refectory served as the
monks' dining room when the actual refectory was not in use. The
splendidly furnished room has a stucco ceiling by Wiedemann and a
marbled entrance portal by Kaspar Buechmüller. Paintings by Joseph
Anton Hersche, Jakob Carl Stauder and Johann Michael Feuchtmayer as
well as a cycle with 14 religious saints by the Ticino painter Jakob
Pellandella (1725/26) adorn the walls. The ceiling is adorned with a
monumental depiction of the Last Supper along with other biblical
motifs that relate to the theme of "spiritual and material feeding".
The large tiled stove, which once heated the room, shows biblical
motifs and depictions of monks at work in handicrafts and
agriculture on the colored glazed tiles. The local evangelical
congregation has been using the room for church services since 1854.
Abbey building
The abbey building (eastern square) originally
housed the hospital, the library, the monastery archive and the
abbot's living and office rooms. Important guests were also
accommodated here. The abbey's reception and service rooms are
particularly lavish; the abbot's private rooms and chapel, on the
other hand, are kept very sober and simple.
In the two-storey
library hall in the west wing you can find ceiling stucco by Franz
Joseph Feuchtmayer and classicist furnishings from Johann Georg
Wieland's workshop. An extensive cycle of frescoes depicting motifs
from the Old and New Testaments and the history of the abbey once
adorned the walls; they were partially painted over during the
redecoration.
The imperial hall, which gathers statues of 16
Roman-German emperors and busts of 16 popes, in which the monastery
saw its most important patrons, is lavishly furnished with baroque
stucco work and sculptures from around 1707. The design of the room
followed the early modern imperial halls in feudal residences and
should emphasize Salem's claim to imperial immediacy and support for
the imperial idea. The series of popes begins with Stephen IX. and
ends with Clemens XI. The series of emperors begins with the
Supplinburger Lothar III, whose last year in office 1137 comes into
question as the year the abbey was founded, and ends with the
Habsburg Leopold I (1658-1705). However, in order to demonstrate the
prerogative of the church over the empire, the monastery had the
busts of the Pope arranged a little higher than the figures of the
emperors. The Kaisersaal was extensively restored by 2012.
Gardens and farm buildings
The monastery grounds are enclosed by a wall and used to be
accessible in the west through the Upper Gate (built in 1778/79) and
in the north through the Lower Gate (1705/07). The wall originally
served as a protection of the monastery area and as a border marking
the legal area of the monastery (Etter) in the Middle Ages. In the
east of the site there is a spacious baroque garden, in the south a
large orchard.
The farm buildings are to the north and west
of the site: stables, wine press and cellar are located in the upper
long building, a long building wing, the individual sections of
which date from different epochs from the 15th to the 18th century.
The courtroom and the prison were also housed here, because the
monastery had the lower and from 1637 also the high jurisdiction
over its areas. So there was also a gallows site on a nearby hill.
The other former farm buildings now house classrooms, demonstration
workshops and museums.
To the south of the monastery building
there are other workshops such as the printing and carpentry shop.
The so-called New School was built in 1791 as a novice school with
what was then a modern mansard roof; it later served as a margravial
rent office and today as an administration building. To the west,
where the terrain rises slightly, is the Upper Gate, which was built
around 1778/79 and designed in a classical style by Johann Georg
Dirr. The lower gate on the northeast corner of the site near
today's entrance area for tourists is of an older date; it was built
by Franz Beer from 1705 to 1707 as part of the new construction of
the monastery, but it burned down in 1732 and was rebuilt three
years later based on a design by Josef Anton Feuchtmayer. From 1739
it served as a pharmacy. The former figure jewelry from
Feuchtmayer's workshop fell victim to a fire in 1961. The main
traffic route originally ran through the two gates across the site.
Monument preservation
After the monastery grounds were
confiscated by the Duchy of Baden, a number of buildings were
demolished between 1807 and 1858, including the huge cathedral
tower. The parish church of St. Leonhard next to the Upper Gate, the
so-called Middle Gate and a few other buildings fell victim to the
thrift and short-term needs of the residents. The "monument
sacrilege approved by the authorities" (Georg Dehio) only ended
under the reign of Friedrich I, from 1852 to 1907 sovereign of
Baden. After lengthy disputes about financing, the cathedral was
renovated from 1883 to 1892; In 1889 the renovation of the damaged
monastery facade began. The restoration went hand in hand with a
conception of monument protection that was exemplary for the time:
An attempt was made to preserve as much of the historical structure
as possible and at the same time to protect the buildings against
the weather and further decay.
After the Second World War,
the school building was modernized as the number of students
increased. The upper long building was converted into boarding
school living quarters. The useful buildings were repaired and
rediscovered as a historical building. A bypass road was laid out in
1962 - until then the traffic connection between Überlingen and
Salem ran across the monastery grounds through the Lower and Upper
Gate.
A second restoration of the monastery building was
initiated in 1979 by the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office.
The repair of the facades and the approximately 3.6 hectare roof
area of the convent building was completed in 1990. From 1997 to
2002 the structure of the minster was secured, while a comprehensive
restoration of the interior is still pending.
In 2006, the
attempt by Bernhard Prince von Baden and the state government of
Baden-Württemberg under Günther Oettinger to raise funds for the
renovation of the castle by putting cultural assets from Baden for
sale (Karlsruhe cultural property affair) attracted public
attention. According to Bernhard von Baden, the owner family has
spent around 30 million euros on renovating the building since the
early 1990s. From the proceeds of the sale - which should not be
made to private individuals after public protests, but to the state
- the House of Baden wanted to set up a foundation, the proceeds of
which will be used to maintain Salem Castle. On November 3, 2008,
Bernhard Prince von Baden and the Prime Minister of
Baden-Württemberg Günther Oettinger agreed on the takeover of Salem
Castle by the State of Baden-Württemberg for 60.8 million euros.
Other buildings of the monastery
The Birnau pilgrimage church was built in 1747–1750 by the
Vorarlberg master builder Peter Thumb. It is located a few
kilometers south of Salem on a hill overhanging Lake Constance. The
"Birnau" replaced a small pilgrimage church not far from Überlingen,
which had been a dispute with the city for centuries. In contrast to
the simple cathedral, it was decorated with magnificent frescoes,
which were intended to convince the layperson of the greatness of
God in the course of the Counter-Reformation. Today the "Birnau"
belongs to the Austrian Cistercian Abbey Wettingen-Mehrerau and is
one of the most visited sights and places of pilgrimage on Lake
Constance.
The baroque Maurach Castle on the shores of Lake
Constance below the Birnau pilgrimage church was originally an
estate with a landing stage and later also served as the abbots'
summer residence.
Münchhöf Castle near Eigeltingen was completed
in 1787 and was intended to serve as an official building for the
administration of the surrounding monastery property. After 1947 it
was the retirement home of Auguste Viktoria von
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
The Stefansfeld Chapel in the
Stefansfeld district close to the monastery was built by Franz Beer,
the architect of the monastery building, from 1707 to 1710. It
stands out for its unusual central building with a domed roof. The
parish's lay cemetery was originally located next to the church.
Josef Anton Feuchtmayer and Johann Georg Dirr, creators of numerous
works of art in Salem Monastery, are buried here.
Visit
to the monastery and palace of Salem
The area of the monastery
and Salem Palace can be visited. Two new museums were opened in
September 2014.
tourism
With around 130,000 visitors a
year, Salem Castle is of national importance as a tourist
attraction. The State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg and
the Salem Palace Administration are responsible for maintaining the
facility.
Visiting the minster and some of the former
monastery rooms is possible for a fee in guided groups. Additional
sights are a fire brigade museum, a cooperage museum and show
workshops of various handicraft businesses. As part of the event
program, theme days, concerts and exhibitions take place in Salem
Castle.
Museum "Masterpieces of the Imperial Abbey"
As of
September 2014, the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe has equipped
the exhibition "Masterpieces of the Imperial Abbey" as a branch
museum in the prelature. For the first time, the Marien Altar by
Bernhard Strigel (1460–1528) is shown again completely with the main
altar and side wings. The altarpiece shows the gilded twelve
apostles and Mary. A side wing shows the birth of Christ as a night
image. Rococo wood sculptures by Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer are also
on display. A video shows the construction phases of the monastery
before the monastery fire in 1697 and the new baroque building
afterwards.
Fire Brigade Museum
The fire brigade museum
extends over the ground floor and the first floor of the Sennhof in
the outermost monastery area. Here it is acknowledged that the monks
bought two fire syringes from the Konstanz syringe maker Rosenlecher
for preventive fire protection after the destruction caused by the
monastery fire from March 9th to 10th, 1697. Manual syringes with
mechanical, steam and motor drives and developments by Daimler,
Kurtz, Magirus and Metz as well as fire service uniforms and badges
are on display in the exhibition.
Gates
Access to today's
museum is via the entrance pavilion. Three gates have survived from
the time of the monastery. The Lower Gate (from the direction of
Salem) is a multi-storey building with a gate passage in the Baroque
style and served as a splendid entrance during monastery times. The
Stockacher Tor leads to the farm buildings in the lower and upper
long buildings and to the wine cellar. The Obere Tor (towards
Überlingen) is built in the classicism style.
Horse pond
The horse pond is located in the courtyard at Stockacher Tor and was
used to water the horses, clean the teams and as a source of water.
It is part of the Aach Canal, which runs through the monastery
grounds underground.
Digressions
Personal organization of
the monastery
The Salem abbots and monks came partly from the high nobility and
the wealthy bourgeoisie. However, a considerable proportion was also
recruited from farming families in the surrounding villages; for
example, about a third of the abbots had come from the monastery
since the turn of the 16th century. This great social mobility was
quite unusual compared to the rigid social structure of the time: A
man from the common population like Abbot Johannes II. Scharpfer
(1494–1510) was even able to become a member of the imperial
regiment.
As usual with the Cistercians, numerous lay
brothers (also called conversers) were part of the monastery staff.
They lived separately from the monks and, in contrast to them, wore
a beard, which is why they were also called fratres barbati. Among
them were millers, bakers, weavers, carpenters, farm workers, but
also highly qualified architects, sculptors and engineers. Lay
brothers tilled the fields and cultivated the goods, while the
craftsmen worked in the monastery's own workshops. From the 15th
century, their share continued to decline. For larger work,
craftsmen were then usually hired from outside; However, the
monastery was able to take care of minor maintenance and liturgical
utensils itself. The clockwork of the Birnau pilgrimage church, for
example, was probably made around 1750 by the monastery’s own
clockmaker.
The largest number of residents - 310 monks and
lay brothers - had the monastery at the beginning of the 14th
century. The numerous wars, but also the dwindling attractiveness of
monastery life, caused the number of monks to shrink over the
centuries. Towards the end of the 15th century, monastic discipline
subsided more and more. The containment of vagantism became a major
problem for the monastery administrations. Monks from aristocratic
families in particular no longer saw religious fulfillment in
entering monastery life, but rather convenient security of basic
supplies. New powers, which Pope Paul II granted the abbot of the
monastery in 1468, allowed the punishment of neglected monks and the
gradual restoration of the monastery order. Nevertheless, the number
of monks continued to decline until Salem was temporarily completely
depopulated at the end of the Thirty Years' War. In the second half
of the 18th century, the monastery experienced a boom again, so that
when it closed in 1804, 78 residents were counted again.
coat
of arms
The fourth coat of arms of the imperial abbey consists of
three coats of arms:
Coat of arms of Bernhard von Clairvaux:
in black, a two-row, silver-red crossed bar
Coat of arms of the
monastery founder Guntram von Adelsreute: a black ram on a golden
background
Split coat of arms of the second donor, Bishop
Eberhard II of Salzburg: on the right an upright black lion in gold
turned to the right, on the left a silver bar in red.
A miter and
a crosier can be seen above the shield. In addition, the imperial
abbey also had a black coat of arms with a golden lion holding a
golden crook wrapped in an "S" in its front paws.
Blazon: The
Konstanzer Council book gives under the heading: "the acquiring Herr
Conradt apt to Salmenschweyler" the shown coat of arms: square; 1st
and 4th: in black a double row of red and silver cut oblique bar;
2nd: split by gold and red, in front a black lion, behind a silver
bar; 3rd: a black ram in gold. Next to the coat of arms is the
abbot's hat (Inful), through which a crook is stuck.
Manuscripts and library
Like every Cistercian abbey, Salem also
had its own scriptorium in the Middle Ages. A significant book
production began during the term of office of Abbot Eberhard von
Rohrdorf (1191–1240). One of the main tasks of the scriptors was to
copy the liturgical books that the order's administration considered
binding. A considerable number of the manuscripts produced in Salem
from the 13th to 16th centuries have survived, including sermons in
the dialect of the Salem area from around 1450. Green, red and blue
tendrils and decorative inserts are used for the early Salem
illuminations typical of polyp flowers; figurative illustrations are
rather rare.
Over the centuries, books were bought from outside, with the
abbots of the 18th century in particular supplementing the library
with manuscript purchases. From 1611 Salem was one of the first
German Cistercian monasteries to have its own printing press, which
initially produced small liturgical printed matter and later also
accepted outside orders. Many antiphonaries and other liturgical
works continued to be used in manual copies.
The monastery
fire of 1697 spared the monastery archives and the library, which
were housed in fire-proof vaults. However, the abbot's valuable
reference library was destroyed, where
"A well-known theyl of
all sorts of good books, including the beautiful original
manuscriptum Concili constantiensis, which one wanted to salvage
from the library, which was in the highest danger, but was
overwhelmed by the fire and rose in smoke."
The burned
“original manuscriptum” was an official collection of files from the
Council of Constance, including Ulrich Richental's chronicle of the
council, which in Salem was a document treasure of international
importance in the early modern period.
The University of
Heidelberg bought the Salem and Petershausen libraries in 1826/27 as
the basis for the reconstruction of the university library, which
had been severely decimated in the wars of the 17th and 18th
centuries. About 60,000 books, 495 manuscript volumes from the 9th
to 18th centuries and 30,000 prints changed hands. The Salem
manuscript collection has since been found under the code Cod.
(Ices) Sal. (Emitani) in the Heidelberg University Library.
The monastery archive has been maintained for centuries and is
considered to be one of the most extensive preserved monastery
archives in southern Germany. Even in the Middle Ages it was
considered so trustworthy that it was entrusted with imperial
documents. Most of the archive has been located in the General State
Archive of Karlsruhe since 1889, where it comprises around 8,000
documents, 1,000 volumes with invoices, 350 volumes with protocols
and large quantities of other files and manuscripts. A small part of
the archive remained in Salem Castle and in the parish archive of
the community. Due to its large size, it has only been partially
explored through research to date.
Agriculture and
viticulture
The economic claim of Cistercian monasteries was
initially agricultural self-sufficiency. Like many monasteries,
however, Salem quickly produced surpluses through farming, which
could then be sold in the surrounding towns. In the course of the
14th and 15th centuries, the monetary economy, trading in real
estate and tax revenues from subjects increasingly became major
sources of income for Salem. Nevertheless, agriculture, which was
initially carried out by Salem monks and lay brothers, but
increasingly by tenant farmers, remained an important factor.
The monastery had grangia in a wide area, which were run by lay
brothers. Among other things, they grew grain and ranched livestock.
In keeping with the climate and geographical location, Salem also
cultivated fruit - some with orchards within the monastery grounds
-, forestry and fishing in Lake Constance, as well as in specially
created fish ponds in the surrounding area, some of which still
exist today (Salem monastery pond). As early as the 14th century,
Salem owned town yards in over 31 towns in the surrounding area,
through which the goods were sold. The most important town
courtyards are the Salmannsweiler Hof in Konstanz, which was soon
expanded into a hostel for high-ranking guests (King Sigismund is
said to have lived there during the Constance Council) and the
courtyards in Biberach an der Riss, Ehingen, Meßkirch and
Pfullendorf. The town courts were mostly exempt from taxes and thus
formed an important base for the monastic economy.
Viticulture, which can be traced back to the 9th century in the Lake
Constance area, played an important role for Salem. The monastery
systematically expanded its possessions and finally owned vineyards
on the entire north shore of Lake Constance, from Sipplingen in the
west to the Friedrichshafen area in the east, in Bermatingen,
Markdorf and even in Nürtingen in Württemberg. Around 1500 Salem
owned around 2500 hectares of vineyards; Before the devastating
Thirty Years War, the Salem wineries produced around 512,000 liters
of wine per year. The wine, mostly of very poor quality in the
Middle Ages, was also the monks' table drink. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, wine was improved in terms of taste and thus became a
trade factor as a luxury food; the Salem wines were sold throughout
southern Germany. A mighty wine press can still be seen in the
Cooperage Museum of Salem Castle.
Poor relief
Caring for the poor in the population has always
been an important social responsibility of the monastery. In the
Middle Ages it was not about the redistribution of wealth, since the
order of the estates was seen as God's will. Rather, mercy and
charity were among the spiritual tasks of the monks. Once or twice a
week bread and other food were therefore distributed to the poor in
Salem at the Lower Gate. Mendicant orders such as the Capuchins in
Überlingen were also supported.
However, as the monastery
grew in power and prestige, poverty in the country was increasingly
perceived as a social problem that had to be targeted. Numerous
dismissed soldiers, orphans, mercenaries and other vagabonds
wandered around and fed on the alms of the monasteries or through
thefts and robberies. A “good policey” was therefore necessary to
contain and control the problem. In cooperation with the neighboring
territories, Salem therefore issued begging and alms orders from the
middle of the 16th century, but without prohibiting begging itself.
Fixed village guards monitored compliance. It was not until 1722
that the monastery issued a ban on begging, but with which it
committed itself to support the needy. Vagging beggars who did not
come from Salem territory could be expelled. In 1783, a poor house
was set up for the local needy in nearby Wespach. The beneficiaries
were therefore regularly recorded statistically. Around 1600 around
a quarter of the population in the surrounding towns was in need of
support, while around 1800 - no doubt also due to the enormous
improvement in the economic situation - it was only around five
percent.