Vessra Abbey (german: Kloster Veßra) was a Premonstratensian monastery in the village also named

Kloster Veßra Kloster Veßra is a municipality in the district of Hildburghausen in Thuringia, Germany. Vessra Abbey (now an open-air museum) was founded and supported by the Henneberg family and abandoned after the Reformation. The church was used as a pa ...

in the district of Hildburghausen,

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The monastery was founded in the 1130s by Gotebold II, Count of Henneberg, and his wife Liutgard on a site near the confluence of the

Schleuse Schleuse is a river of Thuringia, Germany. It is a tributary of the Werra, which it joins in Kloster Veßra. The town Schleusingen lies on the Schleuse. See also *List of rivers of Thuringia A list of rivers of Thuringia, Germany: A * ...

and the

Werra The Werra (), a river in central Germany, is the right-bank headwater of the Weser. "Weser" is a synonym in an old dialect of German. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After the Werra joins the river Fulda in the ...

. The church was dedicated in 1138; the foundation received papal confirmation three years later. For the whole of its existence of more than four hundred years the abbey was the

house monastery A house monastery, family monastery or dynastic monastery (german: Hauskloster) is a Christian monastery that has a particular relationship with a noble family. Often, but not always, what subsequently became the house monastery was founded by t ...

of the Hennebergs. It also had a close association with the

von Bibra The House of Bibra () was one of the leading '' Uradel'' (ancient noble) families in Franconia (northern part of Bavaria) and present day Thuringia from the mid-15th century to about 1600. Later on the family rose from ''Reichsri ...

family, particularly in the 15th century. During the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

in 1543, the monastery was turned into an estate. The former monastery served another four hundred years as an agricultural estate, mostly in private hands, but after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

as a possession of the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

state, and from 1953 as the site of a collective farm (''Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft'', or LPG). In 1975 the site was taken over by the Museum of the History of Agriculture of the DDR (''Agrarhistorisches Museum der DDR''). Since 1990 the site has been the home of the Hennebergische Museum, an open-air museum specialising in the display of re-located local buildings. The abbey church, dedicated to Saint Mary, was converted to the parish church, with much of the space used for storage. Most of the church structure was heavily damaged in a 1939 fire. One chapel continues to be used. The ruins are nevertheless substantial and after stabilisation it remains the most significant Romanesque building in the region. Of the monastic buildings themselves there remain the gate chapel and the accommodation block, with the ruins of the cloister.

Gallery

Image:Kloster Vessra 03.jpg, Farmer's house from 1716 in the Henneberg Museum Image:Kloster Vessra 04.jpg, Old watermill from around 1600 in the Henneberg Museum Image:VessraInterior.jpg, Interior of church Image:Veßra_Bibra_Kapelle.jpg, ''Bibrasche Kapelle'' with Bibra graves Image:Vessraback.jpg, View from the rear Image:Vessramodel.jpg, Model in the Henneberg Museum

References

* Günther Wölfing, Ernst Badstübner: ''Amtlicher Führer Kloster Verßra'',

Deutscher Kunstverlag The Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV) is an educational publishing house with offices in Berlin and Munich. The publisher specializes in books about art, cultural history, architecture, and historic preservation. History Deutscher Kunstverlag was fo ...

München/Berlin 2003, * *WERNER WAGENHÖFER, ''Grablegen des Niederadels im Spätmittelalterlichen Franken - das Beispiel der Bibra'', ''Wirtschaft - Gesellschaft - Mentalitäten im Mittelalter'', Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Rolf Sprandel, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2006 , , Pages.335-359.

External links

*
Hennebergisches Museum
*

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