Kloster Steinfeld

The first monastic settlement here took place in about 1070, the Premonstratensians, founded by Norbert von Xanten in Prémontré near Laon in 1120, settled here in 1130. In 1184 it was raised to the status of an abbey - Steinfeld Abbey. It became an important monastery, had property in Cologne and established a number of daughter houses ("filiae") including the Strahov Abbey in Prague and the Sayn Abbey, near Koblenz. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles ownes the Steinfeld Missale that was created here around 1180.

The Premonstratensian abbey existed upto 1802, when it got secularized. Now this is Salvatorian convent. So the Salavatians take care of the basilica, erected between 1142 and 1150 by the Premonstratensians as one of the earliest vaulted churches in Germany.

Saint Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld (1150 – 1241) lived here, a Premonstratensian canon regular and mystic.

The tomb of Saint Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld.

The saint was born under the name of Hermann in Cologne, but his special devotion of the Virgin earn him the name Joseph, that was added. As a boy, he spent all his free in the church St. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne. A legend claims, that as a boy he once presented an apple, saved from his own lunch, to a statue of Jesus, who accepted it. That´s why pilgrims plcae apples on his tomb.