Kathy and Richard's Experiences in Germany: 2022

This year Kathy arranged a wonderful trip to Maulbronn. It's a small town, with not much to do except see the monastery, but the monastery is a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site with four museums, and there are cafes to read and relax in. The town started as a settlement surrounding the monastery as it was being built (the monastery was founded in 1147), but the settlement didn't become an official town until 1886. Today it has about 7000 inhabitants. The population grew after World War II, when Germans expelled from other European countries came here.

I had heard of Maulbronn when I read a book by Hermann Hesse called "Under the Wheel ". It's a semi-autobiographical account of the Nobel Prize winner's youth, when he went to the seminary school there starting in 1891. Hesse lived from 1877 until 1962, and some of his best works, like "Narcissus and Goldmund" and "The Glass Bead Game", make reference to his time in Maulbronn. It was fun to imagine where Hesse got some of his ideas.

Two-Euro coin depicting Maulbronn

Then, my friend, Peter, told me that Johannes Kepler also went to school there in 1588. It turns out that a lot of notable people spent time in Maulbronn. While visiting Maulbronn I found out that Georg Herwegh, a writer in the Revolutions of 1848, attended the seminary school from 1831 until 1835. The poet Friederich Hölderlin from Germany's romantic period was 16 years old in 1786 when he started at the seminary school. By 1797 he had published the novel "Hyperion: or the Hermit in Greece". It's another work of Sturm und Drang, like Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, and Firederich Schiller's Die Räuber, which I also liked reading for its combination of love and torment. I guess I'm just a born romantic.

In 1138, a free knight named Walter von Lomersheim donated an estate at what is now Mühlacker (where we transferred from the train to a bus on our trip) to the Cistercian Order for the establishment of a new monastery. The Bishop of Speyer, was not happy with the productivity of the monastery, so a group of 12 monks searched for a better source of water and pasture space. In 1147, the bishop moved the monks about 8 kilometers (5 miles) to a new site near the source of the Salzach river. This site, Mulenbrunnen, was ideal for the Cistercians, because although it was near the Roman road running from Speyer to Cannstatt, it was isolated. The abbey church was consecrated in 1178, and construction of the Maulbronn Monastery complex was largely completed by 1200–01 in the Romanesque style.

Romanesque entrance

When you come into the church inside the monastery, you can still see some of the original 12th century Romanesque work, like the portal and its original doors.

One of the museums has a painting by Christian Mali of a part of the fortress walls of the monastery.

Faustturm by Christian Mali (1865).

The brightly lit fountain of water matches the color of the wall attached to the Faustturm. A monk holds the door open to the dark monastery inside. Two children wait with a mule at the bottom of the steps. The mule refers to the legend of the founding of the monastery, when the 12 monks took a mule on a scouting trip.

After rejecting several candidates, the mule finally stopped at a well and refused to go further. The mule in Mali's painting seems to be of a like mind. The mule and fountain remain to this day the logo for Maulbronn (from Maultier=mule, and Brunnen=fountain).

The Faustturm (Faust tower) is named after Dr. Faustus, who was a friend of Abbott Johann Entenfuß, stayed there in 1516 in a vain attempt to produce gold for the abbott's new construction plans. Goethe's famous story of a man who sold his soul to the devil, "Faust", written in 1802, is based on Dr. Faustus. Dr. Faustus's search for the philosopher 's stone, like the search for the holy grail, has fascinated me since I first read Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach decades ago.

Faustturm

The oldest part of the cloister is the south wall, and so it is Romanesque.

Outside of the south cloister

This side of the cloister is bordered by the church, which was originally romanesque too. The Romanesque church was consecrated in 1178, after about 30 years of construction.

Rood screen separating the eastern end (for the religious) from this, the western end (for lay brothers).

Here we see the Romanesque arches in the rood screen and above the columns in the eastern end. The Romanesque nave originally had a flat timber beam ceiling, but it was altered in the 15th century by Abbott Albert von Ötisheim, who added a Gothic vault and Gothic founder chapels. The rood is a depiction of Christ on the cross, both of which were carved from a single block of stone! It was Erntedankfest Sunday in Germany, and the food donations are collected near the altar, where Kathy is taking a picture.

View of the east end of the church

This photo shows the east end of the church through a door near the rood screen into the choir. The monks made up the choir that sang during the seven Liturgy of Hours of each day. The monks had to stand during singing, and so much standing was difficult for some of the monks. Fortunately, each of their folding chairs had a small wooden structure formed on the underside of the seat. When this so-called misericord, or mercy seat, was folded up, it was intended to act as a shelf to support the monk in a partially standing position.

wooden figure on end of a row of monks' seats

Museum on medieval construction

The many trades involved in building a cloister

On the western side of the cloister is a large vaulted room that has been turned into a museum about the construction of the cloister. There is information on all the various steps and trades involved. Starting in the quarry, stone blocks (called ashlers) were carted by oxen to the construction site. Jib cranes with gripper tongs were used for lifting the ashlers onto the wall. Lay brothers mixed mortar and carried it up the stone walls in transport crates. Carpenters constructed the roof trusses and also scaffolds, ladders, lifts, cranes, treadwheels, and ramps. Masons cut rough stone into shapes for door frames, windows, and vaulting ribs. The sculptors made the decorative pieces, such as tracery, capitals, and pinnacles. (The sculptor was often the master mason.) The blacksmiths manufactured and mend the tools along with forging nails, plates, and iron clamps. It is no wonder that a village grew up around a construction site.

The results of all this labor were impressive. On the north side of the cloister is a fountain room, where the monks used to wash before meals. The fountain was much simpler back then, but the more resent three-tier fountain is a beautiful addition from the romantic period. On the east side is the chapel room, which was the most important place in the monastery after the church.