Oberndorf

Title

Oberndorf

Also Known As

Altum monasterium, Averdorp, Averndorp, Clarus Ortus, Vezalia, Wesalia, Wesel

Dates

Founded ca. 1120s-1140s; Lutheran from ca. 1585; dissolved 1629

Dedication

Mary; John the Baptist

Affiliation

Cappenberg

Medieval Diocese

Münster

Circary

Westphalia

History

Oberndorf was traditionally said to have been founded in the 1120s by members of the comital family of Cappenberg, but the first documentary evidence is from the 1140s. Its church was consecrated ca. 1155.

By 1585, most of the sisters had become Evangelical Lutherans and moved to an abandoned Augustinian monastery in Wesel. The women's community was suppressed in 1626, and an attempt was made to set up a male house there instead, but in 1629 it was suppressed on the orders of the Elector of Brandenburg. Nothing remains of the monastic complex today.

Heads of Community

Prioress

Richlindis, fl. ca. 1200

Status

Women's community, priory from 1626

Archival Sources

Duisburg, Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, Abteilung Rheinland

AA 0464 (13th-17th c.)

AA 0465 (15th-16th c.)

AA 0466 (16th-19th c.)

Bibliography

Ankershofen, J. von. “Die Stiftskirchen zu Griffen und Oberndorf in Kärnthen.” Mittheilungen der K.K. Central-Commission für Erforschung und Erhaltung der Kunst- und Historischen Denkmale 2, no. 2 (February 1857): 41–44. https://archive.org/details/mittheilungender02kkze/page/40/mode/2up.

Clemen, Paul. “Wesel: Prämonstratenserkloster Averdorp.” In Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Rees, 139. Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz 2. Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1892. https://archive.org/details/diekunstdenkmale00clem_3.

Ehlers-Kisseler, Ingrid. “Die Cappenberger und das Prämonstratenserinnenstift Oberndorf in Wesel.” In Salhof, Festung, freie Stadt. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt Wesel und des Niederrheins, edited by Hermann Knüfer, 59–66. Wesel: Historische Vereinigung Wesel, 2003.

Heckner, Ulrike. “Der Gründungsbau von St. Nikolaus in Köln-Dünnwald (1118) und eine Architekturzeichnung der Nonne Gerbergis aus Wesel-Oberndorf.” In Bericht über die 44. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung : vom 24. bis 28. Mai 2006 in Breslau, edited by Klaus Tragbar, Dorothée Sack, Thekla Schulz, and Thomas Aumüller, 210–19. Stuttgart: Koldewey-Gesellschaft, 2008.

Podlech, E. “Das S. Marienstift in Heinsberg.” In Die wichtigeren Stifte, Abteien und Klöster in der alten Erzdiözese Köln., 1:325–29. Breslau: Verlag von Goerlich & Coch, 1912. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/msu.31293008488185?urlappend=%3Bseq=339.

———. “Wesel-Averdorp.” In Die wichtigeren Stifte, Abteien und Klöster in der alten Erzdiözese Köln., 3:161–64. Breslau: Verlag von Goerlich & Coch, 1912. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/msu.31293008488201?urlappend=%3Bseq=173.

Files

Collection

Westphalia

Citation

“Oberndorf,” A Premonstratensian Atlas, accessed October 16, 2026, https://yvonneseale.org/atlas/items/show/576.

Geolocation

Item Relations

This Item DependentOn Item: Cappenberg