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27-620: The abbey was founded in about 1170 by Wichmann von Seeburg , the Archbishop of Magdeburg , after his troops had conquered the former Slavic territory. It possibly was meant for preventing the territorial expansion southwards of the Ascanian lords of nearby Luckenwalde , descendants of Albert the Bear . The monastery was built on the northern rim of the Fläming hill range in the marshes of

54-774: A remote eastern exclave of the Magdeburg archdiocese, pressed by the neighbouring Margraves of Brandenburg and the Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg . After a lengthy period of decline, monastic life in the abbey came to an end in 1553 with the Protestant Reformation . Following the Peace of Westphalia , the Magdeburg territories had finally been secularized in 1680 as the Duchy of Magdeburg and been given to Brandenburg-Prussia . In 1764, in an effort to bring economic revival to

81-594: Is a former Cistercian monastery in Lehnin in Brandenburg , Germany . Founded in 1180 and secularized during the Protestant Reformation in 1542, it has accommodated the Luise-Henrietten-Stift , a Protestant deaconesses ' house since 1911. The foundation of the monastery in the newly established Margraviate of Brandenburg was an important step in the high medieval German Ostsiedlung ; today

108-523: The Musica Mediaevalis concert series. There is also a traditional New Year's concert by candlelight in the church - at natural temperature. 52°01′N 13°06′E  /  52.017°N 13.100°E  / 52.017; 13.100 Wichmann von Seeburg Wichmann von Seeburg ( c.  1115 – 25 August 1192) was Bishop of Naumburg from 1150 until 1154 and Archbishop of Magdeburg from 1154 until his death. He became

135-531: The Nuthe river by Cistercian monks, descending from the monastery on the site of Burg Berge, otherwise Altenberg Abbey , in the County of Berg near Cologne . With huge effort they drained the land and turned it into productive ground. The abbey soon assumed immense economic significance throughout the whole region. In 1285 it bought the town of Luckenwalde and eleven surrounding villages. At its high point, in 1307,

162-461: The 13th or 14th century and was composed in Gothic majuscule . The technique is considered a precursor of movable type printing. In the building known as the "New Abbey" is the local museum, with medieval frescoes and a model of the original monastery complex as it would have been in 1170, as well as displays relating to the abbey's history up to c. 1550 and the development of the weavers' colony. In

189-621: The Lion, but he succeeded only in seeing his lands devastated. In 1175, he supplied auxiliaries to the emperor for his Italian campaign. He was in Venice negotiating the peace treaty in 1177. In 1178, he was back in Saxony for the war against Henry the Lion. He strongly worked for Henry's deposition and ban in 1180 and greatly profited from its actualisation, becoming the principal secular authority in Saxony after. He remained deeply predisposed against

216-715: The Welfs, however. In 1180 and 1185, he gave parts of his extensive possessions to Seitenstetten Abbey in Austria and to the Bishopric of Passau . He died on 25 August 1192 in the proximity of Köthen and was buried in his own cathedral . The city and diocese of Magdeburg had fully bloomed under his oversight. Wichmann is also credited with the first codification of magdeburg town law in 1188. Lehnin Abbey Lehnin Abbey ( German : Kloster Lehnin )

243-454: The Younger in 1320, and gives a faithful portrait of several of the margraves, until it comes to deal with Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1688). Here the writer leaves the region of safety and ceases to make any realistic portrait of the people about whom he is prophesying. The work ends with a Catholic ruler who re-establishes Lehnin as a monastery and is also made to restore

270-771: The Zauche plateau south of the Havelland region, a daughter house (filial) of Morimond Abbey , was the first abbey to be founded as an Ascanian family monastery and place of burial. It soon became an important contributor to the land development of the Margraviate. Otto I was buried here in 1184. In its turn Lehnin founded the daughter houses of Paradies Abbey (1236, present-day Klasztor Paradyż in Gościkowo , Poland), Mariensee Abbey (1258, relocated to Chorin in 1273), and Himmelpfort Abbey near Fürstenberg/Havel (1299). The abbey

297-662: The abbey territory measured almost 300 km. For more distant trade the abbey kept town properties in Berlin, Wittenberg and Jüterbog, among others: the present Jüterbog Town Museum is in the former townhouse of the Abbot of Zinna. The monks left a famous psalter , the psalterium novum beatae Mariae , printed in the 1490s, today on display at the Brandenburg State Library in Potsdam . The area however remained

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324-438: The area, King Frederick II of Prussia established a new village for weavers descending from Upper Lusatia at the site on which some of the monastic buildings had remained. The new settlement since 1902 has been called Kloster Zinna after the abbey and in 1992 was incorporated into the town of Jüterbog. The success of the economic efforts was quite modest, but there is still a statue to Frederick II erected in celebration of

351-459: The authorities seized large parts of the monastery complex for Wehrmacht and SS purposes. From 1949 onwards, Lehnin Abbey was turned into a hospital, today it serves as a geriatric rehabilitation clinic and nursing home. Lehnin Abbey is significant for its Brick Gothic architecture, and is one of the finest German Brick Gothic period buildings in the country. The Vaticinium Lehninense

378-405: The centenary jubilee in 1864 and re-erected in 1994. Of the monastic complex there still remain the abbey church, the brewhouse and the customs house, as well as some fragments of the cloisters and the guesthouse. Of the former pilgrimage site on the nearby Golmberg, however, there remains only a cross. The plain abbey church is an early Gothic pillared basilica with a cruciform groundplan. In

405-613: The decay was halted at the initiative of King Frederick William IV of Prussia and his nephew, Crown Prince Frederick William . From 1871 to 1877, the ruins were remarkably well restored. In 1911 the premises were purchased by the Prussian Union of churches to house the Protestant community known as the Luise-Henrietten-Stift . The deaconesses adopted the Cistercian tradition; they were suppressed under Nazi rule, when

432-571: The emperor's foes in the northeast, especially the Welf duke Henry the Lion . Wichmann was elected Bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz in 1149 and ordained the next year. He made large donations to the monasteries of Pforta and Zeitz . A regular guest at the court of King Conrad III of Germany , he was quickly appointed to the Archdiocese of Magdeburg by Conrad's nephew, the newly crowned King Frederick Barbarossa in 1152. Wichmann initially had to overcome

459-550: The extended Romanesque and Gothic brickstone buildings, largely restored in the 1870s, are a significant part of Brandenburg's cultural heritage. Lehnin Abbey was founded by the Ascanian margrave Otto I of Brandenburg , 23 years after his father, late Albert the Bear had finally defeated the Slavic prince Jaxa of Köpenick and established the Brandenburg margraviate in 1157. According to legend, Otto, while hunting at

486-815: The first Magdeburg prince-archbishop in 1180 Wichmann was the second son of the Saxon count Gero of Seeburg (d. 1122) and his wife Matilda, a daughter of the Wettin count Thimo the Brave . He studied theology at the University of Paris before becoming a canon in Halberstadt . Throughout his long ecclesiastical career, he was a loyal supporter of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa against Pope Alexander III and an implacable military leader against

513-483: The late Gothic period vaulting was introduced into most parts of the structure. Of especial musical interest is the organ by Wilhelm Baer, dating from 1850/51, which on guided tours it is possible to walk through . Before the altar, there is an Ave Maria inscription embedded in the floor which consists of individual letter tiles . Each letter appears as a relief print on an unglazed, red-brown terracotta tile measuring 14 x 14 cm. The Latin inscription dates to

540-492: The newly established Cistercian monastery of Zinna . He attended the 1160 Council of Pavia, supporting the election of Antipope Victor IV . In 1164, he undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine and fell for a time into Turkish hands. After supporting the election of Antipope Paschal III , he tried to adopt the position of a mediator with Pope Alexander III . In 1166, Wichmann joined the German princes in war with Duke Henry

567-425: The old customs house there are displays of traditional weaving techniques and live demonstrations. In the old brewhouse the sweet herbal liqueur "Klosterbruder" is still produced, in which process the visitor is encouraged to participate. The buildings and the picturesque landscape are also used in spring and summer as the background for concerts, and in co-operation with Lehnin Abbey the medieval music events of

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594-456: The resistance by Pope Eugene III and his successor Anastasius IV ; nevertheless, he immediately endeavoured to extend his diocese and its economy, and actively promoted trade within the cities. In 1157, he allied with the Ascanian margrave Albert the Bear to re-conquer and Germanise the cities of Brandenburg and Jüterbog , whose vicinity he conquered and colonised with Flemish settlers (cf. Fläming ). In 1170 he granted large estates to

621-507: The settlement of Huguenot refugees at Lehnin according to his 1685 Edict of Potsdam , which added largely to the recovery of the local economy. Lehnin received access to the Havel river via an artificial waterway and became the site of a large brickyard, while the historic monastery premises again decayed and were used as a stone quarry. In the 19th century, when Lehnin Abbey came into the focus of German Romanticism and national sentiment,

648-538: The site, had fallen asleep beneath a giant oak, when a white deer appeared to him in a dream, whose furious attacks he could only ward off by appealing to the Saviour. To consolidate their rule, the Ascanians called for Christian settlers, especially from Flanders (cf. Fläming ) to settle among the "pagan" Slavs. Beside, they established Cistercian monasteries to develop the lands and to generate an income. Lehnin on

675-489: The union of the Holy Roman Empire . The work is anti-Prussian, but the real author cannot be discovered. Andreas Fromm (d. 1685), rector of St Peter's church in Berlin, an ardent Lutheran, is commonly believed to have been the forger. The first to unmask the fraud was Pastor Weiss, who proved in his "Vaticinium Germanicum" (Berlin, 1746) that the pseudo-prophecy was really written between 1688 and 1700. Even after

702-507: Was a work, famous in its day, which purported to be the creation of a monk of Lehnin called Hermann, supposedly written in the 13th or 14th century. Manuscripts of the "prophecy", which was first printed in 1722 or 1723, existed in Berlin , Dresden , Breslau and Göttingen . It begins by lamenting the end of the Ascanian line of the Margraves of Brandenburg , with the death of Henry

729-616: Was dissolved in 1542 during the Reformation and turned into an electoral demesne and hunting lodge under the Hohenzollern elector Joachim II of Brandenburg . Devastated during the Thirty Years' War , it was rebuilt under the "Great Elector" Frederick William of Brandenburg from about 1650 and became a summer residence of his first consort Louise Henriette of Nassau . After her death in 1667, Frederick William encouraged

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