Aduard Abbey

Aduard Abbey
Abbey of St.Bernard
Aduard Abbey; Abbey of St.Bernard
Abdij van Aduard; Abdij Sint-Bernardus in Aduard
	Former refectory now used as a church
	Aduard Abbey Location of Aduard Abbey in Groningen (province)
General information
Country	Netherlands
Coordinates	53°15′22.65″N 6°27′32.38″E / 53.2562917°N 6.4589944°E

Aduard Abbey (

Cistercian abbey in the village of Aduard about 8 kilometres to the north-west of Groningen in the Netherlands

, founded in 1192 and dissolved in 1580.

History

The monastery was founded in 1192 at

Benedictine double monastery (the nuns were dispatched to a separate establishment, the short-lived Midwolde

Abbey).

Aduard Abbey was considered one of the richest, largest and best-known monasteries in the northern Low Countries. From 1245 it had an abbey school. At the end of the 14th century discipline relaxed for a time, but was re-established. In the abbey's heyday under Abbot Henricus van Rees, in the second half of the 15th century, some 300 monks lived there and played a significant part in the reclamation and cultivation of the land.

The abbey perished in the wars that accompanied the

Reformation. In 1580 the buildings, including the priceless library and the monastery archives, were destroyed by fire after an attack by the Geuzes

. The monks fled to their town house in Groningen. Most of the abandoned abbey buildings were soon demolished and the resulting rubble used as a building stone for the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside. The abbey is believed to have been formally dissolved in 1594. The last abbot died in 1613.

The former abbey precinct is identical to the centre of the present village of Aduard.

The first abbey church, probably built immediately after the foundation, was replaced between 1240 and 1263 by a second, enlarged church. This building, as Ubbo Emmius reports in detail and as was confirmed by excavations from 1939 to 1941, was about 83 metres long and the transept was about 40 metres wide. The nave had three aisles and five bays. The transept had two rectangular chapels to the east of each wing. The choir had an ambulatory and seven semi-circular choir chapels, on the model of Clairvaux Abbey. To the south of the church lay the courtyard and the cloister.

The

Reformed

church.

Letter bricks

Part of the original floor of glazed bricks has survived, including some early 14th-century plaster bricks, each stamped with a letter of the alphabet, which can be moved around to make whole texts.

moveable type.^[2]

Aduarder Kring

The high point of the abbey school was in the mid-15th century, when the abbey was able to attract scholars from across Northern Europe, including

Philipp Melanchthon praised the school and its students.^[4]

References

^ Meijer (2004)
^ Brekle, Herbert E. (1997): „Das typographische Prinzip. Versuch einer Begriffsklärung“, in: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, Bd. 72, pp. 58–63 (61f.) (PDF)
^ De St. Bernardusabdij Archived 2015-01-21 at the Wayback Machine op de website van de Historische Vereniging Aduard
^ Moll, W., Kerkgeschiedenis van Nederland vóór de hervorming Volume 2, Deel 2, Arnhem: Nijhof & Zn (1867). Online beschikbaar op Google Boeken