Germany - Kloster Gnadenberg

Kloster Gnadenberg (Gnadenberg monastery) was the first Brigittine monastery in southern Germany. It was founded in 1422 by Count Johann I of Neumarkt and his wife Katharina. Katharina knew the order of the Vadstena monastery in Sweden, where she had spent her youth. In 1420 Pope Martinus V gave permission for the construction of the monastery. The official foundation document is dated 3 February 1426.

The monasteries of the Brigittine Order (Order of the Most Holy Savior) were designed by the founder of the Order as double monasteries. The first monks came from the monastery of Paradiso near Florence in 1430. After the completion of the convent in 1435, the first nuns with their first abbess Anna Svenson came from the Maribo (Denmark) convent to Gnadenberg.

After the reformation in the middle of the 16th century, the monastery went downhill until it was disbanded in 1570. From 1577 onwards, the properties were sold or fief used. In 1635, during the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish Tropics set fire to the church and parts of the monastery. Except for some buildings of the convent, Gnadenberg has been a ruin ever since.