Pforta, or
Schulpforta, is a former Cistercian monastery,
Pforta Abbey (1137-1540), near Naumburg
on the
Saale
River
in the German
state of
Saxony-Anhalt
. It is now a celebrated German
public boarding
school, called
Landesschule Pforta. It is
coeducational and teaches around 300
high school students.
History
Monastery
The abbey
was at first situated in Schmölln
, near
Altenburg
. In 1127, Count Bruno of Pleissengau founded
a
Benedictine monastery there
and endowed it with 1,100
hides of land.
This
foundation not being successful, on April
23, 1132, Bishop Udo I of Naumburg, a relative of Bruno's,
replaced the Benedictines by Cistercian monks from Walkenried
Abbey
. The situation here proved undesirable, and in
1137 Udo transferred the monastery to Pforta, and conferred upon it
fifty hides of arable land, an important tract of forest, and two
farms belonging to the diocese
.
The
patroness of the abbey was the
Blessed Virgin Mary. The first
abbot was Adalbert, from 1132 to 1152.
Under the third abbot,
Adetold, two daughter houses were founded under Pforta's auspices,
in the Mark of Meissen
and in
Silesia, and in 1163, the monasteries of
Alt-Celle and Leubus
were also
established in the latter province. At this period the monks
numbered about eighty.
In 1205, Pforta sent a colony of monks to
Livonia, founding there the monastery of
Dünamünde
. The abbey was distinguished for its
excellent system of management, and after the first 140 years of
its existence its possessions had increased tenfold.
At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth
centuries, after a period of strife, the monastery flourished
again. The last quarter of the fourteenth century witnessed,
however, the gradual decline of its prosperity, and also the
relaxation of monastic discipline. When Abbot Johannes IV was
elected in 1515, there were forty-two monks and seven
lay brothers who later revolted against the
abbot; an inspection by
Duke
George of Saxony reported that morality had ceased to exist in
the monastery.
The last abbot, Peter Schederich, was elected in 1533. When the
Catholic Duke George was
succeeded by his
Protestant brother
Henry, the monastery was
suppressed on
November 9,
1540.
Boarding School
In 1543,
Henry's son, Duke Moritz
opened a national school in the abbey, appropriating for its use
the revenues of the suppressed monastery of Memleben Abbey
. At first the number of scholars was 100; in
1563 fifty more were able to be accommodated. The first rector was
Johann Gigas, renowned as a lyric poet.
Under
Justinus Bertuch (1601-1626)
the school attained the zenith of its prosperity. It suffered
greatly during the
Thirty Years'
War, in 1643, there being only eleven scholars.
After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, Pforta
belonged to Prussia
, and then to Imperial Germany
.
From 1935 til 1945 Schulpforta was an all male academy based on the
concept of a Gymnasium or "Oberschule". Tuition was covered both by
the state and the students' parents. The name of the school was the
"Naumburg/Saale Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt" or "
NAPOLA" for
short. Graduates received the standard 'Abitur' and could continue
their education at any university of their choice.
It became co-educational in 1949.
Today the school is maintained by the
German state of Saxony-Anhalt, but still supported by its own Schulpforta
Foundation.
Notable pupils
Architecture
The remains of the monastery include the 13th century
gothic church; it is a cross-
vaulted,
colonnaded basilica with
an extraordinarily long
nave, a peculiar
western
façade, and a late
Romanesque double-naved
cloister. What remains of the original building
(1137-40) is in the Romanesque style, while the restoration
(1251-1268) belongs to the early Gothic. Other buildings are now
used as dormitories and lecture halls. There is also the
Fürstenhaus ("prince's house"), built in 1573. Schulpforta
was one of the three
Fürstenschulen ("prince's schools")
founded in 1543 by Maurice, Elector of Saxony (at that time Duke),
the two others being at
Grimpla and at
Meissen.
References
- Landesschule Pforta's English website
- History
- Nietzsche attended Schulpforta from 1858 to 1864: NIETZSCHE'S LIFE IN OUTLINE
External links
Wikis
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