Maulbronn - Monastery

Maulbronn Monastery was founded in 1147. The church, built in a style transitional from Romanesque to Gothic, was consecrated in 1178. Most other buildings followed within the 13th century. The complex is believed to be one of the the best-preserved medieval Cistercian monastery complex north of the Alpes (some claim "in Europe"). Since 1993 Maulbronn is part of the Unesco World Heritage.

After the consecration, the construction of the abbey continued. Around 1200 a narthex was added and the cloister was started. Some buildings are done in a really remarkable architectural, early gothic style. The person, who built that must have had experiences from Northern France and Burgundy. With all the cistercian connections, it was probably easy to find a "top architect". His name is not known, so the name given to him by art historians is "Meister des Maulbronner Paradieses" (Master of Maulbronn Paradise).

After the Reformation the monastery was damaged and looted a couple of times. It got secularised in 1534 and a Protestant seminary was opened here. One of the students of the early years was mathematican, astronomer (and astrologer) Johannes Kepler, author of "Mysterium Cosmographicum".

In 1807 the seminary merged with another to "Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren" - and still today a boarding school exists here. Hermann Hesse ("The Steppenwolf", "The Glass Bead Game", "Siddhartha"..) had lived here for a very unhappy year at the age of fourteen. Actually he fled from the Seminary in 1892 - and later featured his experiences in the novel "Beneath the Wheel".

I had noticed, that the walls of the narthex, the cloister and even the church, were covered with thousends of graffitis and the knowledgeable lady had told me, that already very early it was customary to the students, to carve in their names somewhere into the stones..

This (unfortunately) led to the "idée fixe", that I would be the very lucky guy, to find a carved autograph of Hermann Hesse, that nobody had seen before. I spent hours. Meanwhile the museum in Hirsau closed, what I found out too late.... I found many names, but no "Hermann Hesse", no "H.Hesse", no "Hesse" not even a "H.H.".

Even the bishop´s tomb, placed inside the church near the choir, is covered with names.