Station: [8] Thalbürgel Monastery Church: Forecourt

F: You're looking at the remains of the great abbey church of St. Mary and St. George, while the old estate buildings including barns, stables and Zinsspeicher are behind you. – The former Benedictine monastery is not only one of Thuringia's most important ecclesiastical buildings in the Romanesque style; it can also justifiably be called the cradle of the modern town of Bürgel. The town's coat of arms even features St. George.

M: It all began in the early 12th century, when Margrave Heinrich von Groitzsch married Bertha von Käfernburg-Schwarzburg. On the occasion of their wedding on the 13th of February 1133, the Bishop of Naumburg gave permission for the young couple to establish a monastic community. That was the moment when Bürgel came into being. 

F: Benedictine monks arrived, and within a few decades, they built a monastic complex that was considerably larger than its modern remains would suggest. In 1234, the village of Bürgel, founded by the monks, was granted market rights and hence a town charter. But just three centuries later, it was all over for the Benedictines. In 1526, during the Reformation, the monastery was disbanded – secularised. The rich agricultural landholdings, the ponds, the forests and fields, became the property of the Elector of Saxony, who later became the Dukes of Saxony-Weimar. The monastery was converted into a sovereign estate and leased out.

M: The tenant recruited farmers and craftsmen and allowed them to use the former monastery buildings as a source of stone for their farms. The village of Thalbürgel came into being. But since the newcomers needed their own church, the reformer Philipp Melanchthon called for the central nave of the monastery's church to be preserved – at the very least. The two side aisles, the transept, the apses, the cloister and the enclosure were initially repurposed as stables and storerooms and then demolished over the following centuries. 

F: So only a small part of the Romanesque monastery complex remains – but it still gives you a sense of the magnificence and sheer size of these once prestigious buildings. If the gate is open, feel free to go in and make your way down the steps to the portal of the present-day church.