Maulbronn, Germany

In the mid-16th century, after the Protestant Reformation (an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Catholic Church), the Monastery was closed and soon reopened as a Protestant school, that still occupies a small part of the Maulbronn complex to this day. Famous students of the Monastery school include Johannes Kepler, the noted mathematician - astronomer and Herman Hesse, a Nobel Prize winner in literature in the mid-twentieth century.

The Monastery is part of a larger complex that includes a church and a number of separate buildings that were used to support the various activities of the monastery. The complex was walled and apparently able to function as a self-contained village.  Click our photos for captions indicating the name or functions of the sights we display.  For more information on visiting, see the official Maulbronn website.

                   
  (All remaining photographs on this page are ©ThereArePlaces)

The Monastery  at Maulbronn is very interesting, although if you enter in the off-season, you will find it cold, damp and very dark.  The Monastery is one of those places where you feel as if you are disturbing the past by your presence.  Its empty and somewhat forlorn rooms  convey a sense of extreme age as you  pass through the Monastery's relatively unadorned halls, which, also convey the asceticism so common to monastic life in the Middle Ages.

The three-hall  church, which was used exclusively by the Cistercian monks and brothers when the complex was operating as a monastery, has served as a Protestant church meeting the religious needs of the town since the Reformation.

The church has a number of interesting attractions; the pew stalls in the Monk's Choir are worth finding, as is an examination of the faded frescos surrounding them.  Many of the more interesting objects are hard to see, nestled in dark corners or near the floors of dimly illuminated rooms.  However, the hunt bears rich rewards and we believe that you will have pleasant memories of your visit to Maulbronn Monastery.

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