Ter Apel Monastery ( nl, Klooster Ter Apel) is a former

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

in the village of

Ter Apel Ter Apel (; Gronings: ''Troapel'') is a village with a population of 8,866 residents in the municipality Westerwolde in the northern Netherlands, in the province Groningen in the region Westerwolde. The town lies on the stream Ruiten Aa, which ...

in the northeastern Dutch province of Groningen. It is the only monastery in the larger area of Friesland and Groningen that survived 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 a decent condition, and the only remaining rural monastery from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The convent buildings house a museum for monastery and church history and for religious art, as well as two contemporary art galleries. The former lay church of the monastery still functions as a reformed church. The monastery is located in the extreme southeast of the province of Groningen on a forested sand ridge along the ancient

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...

from

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

to Groningen. For passing travelers and pilgrims, the monastery was a place of hospitality and dedication. Ter Apel is the last monastery founded in Groningen, and of 34 monasteries in the province it is the only one still recognizable as a convent.

Foundation

INTERIEUR, GEDEELTE VAN HET PRIESTERGESTOELTE - Ter Apel - 20265203 - RCE

In 1464, Jacobus Wiltingh, pastor of

Garrelsweer Garrelsweer is a village in the Dutch province of Groningen. It is a part of the municipality of Eemsdelta. History The village was first mentioned in 1057 as Gerleuiswert, and means "settled height of Gerlef (person)". Garrelsweer developed on ...

and vicar in

Loppersum Loppersum () is a village and former municipality in the province of Groningen in the northeast of the Netherlands. Geography Loppersum is located in the province of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. The former municipality was bord ...

, bequeathed Apell, a settlement among his possessions in the area called Westerwolde, to the Order of the Holy Cross on the condition that a monastery be built there, on the remains of a thirteenth-century Premonstratensian monastery. In May 1465, the General Chapter of the Holy Cross convened in

Huy Huy ( or ; nl, Hoei, ; wa, Hu) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the ''sillon industriel'', the former industrial ...

, on the

Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...

, and accepted Apell as a gift from God. The monastery dedicated to Saint Gertrude of Nivelles in Bentlage, near Rheine, was to supervise the new monastery, and it sent four priests and several lay brothers to Apell, who founded the monastery and named it ''Novae Domus Lucis'', the "House of New Light." Construction, between 1465 and 1561, followed the medieval plan of the mother in Bentlage, and included, besides the convent building, a gatehouse, water mills, a parchment facility, a bakery, a brewery, and a guesthouse. The monastery was bequeathed a number of gifts, including a stained glass window in 1561 by Lieutenant Johan de Mepsche and his wife Agnes, depicting Moses and the tablets containing the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...

. It also derived income from other sources. The grounds surrounding the monastery were rich in loam, which was used in construction; in 1492, an agreement was signed with the adjoining municipality of Roswinkel for the digging of loam, on land leased by the monastery from the hamlet of Weerdinge.

After the Reformation

Klooster Ter Apel door Arnold Hendrik Koning (1834)

When the area was conquered in 1593 by

William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg ( nl, Willem Lodewijk; fry, Willem Loadewyk; 13 March 1560, Dillenburg, Hesse – 13 July 1620, Leeuwarden, Netherlands) was Count of Nassau-Dillenburg from 1606 to 1620, and stadtholder of Friesland ...

, Catholicism was renounced and the convent, with the entire Westerwolde area, became the property of the city of Groningen; the monastery was saved, unlike hundreds of others in the Netherlands, because the abbot converted to Protestantism. Storms, fire, and high maintenance costs caused major problems in the centuries after 1600. The monastery underwent many changes until 1930. The west facade was demolished sometime after 1755, and so were the upper floor with the brothers' cells (1834) and the dilapidated vaults in the church (1837). Unlike all the other monasteries in Groningen, a large part of the original buildings remained.

Restoration

Between 1930 and 1933, on the initiative of the city of Groningen, the remaining buildings were carefully preserved and restored, under the direction of city engineer De Vos Nederveen Cappel. On the ground floor, three of the original four wings were retained: the church for

secular canons A canon (from the Latin , itself derived from the Greek , , "relating to a rule", "regular") is a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule. Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergy house or, later, i ...

and lay people in the south wing; the chapter house and sacristy in the east wing; and the

refectory A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries. The name derives from the Lat ...

(now a cafe), the vaulted supplies cellar, the sub-prior and prior's chambers, and the guest accommodations in the north wing. These wings are connected by an

ambulatory The ambulatory ( la, ambulatorium, ‘walking place’) is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th ...

, surrounding the

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

. The original medieval cloister garden has been replaced with a

herb garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

; the location of this garden is the only remaining detail in the Netherlands of such a medieval garden. Since 1992 Ter Apel Monastery is listed on

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

's Top 100 of immovable properties in the Netherlands. In 2000, the construction of a new west wing was begun, designed by Danish architect Johannes Exner; in September 2001 the work was completed. More renovations took place in 2007 and 2008, with a subsidy from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

. The newly renovated

scriptorium Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes. However, lay scribes an ...

features an exhibition of books and manuscripts. Also newly added was a workshop for stained glass. The monastery used to hold an annual

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London 1851 chess tournament, London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard ...

, the ''Klooster Internationaal Tournament'', and continues to organize an annual medieval festival, which in 2010 attracted some 8000 visitors. In 2009, the monastery began publishing books; the first publication was a history of medieval Dutch monasteries, ''De Middeleeuwse kloostergeschiedenis van de Nederlanden''.

References

Bibliography

*''500 jaar Klooster Ter Apel: van metten tot vespers''. Van der Kamp, 1966.

External links