Nimbschen Abbey

The Nimbschen Monastery (Marienthron) is a former Cistercian nunnery, located immediately south of Grimma in Saxony on the Mulde river (1243–1536/42).

In 1243, the Wettin Margrave Henry the Illustrious (1221–1288) founded the Marienthron nunnery, probably near Torgau, as a spiritual endowment for his recently deceased wife Constantia of Austria. The monastery received extensive initial endowments: land, the two parishes of Altbelgern and Weßnig, and the Torgau church, among other Wettin possessions, which had once been intended for the Benedictine monastery of Reinhardsbrunn in 1119.

In addition to material security, the Margrave succeeded in legally establishing the nunnery. This was done by incorporation into the Cistercian Order (1244), with the Cistercian Abbey of Pforta being designated as the mother monastery for the nuns. Monks from Pforta were to become confessors for the Marienthron nuns in the following centuries, and the abbots were to visit the nunnery and support it in pastoral and economic matters. In 1250, the nuns received the privilegium commune of the Cistercian Order from Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254), but the nuns did not obtain exemption from the Merseburg diocesan bishop. This can be seen, for example, from a document of the bishop from 1279, which confirmed Marienthron's affiliation with the Cistercian Order, subject, however, to the episcopal rights.

The nunnery moved twice. Around 1250, the nuns settled in the city of Grimma, a Wettin foundation from around the turn of the 13th century, and were endowed there with the parish and the hospital. The hospital buildings probably served as accommodation for the nuns and were rebuilt and extended between 1250 and 1270. Before 1291, however, the nuns moved into a newly built monastery near Nimbschen, thereby also strengthening the position of their Wettin-Margravial territorial lord in this area.

The Cistercian monastery of Nimbschen possessed extensive property on the Elbe and Mulde in the late Middle Ages, but the development of the monastic manorial system stagnated from the 14th century onwards, and financial difficulties became apparent towards the end of the 15th century. The Wettins, as Saxon electors and territorial lords, and the abbots of Pforta, strove for reforms, which only succeeded insofar as the community of nuns, despite extensive renovation work on the monastery buildings at the beginning of the 16th century, was economically sound in the 1520s.

However, the spiritual and religious life of the nuns probably remained untouched by the reforms. Only in this way can the penetration of reformatory ideas into Nimbschen be explained. The flight of nine nuns from the monastery in 1523, including Katharina von Bora, later the wife of Martin Luther, is one of the well-known events from the final phase of the nunnery. Of 40 women, only nine nuns remained in the monastery when Margaretha (II.) (1509–1536), the last Marienthron abbess, died. The monastery as a spiritual institution was then dissolved (1536), and the economic operations were continued by the monastery administrator until Elector John Frederick of Saxony (1525–1554) leased the monastery estate in 1542.

From 1550 to 1948, Nimbschen Monastery - like Buch Monastery - belonged to the Prince's School in Grimma as a state school estate; the lease revenues financed free places at the school for talented students from all social classes.