Maulbronn Monastery (German: Kloster Maulbronn) is the best-preserved medieval Cistercian monastery complex in
Europe. It is situated on the outskirts of Maulbronn, Baden-Württemberg,
Germany and is separated from the town by fortifications. Since 1993 the monastery is part of the Unesco
World Heritage.
History
The monastery was founded in 1147 under the auspices of the first Cistercian pope, Eugenius III. The main church, built in a style transitional from Romanesque to Gothic, was consecrated in 1178 by Arnold, Bishop of Speyer. A number of other buildings — infirmary, refectory, cellar, auditorium, porch, south cloister, hall, another refectory, forge, inn, cooperage, mill, and chapel — followed in the course of the 13th century. The west, east and north cloisters date back to the 14th century, as do most fortifications and the fountain house.
The abbey was secularised by Frederick I, King of Württemberg, in the course of the German Mediatisation in 1807, forever removing its political quasi-independence; the seminary merged with that of Bebenhausen the following year, now known as the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren. The monastery, which features prominently in Hermann Hesse's novel Beneath the Wheel, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993.
The justification for the inscription was as follows: "The Maulbronn complex is the most complete survival of a Cistercian monastic establishment in Europe, in particular because of the survival of its extensive water-management system of reservoirs and channels". Hesse himself attended the monastery before fleeing in 1891 after a suicide attempt, and a failed attempt to save Hesse from his personal religious crisis by a well-known theologian and faith healer. An image of Maulbronn Abbey is set to appear representing Baden-Württemberg on the reverse of the 2013 €2 commemorative coin for Germany.
