Abbey of Sturzelbronn

The Abbaye is located in the Commune Frenchwoman of Sturzelbronn, and the department of the the Moselle. The Village is located in the Stürzelthal , a Vallée boxed in the middle of the the Vosges of North.

Foundation of the abbey

Since It Ferté-on-Grosne in 1113, first girl of Cîteaux, the monks were established in Maizières, with Beaune in Burgundy, in 1132, and from there, the Ortlibius abbot and his twelve monks (the figure symbolic system is not without evoking the twelve Apôtre S), settled with Sturzelbronn in 1135 and founded the abbey of the valley of Sainte Marie: Vallis Sanctae Mariae . Each Abbaye cistercian is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and it is under the impulse of holy Bernard that the Culte of the Vierge becomes a major fact of the medieval religiosity . Simon Ier, duke of Lorraine, founds in 1135, the abbey of Sturzelbronn. We read in the Histoire of the Abbaye of Maizières : “ the Paganus abbot is considered, after the tenth year of its administration, to have granted to Simon Ier duke of Lorraine and has his wife, claiming monks, the favor to build, in order to place of it a dozen, a building with Sturzelbrune in a region of the Lorraine, close to the Alsace and finally to have finished its life the year 1146 ”.

In a historical Notice on the abbey of Ferté-on Grosne we read: “ Sturzelbrunn, with the Diocese of Metz, had its foundation with Simon or Sigismond Ier, duke of Lorraine. Its first religious came from Ferté in 1135 ”. In various work on Sturzelbronn, one indeed once meets the date of 1135, and the other time 1143, mentioned like goes back to foundation. But the dates of the charters of foundation and the dates of episcopal confirmation are not the same ones. The error can come from there. We will most frequently appoint the date met, that is to say 1135, date which the Drexler abbot retained to commemorate the eight hundred years of the Abbaye of Sturzelbronn, by installing the Statue holy Bernard in the center of the village.

Simon Ier maintained good and frequent relations with holy Bernard. His/her mother had of a first marriage Lothaire, emperor of 1125 with 1137 and large friend of the saint man. His Adélaïde wife is, it also, large protective of the Cistercien S, because it owes them its conversion, as its Guillaume contemporary brings it back: “ Adelaide, woman noble according to the century, but wretched in its life. Testing for Gaufridus (a monk of the Abbey of Clairvaux) a desire beyond any measurement, it had been converted by holy Bernard, which helped it to be freed from the royal pump and brought back it on the way of modesty ”. In 1125 is founded the Abbaye of Tart close to Dijon, the first Abbaye of moniales cistercians, to accommodate the women of the knights which convert and they is there that withdrew the duchess of Lorraine, Adélaïde, widow of Simon Ier, deceased in 1138. She left Tart to found later Tight the where she lived into simple moniale. The dukes of Lorraine always remained the guards of the Monastère rested by their ancestor. Its founder, Simon Ier, will be buried there in 1139, after having been to it first once at Saint-Dié. Simon II in 1205, Thiébaud in 1220 and his wife Gertrude de Dabo in 1225, as of other noble of the area will find in their turn their burial there.

The local tradition admits that the saint founder visited the new colony of Sturzelbronn. It is while going to Spire the December 27th 1146, to preach the Second crusade (1145 - 1148), by old the Gallo-Roman way which connected Bitche to Wissembourg, that holy Bernard probably passed by Sturzelbronn. It is probable also that holy Bernard went to Haguenau to comfort the duke of Alsace Frederic One-eyed the, father of large the Frederic Barberousse which had just left in Croisade with his/her uncle, Conrad III.

War of the peasants

In the area of Sturzelbronn in 1525 a group of Paysan S constitutes insurgent. Whoever wishes to join this group must shave the head, this is why they are called the mowed . This band plunders the Abbaye Sturzelbronn and burns the delivers S of the Bibliothèque, the letters of donations, the files and the registers of the royalties. Of 1524 with 1525, under the reign of the Reinhard lord of Zweibrücken - Bitche (1499 - 1532) bursts harmful the war of the Peasants, also called war of the Bumpkins. Exasperated by the excessive loads (taxes, taxes, drudgeries), diverted and misled by the advertisement of the freedom of Religion, the Country S of Alsace and until in the Country of Bitche, was raised, gathered per hundred, a thousand and devastated by the Feu, the Château X, the Couvent S and the church S. the topics of the message of Luther strengthen the hope of the peasants and exasperate their anger. The freedom proclaimed by Luther relates to their heart but they also expect from it the end of their control to the noble and with the priest S. In the Pays of Bitche, the revolt takes forms of cruelty and excess such as the lord of Bitche seeks refuge at the duke of Lorraine. It would have had these words: " of the six thousand people who live my field, there are not of them more six which remain to me faithful " .

The Abbaye of Sturzelbronn is not saved plundering and destruction. The Paysan S want the suppression of the Dîme S. They burn the files and destroy the books where are noted the Taxe S to pay. The duke of Lorraine, called with the help by the middle-class of Strasbourg, chokes this revolt cruelly. With Saverne, more than six thousand Paysan S is flarings the May 16th 1525. In a nearby village, twenty thousand men, women and children are massacred. After the defeat of the peasants, the lord of Bitche makes lock up the principal leaders, but a few months later, after the subscription of the oath of banishment, they are slackened. In Alsace, the cities and the lords passed to the Réforme hesitate to fight theirs. However the Révolte worries them. The duke Antoine of Lorraine, a Catholic , the car of embarrassment. It besieges Saverne with thirty thousand Mercenaire S. Partout the revenge on the noble and of the Couvent S is pitiless. On the whole, close to thirty-five thousand Paysan S died. For the survivors, it is the end of a great hope and the return to an oppression harder than front.

The princes passed to the Réforme obliged their people to embrace the news Religion or to leave the territory. They have as a principle that the Religion of the prince is also that of the people. In 1570, the count Philippe V of Hanau-Lichtenberg, new Master of Bitche makes stop the abbot of Sturzelbronn, and seizes the Abbaye. The duke of Lorraine Charles III saves the existence of the Abbaye and makes occupy all the Pays of Bitche in 1572. If the count of Hanau-Lichtenberg had succeeded in putting the hand on the Abbaye of Sturzelbronn, all the villages and fields incorporated in the latter would have passed to the Réforme and would be today Protestant.

Thirty Year old war

The conflict which bursts with Prague in 1618, at the time of the election by the Czech of a Monarque protesting, Frederic V, at first sight seems not to relate to the Alsaciens and the Lorrains. However, as of 1621, one of the generals of Frederic V, new king de Bohême, the count Ernst von Mansfeld invades the Alsace and the Pays of Bitche, with the head of its army of mercenaries. Mansfeld installs its general headquarter with Haguenau. It is delivered to the systematic plundering of all the region without running up against least resistance. In 1622, the bands of Mansfeld attacked the Abbaye Sturzelbronn. To the same time, violent ones confrontations also oppose in Germany the catholic to the Protestant , the catholic étants supported by the Protestant Habsbourg and the by the majority of the German princes having adopted the Réforme.

The stake of the conflict becomes a hegemony in Western Europe, that the Austria emperor of Austria Ferdinand II dispute and the France, always controlled by Richelieu. The reasons religious are unimportant at this time. The France, anxious of the rising power of the house of Austria, negotiates, under the pressure of the cardinal Richelieu, an alliance with the Protestant Sweden in 1632, to put in failure the supremacy of the Habsbourg. It should be noted here that the duke of Lorraine remains faithful to the imperial house of the Habsbourg. The marshal Swedish Horn, with the head of a troop of Mercenaire S recruited in all the Europe and which has Swedish only the name, crosses the the Rhine with Kehl and invades the country to subject it in a few months.

In 1632, all the catholic zones are between its hands and undergo the exactions of the Mercenaire S. to break resistance Lorraine, Richelieu gives the order to destroy all the fortified towns Lorraine S of which Bitche. The whole country is delivered to plundering, the houses are set fire to and the massacred inhabitants. In 1633, the Abbey of Sturzelbronn, destroyed by the Fire S, does not exist any more: only the maisonnette of the gatekeeper remains upright. To the horror of the Guerre are added the Peste and the Famine. Beaten by the French troops in September 1634, the Swedish leave the Alsace and the Lorraine. The Guerre Thirty Year old finishes in 1648 by the Traités of Westphalia, but in Lorraine, Alsace and in other Rhenish areas devastated by the passage of the Armée S, of many hamlets are completely striped chart.

After this cataclysm, the duke of Lorraine seeks to repopulate its field of Bitche. Calls, launched of share and others of the the Rhine, bring colonists of Suisse and the Tyrol, countries saved by the war. The monks return to Sturzelbronn and rebuilt to them Abbaye: the Vallée of Sturzelbronn starts to revive starting from 1687. The Abbey church , destroyed first once in 1633, is rebuilt under the Abbé S Fournier, died in 1711, and Jean-François de Mahuet (1711 - 1740). Everywhere, the monks take advantage of their rights by delimiting their grounds by limits S of which some exist still today. They cannot know that all their efforts will be again destroyed before the end of the century and that the Révolution will drive out them definitively Vallée.

Revolution of 1789

At the time of the French revolution, the monks became lord S of the Ancien Mode. They sell their products, profit from the Dîme as well as rights of hiring of the supposed ones. In 1789, the incomes of the Abbaye are considered at new thousand books. Sturzelbronn has fourteen pond S, stocked Truite S and of carp S, whereas the Zinsel and the brook of Sturzelbronn provide the crayfish S. the Abbaye demarcated a vast territorial unit including an about sixty supposed. The exploitation of the field is articulated around barns of farm still with the number of twenty-and-a in 1790. Such were the places when issued by the Constituent Assemblé National is , the February 13rd 1790, the suppression of the wishes and the monastic orders.

The very flourishing Abbey forever and forever essaimé. In 1790, it is occupied only by nine religious. Thanks to the state of the religious provided to the ecclesiastical committee of the constituent Assembly, the March 26th 1790 by the Prior, we know the list of the monks present at the Abbaye at this time: " The personnel of the Couvent was composed, in 1789, of nine religious fathers, an organist, two cooks, a baker, a Master of room for the service of the refectory, one being useful or domestic for the prior " . There is no more Abbé with Sturzelbronn since the Colin abbot of Contrisson was recalled by God the December 7th 1789, at the age of sixty-seven years. Remain with Sturzelbronn in 1789:

• Dom François-Antoine Guibert, prior
• Dom François-Louis-Antoine Anthon, sub-prior.
• Dom Jean-Conrad-Stanislas Cromer
• Dom Jean Jacques Krauss
• Dom Joseph-Wendelin Anthon, Master of wood
• Dom Mathias Hercules Marie Anne de Mallan
• Dom Jean Paul Feyler
• Dom Alexandre Césaire Hager
• Dom Troxler, religious Swiss, profès of Urbain saint, who served the Cure village since May 1782

Three absent resided at this time at Ferté:

• Dom Joseph Monnier
• Dom Pierre Thomasset
• Dom Jean-Antoine-Daniel Léopold Knoepfler

Jean-Nicolas Guntz is locked up with Maréville 1775 with 1791. In little time the revolutionary wave all will sweep with Sturzelbronn: the November 2nd 1789, the ecclesiastical properties are confiscated. These properties are declared national goods the March 17th 1790. The May 17th 1790 takes place the first visit of the municipal authorities to make an inventory of the goods of the Monastère. The decree of the department of the June 17th 1791 which fixes the number of preserved religious houses, does not mention that of Sturzelbronn, in spite of a step made in its favor by the district of Bitche. The department sends the religious Sturzelbronn which want to preserve the common life at Justemont. The prince of Hesse - Darmstadt, sovereign of the county of Hanau, benefits from the occasion to imitate the revolutionary government French and sequesters the goods of the Abbaye located in its states. The administration of the district of Bitche estimates in 1791 the incomes of these goods at 20  000 pounds per annum.

As of the March 31st 1791, the district of Bitche proceeds gradually to the liquidation of the Abbaye whose first inventory is made by the municipality of Sturzelbronn the May 17th 1790. The movable effects of the Abbaye are put at the Enchère S with Bitche between the April 10th 1792 and the November 12th 1792. One did not want to make these Enchère S at the village even which cannot provide nor to attract many amateurs. The town of Bitche buys for seven hundreds - sixty-eight books the Horloge of the Abbaye, which is six feet length, four broad and three top. The Orgue S go to Sarrelouis, the Chaire with Roppeviller, a Confessionnal with Breidenbach, one of the grosses Cloche S with Haspelschiedt and the furnace bridge Baroque with Loutzviller. The Bois eries of the chorus are still today in the Abbatiale of Neuwiller-lès-Saverne.

On its side, the municipality of Sturzelbronn, which learned the stop from suppression, starts after the deliberation of the September 4th 1791 of the steps in order to be made allot the church Abbaye, because old the parochial church can contain only the quarter of the parishioners. She also asks to preserve two of the Cloche S of the Abbaye, to as well call with the Office S the very dispersed inhabitants as to gather them in the event of Incendie in one of supposed or the Bois, as in the event of attack of the Bohémien S, always of number in the Forêt S. the district decide the November 12th 1791 that strongest Cloche suffices for these creditable intentions and the department ratifies the decision.

The last religious, the father Joseph-Wendelin Anthon, charged to serve the cure of the Abbey since the month of July 1790, continued its service. Not having lent the oath wanted by the civil Constitution of the clergy, it clandestinely leaves before the September 10th 1792, because of the Décret of the August 24th 1792, ordering with the priest S refractory S to leave the France in the fifteen days, under Capital punishment. The December 21st 1793, the administration decides to make remove church of the Abbaye the grid in Fer as well as the Fer useless rures with the conservation of the buildings. Antoine Heim, innkeeper with Sturzelbronn agrees to undertake the work of demolition, so that they are sent to Metz where they will be used with manufacture as Arme S.

The sale of the buildings of the Abbaye takes place only later. As long as the troops defend the Frontière S, they are used to them undoubtedly as quartering. A first adjudication takes place the September 4th 1796. The Convent and the church are put at the Enchère S the July 13rd 1798 and allocated by batches to middle-class of Metz and Sarreguemines. The new owners hasten all to dismount. The Couvent is secularized in 1799. The Abbey church , sold like Quite national, is destroyed mainly in 1807. Of this building with Transept and chorus with flat Chevet remained, until in 1961, the northern frontage of the Transept, integrated in a house. The ground floor, a Portail into full clotheshanger gave access to the church.

Today

There remains today of the Abbaye only the Portail, classified historic building since the November 18th 1987, two buildings occupied by the Mairie, the school and the Presbytère, transformed with the 19th century, and the tympanum of the 12th century of the principal Portail of the church, replaced in the left arm of the Transept of the church which remained until in 1961. The Statue of holy Bernard set up in 1935 in the village and only the few vestiges remind the passer by that a Abbaye existed in these places.

A test of reconstitution of the buildings of the abbey was tried in 1994 in the work " The Cistercian abbey of Sturzelbronn" by Jerome MICELI, whose specimen is available to the Municipal Files of Sarreguemines.

Armorial bearings

The weapons of the Abbaye are: of money to a Virgin of Sand started from Gold and a Lion also of Sand with a Stick of Mouths in bands stitching the whole .

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