Unterlinden Monastery: A Dominican Convent and Museum in Colmar
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page15 sections
History
Unterlinden monastery in Colmar, France, is a former Dominican nuns’ monastery founded before 1232, whose surviving complex is chiefly Gothic. Two noble Colmar widows, Agnes of Mittelheim and Agnes of Hergheim, established the convent with support from Dominicans from Strasbourg. Its name, meaning “Under the Linden Trees,” came from a small Chapel of St John beneath the trees.
Foundation and medieval development
Unterlinden was incorporated into the Dominican Order in 1245. The Dominican Order was a Catholic religious community founded in the early 13th century that emphasized preaching, study, and disciplined communal life. As one of the earliest Dominican women’s monasteries, Unterlinden acquired a reputation for exemplary communal practice, while reports of miraculous signs contributed to its religious standing.
The church was built between 1252 and 1269 and consecrated by Albertus Magnus, a prominent 13th-century Dominican theologian, philosopher, and bishop. The remaining monastery buildings and cloister were completed by 1289. The monastery’s necrology identifies Vollmar, a lay brother and stonemason, as the builder of the cloister; he died shortly afterward.
Reform, learning, and spiritual writing
In 1419, the convent requested reform according to the stricter Dominican Observance practiced at Schönensteinbach. This movement sought closer adherence to the order’s religious discipline. Thirteen nuns from Schönensteinbach arrived on the feast of Mary Magdalene, and Margareth of Maasmünster, formerly a prioress there, became Unterlinden’s first prioress under the reform. The changes brought renewed spiritual and institutional growth. In 1423, Unterlinden helped reform the Steinenkloster in Basel.
The reform also encouraged the growth of the monastery library, particularly its German-language holdings. Elisabeth Kempf, prioress from 1469, was active as a scribe and translator. Many partly illuminated manuscripts associated with the convent survive, chiefly in the Colmar municipal library.
At the beginning of the 14th century, Katharina of Gebersweiler probably wrote the Lives of the First Sisters of Unterlinden in Colmar in Latin. Known as the Unterlinden Book of Sisters, it is regarded as the oldest Latin collection of nuns’ lives. Influenced by mystical spirituality, it presents hagiographic accounts of the sisters’ pursuit of virtue, severe ascetic practices, and experiences of divine grace. In the second half of the 15th century, Elisabeth Kempf translated the work into German so that nuns without Latin could read about the convent’s foundation and early sisters.
War, confessional change, and French rule
At the end of Colmar’s so-called Golden Age, Unterlinden had 65 nuns. During the Peasants’ War, the convent placed itself under Colmar’s protection, giving up much of its later autonomy, especially in economic matters. When Colmar adopted the Protestant Reformation in 1575, Unterlinden remained Catholic and continued as a Dominican nuns’ community.
Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years’ War, a major European conflict from 1618 to 1648, severely affected the monastery in 1632. After Colmar became part of France in 1673, prolonged conflicts continued in the city, while the convent maintained its insistence on using German. In 1723, the community comprised 43 nuns and 23 other members, and construction continued on the buildings during the last quarter of the 18th century.
Suppression and preservation
During the French Revolution, Colmar questioned the monastery’s continued existence as space was sought for a garrison. The convent was closed, the final suppression order was issued on 31 July 1792, and the last nuns left on 29 August. The monastery buildings passed permanently to the city that year and soon housed the 4th Lancer Regiment, a cavalry unit whose soldiers carried lances. The movable cultural property was transferred to the Collège national, now Lycée Bartholdi, for safekeeping, while the abandoned church became a storage space.
The city council resolved in 1845 to demolish the entire monastery to make the facade of the newly built municipal theater more prominent. Local citizens prevented the demolition. Louis Hugot, an archivist and librarian, founded the Schongauer Society in 1847 chiefly to save the complex. The former convent was classified as a French historic monument in 1852, and the Unterlinden Museum opened in the surviving convent buildings in 1853.
Pierre Marquair, librarian of Colmar, and the drawing teacher Jean-Jacques Karpff had begun collecting and cataloguing surviving artworks during the Revolution, including works from the monasteries of Isenheim and Marbach. The Schongauer Society later established a drawing school and an engraving collection, including works by Martin Schongauer and his brother Ludwig. It also repaired the church and surviving convent buildings and arranged the cloister’s renovation with help from patrons including the industrialist Frédéric Hartmann.
A municipal bathhouse was built on former monastery grounds in 1906. The museum expansion completed at the end of 2015 incorporated the bathhouse into the wider museum complex. The City of Colmar now owns Unterlinden, which functions as a museum rather than a religious institution.
Remains
The surviving complex retains substantial 13th-century fabric and has a Gothic character. Its church, cloister, convent buildings, cellar, and later museum spaces preserve parts of the monastery’s medieval layout, although the buildings also contain modifications resulting from later changes in use and the city’s expansion.
Church and cloister
Monastery church
The church has a four-bay nave covered by a timber roof and a seven-bay choir with rib vaulting. Rib vaulting is a masonry system in which arched ribs support the structural framework of a ceiling. The choir ends in a polygonal apse, a sanctuary ending formed by several straight wall segments rather than a semicircle. This form became widespread in Alsace during the 13th century. The church was repaired in the 19th century and now contains major works connected with the Unterlinden Museum, including the Isenheim Altarpiece and a statue of Martin Schongauer made by Bartholdi in 1860.
Cloister
The cloister was built after the church during the second half of the 13th century. A cloister is a covered walkway surrounding an enclosed courtyard and often provides a monastery’s central organizing element. The complex retains the cloister well, and the walkway was renovated in the 19th century.
Cellar and later buildings
North cellar
On the north side of the monastery, a cellar first mentioned in 1272 as the completed Cellarium sororum in Columbaria served as a storage area. The Mühlenbach repeatedly flooded it, and the space was cleared of mud in 1955. It has since been used as an exhibition space.
Economic buildings and bathhouse
The monastery’s economic buildings were demolished during the expansion of the city and the construction of a theater in 1840. The surviving church and convent buildings were repaired during the 19th century. The municipal bathhouse built on the former grounds in 1906 was later incorporated into the museum complex during the expansion completed at the end of 2015.
Artworks and manuscripts
Isenheim Altarpiece
The church houses the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, a major early-16th-century work associated with the German painter. An altarpiece is a painted, carved, or otherwise decorated work placed behind or above an altar. The work forms a central part of the Unterlinden Museum’s collections.
Schongauer memorial and library holdings
A statue of the Colmar painter and printmaker Martin Schongauer, made by Bartholdi in 1860, stands among the church’s museum-related works. Manuscripts associated with Unterlinden include partly illuminated volumes preserved chiefly in the Colmar municipal library. The Unterlinden Book of Sisters preserves the convent’s early spiritual history in Latin and was later translated into German.
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