St. Wolfgang Monastery (Hanau): A Late-Medieval Servite Monastery
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page11 sections
History
St. Wolfgang Monastery is a late-medieval Servite monastery in Germany, situated between present-day Hanau-Wolfgang and Niederrodenbach. Built during the late Middle Ages for the Servites, a Roman Catholic mendicant order also known as the Order of Servants of Mary, it developed from a chapel dedicated to Saint Wolfgang and remained historically dependent on Fulda Abbey, a major Benedictine abbey and ecclesiastical center in central Germany.
Chapel and foundation
The history of the site began around 1468, when Erasmus Hasefuss, a court official and trumpeter of Count Philipp I the Younger of Hanau, built a chapel dedicated to Saint Wolfgang. Wolfgang had been a tenth-century bishop of Regensburg whose cult was widespread in the German-speaking lands. The chapel attracted worshippers, and four or five Servite monks settled at the site.
The monastery was probably founded between 1490 and 1494. A papal confirmation copied in the final quarter of the sixteenth century states that the monks had already lived there for six years when the monastery buildings were transferred to them. Count Philipp provided a house with sleeping quarters, a refectory, workshops, and other necessary facilities, while also enlarging the chapel.
Count Philipp’s testament granted the brothers an annual endowment of 12 Achtel of grain and four gulden. In return, a Mass was to be celebrated for him each year. The foundation also gave the institution a lasting connection with the surrounding settlement, whose modern district name, Hanau-Wolfgang, derives from the monastery.
Disputes and continued religious use
A letter from Cardinal Legate Raimund Peraudi to the Archbishop of Mainz repeated serious accusations against the monks, apparently on the basis of a report by Count Reinhard IV of Hanau-Munzenberg. The allegations included sexual misconduct involving pimps, disorder and violent quarrels that caused serious injuries, and possibly an unauthorized weekly market. Their reliability is seriously doubtful. If the accusations were proved, the monastery was to be dissolved and its income transferred to the Hanau Hospital.
The community nevertheless continued to function. Three brothers attended Count Reinhard IV’s funeral in 1512, and four priests took part in the funeral of his widow, Katharina of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg, in 1515. In 1520, Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg confirmed several of the monastery’s privileges.
Destruction and later history
During the German Peasants’ War, a widespread series of uprisings in the German lands in 1524 and 1525, Hanau citizens led by the Schultheiss of Rodenbach attacked the monastery in 1525. A Schultheiss was a local administrative and judicial official. The monastery was plundered and partly destroyed, and it was reportedly destroyed again, definitively, by “the common people” in 1527. It was then abandoned. The final community reportedly consisted of a prior and four monks.
In 1715, Johann Reinhard III, the last count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, built a hunting lodge near the ruins. The building became a forestry office in 1868 and now houses the Hanau-Wolfgang forestry office and a Hessian seed-drying facility.
The ruins may also have entered German Romantic literature. During a stay at nearby Hof Trages in the 1830s, Clemens Brentano, a German Romantic writer known for poetry, prose, and fairy tales, wrote Gockel, Hinkel und Gackeleia. Published in 1838, the fairy-tale novel contains descriptions that suggest the romantic monastery ruins may have influenced the setting called “Gockelsruh.”
Archaeology and protection
The Hanau Historical Association began the first excavations at the ruins in 2013. Further work in summer 2014 concentrated on the tower and the northern side aisle of the church. The 2013 excavation identified probable monastery outbuildings beneath a visible rubble mound in the central area. The excavated remains were documented and then reburied. The results were presented in a special exhibition at Museum Schloss Steinheim from 21 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.
The monastery ruins and the archaeological monuments around them are protected cultural monuments under the Hessian Monument Protection Act. Excavations, test trenches, unauthorized digging, deliberate collection of finds, and alterations to the remains require permission. Accidental discoveries must be reported to the monument authorities.
Remains
The ruins stand in a forested area approximately midway between Hanau-Wolfgang and Niederrodenbach, about 1.5 kilometres from the edge of each settlement. The site lies where the Bulau floodplain forest meets the sandy, mainly pine-covered foothills of the Spessart. The Rote Lache nature reserve is to the south, while numerous pits around the monastery probably resulted from iron-ore extraction, although their date is unknown. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, a Roman frontier system of forts, walls, earthworks, and related installations, runs about 750 metres west of the complex.
Monastery structures
The tower
The free-standing tower has a square plan, with each side measuring 4.10 metres, and rises slightly more than 10 metres. It is topped by a crenellated parapet, a protective wall with open spaces, and a pyramidal cap. The cap is built internally in masonry and was reinforced on the outside with sprayed concrete during the twentieth century to limit water penetration and frost damage. The tower’s corners are aligned approximately with the cardinal directions.
Its walls consist of irregular rubble stone in various sizes, chiefly local limestone, with some brick incorporated into the masonry. The original exterior was finished with plaster, painted imitation ashlar blocks, and painted joint lines, traces of which remain. Most window embrasures have been broken out, although a very small embrasure survives on the southwest side of the ground floor. Blocked openings and later openings show that the tower was altered repeatedly during the monastery’s short existence. The first floor retains several window niches and an internal fireplace.
The tower is not now connected to the church standing to its east. A roof slope on the northeast side of its outer wall indicates that another building was once attached there. The tower also has external similarities to the tower of the Jakobuskirche in Bruchköbel, about seven kilometres away. Both structures originated around 1500.
The church
The church nave measured 22.40 metres in length and 7.40 metres in width. Its foundations remain partly visible, and the building was oriented eastward toward an apse, the rounded or polygonal end of a church, at the eastern end. A parallel wall along the south side indicates a side aisle, and the corresponding northern wall was uncovered during the 2013 and 2014 excavations. Together, these remains support a reconstruction of a three-aisled church.
The eastern apse is now occupied by a grill area. At the church’s northwest corner, a small rectangular masonry enclosure apparently belonged to access stairs or a stair tower leading to a gallery. Two less clearly interpretable wall lines run along the north wall. A wall fragment beginning in front of the sacristy may have separated the choir from the congregational area or may have been connected with a side altar.
The probable sacristy
A nearly intact room built into the church’s north wall is popularly called the “donkey stable.” It probably served as the monastery church’s sacristy, the room used for preparing and storing objects associated with worship. The room measures 5.45 by 4.35 metres externally. A segmental-arched niche in its west wall may have held a Marian altar.
Well and surrounding remains
A stone well surround with a diameter of 2.20 metres survives within the complex. Partial church foundation walls remain visible, while earthworks north of the church indicate further residential or ancillary buildings. These earthworks may also include the Saint Wolfgang chapel, although the chapel’s relationship to the later church remains uncertain.
Nearby sites
