Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 19297
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Reimann , Heike.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Cistercian Nuns in the High Middle Ages: The Cistercians of Bergen in the Principality of Rügen (North Germany)
  • Source: Cîteaux: Revue d'Histoire Cistercienne 55, 40241 ( 2004): Pages 231 - 244.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Cistercian Order Economics Monasticism Patronage, Ecclesiastical Bergen, Rugen (Island), Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, Germany- Cistercian Monastery for Women Women in Religion
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 12-13
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Five figures. Figure One Aerial photograph of the church at Bergen. Figure Two Map of former Cistercian abbeys in northeast Germany. Women's houses indicated by black squares. Figure Three Map of the area around Bergen, from Friedrich von Hagenow, "Special-Charte der Insel Rügen" (Institut des gr. Generalstabes, 1829). Figure Four Sculpted memorial mounted in the west facade of the church at Bergen. Figure Five Map of the estates owned by the women's monastery at Bergen.
  • Table:
  • Abstract: The nunnery of Bergen, on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, was founded in 1193 by Prince Jaromar of Rügen as a Benedictine abbey and incorporated into the Cistercian Order shortly thereafter. In the twelfth century, the prince had his castle on a hill named Rugard, and the nuns lived nearby. From the thirteenth century onwards, however, they co-existed with the inhabitants of the town of Bergen which had developed around the cloister of the abbey. The nuns owned several parish churches, and they took part in the so-called German "Ostsiedlung," or, more accurately, in the "Landesausbau." Thus, the nunnery of Bergen was much more than a residence for unmarried noblewomen in the Middle Ages, but from the sixteenth century on it was reduced to this role as a consequence of the Reformation. [Reproduced by permission of Citeaux: Commentarii cistercienses (http://www.citeaux.org/).]
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  • Author's Affiliation:
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2004.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 07744919