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Origin and history

The Cistercian convent of Schoenensteinbach, located in Wittenheim (High Rhine, Great East), has its origins in a legend of 1138: two sisters, Mechthild and Kunigunde von Wittenheim, founded a monastery there in an isolated barn in the heart of the forest of Nonnenbruchwald. Their father, Knight Nochero, surprised by their determination, supported his construction. This site, initially precarious, became a Augustinian convent in 1160, then Dominican in 1397 under the impulse of Leopold IV of Habsburg and reformers like Raymond de Capua.

The monastery experienced a golden age in the 14th–15th centuries, becoming a model of monastic reform in Alsace and Germany. He would try out nuns to other convents, such as the Unterlinden convent at Colmar (1419) or Nuremberg (1428). His influence extended through a network of manuscript exchanges, including a book of hours now kept at the Musée Calouste-Gulbenkian. However, his vulnerable position on the Rhine plain exposed him to looting: he was destroyed in 1365 by the English during the Hundred Years' War, then burned in 1375 by the Guglers, and was rebuilt with the support of the Habsburgs.

The French Revolution ended: closed in 1792, his property was seized and the site sold in 1795. The mayor of Wittenheim acquired the ruins to reuse the stones, erasing almost any trace of the convent. In the 20th century, excavations (notably in 1987) revealed its foundations, including those of the nave and the abside. Today, some of the remains remain at 260 rue de Soultz, and a 1688 calvary recalls its location. The site, registered as historical monuments since 1989, remains private property.

The founding legend, recorded by Seraphin Dietler in his Chronicle of Schönensteinbach, describes an initial conflict with the Counts of Pfirt, whose excesses prompted the nuns to leave their first monastery. Nochero von Wittenheim, initially reluctant, eventually offered them the forest barn which became the nucleus of the convent. This account illustrates the tensions between secular power and monastic life in the Middle Ages, as well as the role of noble families in the founding of abbeys.

Among the notable episodes, the peasant uprising of 1525 saw the convent looted and destroyed, forcing the nuns to flee to Ensisheim. The peasants, defeated, had to finance its reconstruction (8,000 guilders). In the 15th century, the convent housed figures such as Clara Anna von Hohenburg, a reformer prioress, or Margaretha Ursula von Masmünster, whose grave was installed there in 1426. These women played a key role in spreading Dominican ideals in Central Europe.

The architecture of the convent, now reduced to foundations and foundations, reflected its past importance. The excavations revealed the nave and the abside, while the former hotel, transformed in 1924, is the only partially preserved building. The site, although closed to the public, retains a strong heritage value, linked to the religious and social history of the pre-revolutionary Alsace.

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