Economic activities of the monastery
Source: wikimedia commons Arnsberg_Kloster_Rumbeck_FFSN-2930 Michael Kramer
The economic activities
of the Rumbeck Premonstratensian convent
In 1185, with the permission of his sons Heinrich and Gottfried, Count Heinrich I von Arnsberg donated the old official or main courtyard Rumbeck to the Premonstratensian monastery (monastery) Wedinghausen, which he had founded in 1170 the fratricide he committed.
Instead of using the donated main courtyard for the livelihood of his community of canons, Wedinghausen rededicated it between 1185 and 1190 to the Premonstratensian monastery Rumbeck, whose "father abbot" was the respective prelate of Wedinghausen.
The gift was generous; the main courtyard, which has several sub-courts, e.g. B. the farm "Neohle", today "Neyl" between Rumbeck and Oeventrop, comprised 700 acres of farmland and pasture and 2,900 acres of forest (according to today's calculations 175 and 725 hectares).
In the centuries that followed, the Rumbeck main courtyard continued to be a large farm, used for the livelihood of the sisters and the monastery staff (at times 62 adults lived in the Rumbeck monastery). However, it soon proved that his earnings were not sufficient for this purpose. The priors, later provosts (in the ecclesiastical hierarchy a “prelate” with a pectoral cross and a ring), who were employed by Wedinghausen to take care of the spiritual life and for the management of the economy, were grateful for small and large donations from pious citizens. Many Rumbeck choir and lay sisters came from the Westphalian landed nobility or peasant families. The transfer of property was more obvious than the grant of cash. Although such land transfers were common (also in Wedinghausen and Oelinghausen), in 1313 Pope Clemens V. at the papal seat in Avignon expressly allowed Rumbeck Abbey to take over these donations as property. Thus, over the years, a "piece of land" came about in the Sauerland and in the Soester Börde. The provosts tried to barter the scattered pieces of land together or to sell them and use the proceeds to acquire smaller or - later - larger farms.
The tenants of these farms did not pay their rent in cash, which was still rare at the time, but in kind (barley, oats, rye, rarely wheat; plus apples and pears, pigs, chickens, geese, etc.) and - increasingly - in services ( Sowing, mowing and hay days, provision of horses and carriages or other assistance). In this way, the Rumbeck Abbey was able to keep personnel costs low, at least during the "peak" of the agricultural year (sowing - harvesting - sowing), because even then the approximately 30 employees of the monastery did not work for "God's wages".
The lease for the individual farms was delivered at fixed times either directly to Rumbeck or – mostly – to the “Schulten”, tenants of larger Rumbeck farms, in Soest and Werl. These monitored the punctual payments (e.g. to "Martin" = November 11) and delivered the proceeds - for a small fee - to Rumbeck.
The tenants often fell into arrears with their leases, especially in times of war. Contrary to the frequently expressed view that the monasteries and monasteries had "enslaved" their tenants, the Rumbeck provosts showed a lot of patience and understanding. In such situations, which we would call “hopeless” today, they often granted the tenants support with loans in the hope that the economic situation would change for the better. As a rule, this support was unsuccessful, so that the lease had to be dissolved - sometimes many years after the start of the arrears - sometimes with the help of a court.
This was a severe blow for those affected, because the farm had often been leased to the same family for generations, so that they regarded themselves - albeit wrongly - as the "owners" of the farm.
Succession in the lease was closely monitored.
If, for example, the wife of a deceased tenant wanted to remarry and asked to maintain the lease concluded with her deceased husband, the Rumbeck provosts checked very carefully whether the new husband was also capable of running the farm profitably for Rumbeck Abbey.
There are – rare – cases in which such a lease succession has been refused. Then a new tenant took over the farm and the family of the deceased tenant was faced with the question of entering the service of the new tenant – if the latter agreed – or moving out.
The prudent economic management of the Rumbeck provosts succeeded in creating a well-established agricultural company with several leasehold farms from the formerly "pauperen" = poor Rumbeck monastery.
After secularization in 1804, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt (from 1806 the Grand Duchy of Hesse) sold this agricultural, debt-free property at a profit.
The Rumbecker Forest extended in the area from Uentrop to Oeventrop on both sides of the Ruhr. Forest care - as we are familiar with it today - only came up after secularization by the Hessians and then the Prussians.
Until then, the forest was used for the - rather disorderly - extraction of construction and firewood, for hunting and above all for feeding the pigs with acorn fattening.
The institution of the Marche (agricultural land, forest, streams, rivers, quarries, etc.) and the Marche cooperatives have been known for centuries. The Markwald is a forest area that is managed jointly by the residents of several villages or farms. It is part of a common district, the Markgenossenschaft. The Mark comrades were entitled to a proportionate right to use the Mark; he could claim his share of the market use based on and according to the size of the arable land in the field. The Mark comrades had the right to cut wood in the Markwald (construction wood, timber and firewood), to let their cattle graze in the forest (Viehtrift (Hude) for grazing the cows, cattle and calves) and the right to the important acorn fattening ( where pigs were driven into the woods to be fed) and similar authorizations (removal of litter, sods = earth sods, etc.).
The three villages of Dinschede, Glösingen and Oeventrop were part of the Dinscheder Mark. When the Rumbeck Monastery had acquired farms in these towns, which were entitled to the mark (Dinschede: Bause and Sonntag, Glösingen: Weber and Necker-Schmidt, Oeventrop: Hachmann, Raulff, Schwinebrock and Siepen), it became a member of the mark with all the rights. These were reported in "Echtwerken" ("genuine word"), which were inextricably linked to the possession of the court. Almost inevitably, the respective Rumbeck provost ("Mr. Prelate") was appointed "wood judge", who presided over the "wood court" ("wood thing"), which dealt with all matters relating to the Mark on the day of the "mast setting". The Rumbeck provost was also a “wood judge” in the Schwiedinghausen and Hüsten brands, since Rumbeck was a member of the mark through his Odenhausen/Udenhusen/Ausserhof farm. Rumbeck was entitled to 16 (of 187) genuine works; a real plant was 12 acres in size.
In the Wennemer Mark, Rumbeck also had mark rights over the Flinkerbusch farm in Freienohl.
Although the market cooperatives were not entitled to hunt, the Rumbeck Abbey was allowed to hunt small game up to the size of young deer with dogs and "Manchgarn" (= fishing nets) "on both sides of the Ruhr" from the outset. Several provosts enforced this right in court proceedings and retained it until secularization in 1804.
The majority of the Rumbecker Klosterwald stood to the east of the monastery to the right and left of the "Mühlenbach", formerly called "Rurabeke" (= Bach zur Ruhr), with designations such as "Knippenberg", "Hopfenberg", "Stierskopf" and in the "Damberg" beyond the dysentery.
In these forests, for example, the timber for the elaborate Rumbeck buildings was felled, which the provosts erected in the 17th century. The forests were also used for firewood for the many stoves in the various residential buildings of the monastery.
Very early on, the Rumbeck provosts created fish ponds that were fed by the "Rurabeke". These were vital because the rule of St. Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian order, originally demanded the strictest abstinence from all meat dishes and from the use of animal fat. It was only Pope Pius II in 1460 who restricted the ban on meat and fat to the Advent and Lent season.
So it is understandable that the Rumbeck Abbey cherished and cared for its fish ponds on the one hand and on the other hand fiercely defended its fishing rights in the Ruhr (in the area of the Rumbecker estates and in the area of the Rumbecker Hof Odenhausen in Hüsten) and even had papal protection against attacks from Arnsberg, Hüsten and Neheim called and was granted.
In order not to be dependent on the water level of the creek during the seasons, the Rumbeck Abbey created a pond in the upper part of the Mühlbach valley, which did not get its water from the creek, but by collecting surface water by means of ditches from the well-springing western slope. It was collected in a kind of upper ditch and fed to the pond ("rain retention basin") through a trench (= flow made of stones) under the forest path. This system made it possible to obtain, maintain and regulate water independently of the Mühlenbach.
A similar - still functioning - system is known in Germany only in the Maulbronn Monastery.
The Rumbeck Abbey also created another large pond in the Mühlbach valley above today's Schützenwiese. Behind a high earthen dam, the water of the Mühlenbach dammed up like a lake in the extensive valley. Only when the road to Hellefelderhöhe was built (after 1804) was the dam broken and the pond drained. After that, the Mühlenbach dug deep into the earth.
Later, the provosts realized that the water from the Rumbeck forests could also be used. Around 1750 they created five more ponds, with the water from which the mills could be operated all year round, even in dry weather. Because they had set up a grinding and oil mill for the grain of the Rumbecker farms as well as a sawmill to process the oak and beech trunks felled in their own forests and hired a miller.
The provosts, especially provost Arndts (1746 to 1754), supplemented this early industrial production by building an iron hammer below Rumbecks on the Ruhr. Pig iron was processed here. The water from the Mühlenbach was directed onto a large water wheel, which drove a long wooden shaft with a large hammer attached to the end. With his power, red-hot blocks of iron were formed into wheels for agricultural wagons, for example.
To smelt the pig iron, a lot of charcoal was needed (hard coal was still unknown), made from beech wood. There had always been charcoal burners in the Rumbeck forests who had moved here from the Sauerland. They increased the production of charcoal and brought it "by the cartload" to the iron forge.
(At the same time, the city of Arnsberg delivered 15,000 wagons of charcoal, produced in the municipal Buchenwald, to the ironworks in Warstein.)
The Rumbeck Abbey set up another smaller industrial production facility at the beginning of the Mühlbach valley: an "ash hut" in which wood was burned to ashes. This was then mixed with water in large pots ("Pötten") and evaporated - with considerable use of wood. The result, the "potash", was used in the production of glass (own glassworks) and was sold to monastery-based soap manufacturers and cloth dyers.
The Rumbeck provosts set up two additional "businesses" in the 16th century: on the one hand, a linen bleaching shop. A prerequisite for their activity was that there was enough canvas for bleaching. In a laborious process, canvas was first produced in the monastery by spinning and weaving flax fibers that they had harvested themselves. In large vats, filled with water from the now renamed "Mühlenbach" via a scoop wheel, unwanted coloring of the canvas was removed in the "Bleiche" with the addition of caustic soda.
On the other hand: Using a hollow spindle with a twist hook, tear-resistant twine was produced by twisting several yarns, which was partly used in the company's own embroidery and tailoring workshop for the production of chasubles and paraments (= fabric objects for religious purposes), partly sold at a profit.
The former "workforce" was not sufficient for these industrial activities. Additional workers were hired.
Not only the agricultural profits, but also the proceeds from the "early industrial" production increased the income of the Rumbeck Abbey, which when it was secularized in 1804 - in contrast to other dissolved monasteries and foundations - was not only debt-free, but had invested money profitably – even “abroad” such as in Soest.
Rumbeck Abbey was dissolved after almost 825 years. The community of sisters was allowed to live in their monastery in Rumbeck until the death of the last sister.
The Hessian government confiscated lands and farms, industrial production, cash and financial investments in Rumbeck. The lands and the iron hammer were first leased out and later sold. Most of the forest became “state forest”.
According to a report by the first chief forester in Hesse, Meyer, most of the servants who were dismissed from the monastery lived “in the (Rumbeck) forests like animals” (probably in earthen huts). They only slowly got used to the sparse everyday life in Rumbeck as “Kötter” or in the surrounding area as “day labourers”.
Fritz Timmerman
of the Rumbeck Premonstratensian convent
In 1185, with the permission of his sons Heinrich and Gottfried, Count Heinrich I von Arnsberg donated the old official or main courtyard Rumbeck to the Premonstratensian monastery (monastery) Wedinghausen, which he had founded in 1170 the fratricide he committed.
Instead of using the donated main courtyard for the livelihood of his community of canons, Wedinghausen rededicated it between 1185 and 1190 to the Premonstratensian monastery Rumbeck, whose "father abbot" was the respective prelate of Wedinghausen.
The gift was generous; the main courtyard, which has several sub-courts, e.g. B. the farm "Neohle", today "Neyl" between Rumbeck and Oeventrop, comprised 700 acres of farmland and pasture and 2,900 acres of forest (according to today's calculations 175 and 725 hectares).
In the centuries that followed, the Rumbeck main courtyard continued to be a large farm, used for the livelihood of the sisters and the monastery staff (at times 62 adults lived in the Rumbeck monastery). However, it soon proved that his earnings were not sufficient for this purpose. The priors, later provosts (in the ecclesiastical hierarchy a “prelate” with a pectoral cross and a ring), who were employed by Wedinghausen to take care of the spiritual life and for the management of the economy, were grateful for small and large donations from pious citizens. Many Rumbeck choir and lay sisters came from the Westphalian landed nobility or peasant families. The transfer of property was more obvious than the grant of cash. Although such land transfers were common (also in Wedinghausen and Oelinghausen), in 1313 Pope Clemens V. at the papal seat in Avignon expressly allowed Rumbeck Abbey to take over these donations as property. Thus, over the years, a "piece of land" came about in the Sauerland and in the Soester Börde. The provosts tried to barter the scattered pieces of land together or to sell them and use the proceeds to acquire smaller or - later - larger farms.
The tenants of these farms did not pay their rent in cash, which was still rare at the time, but in kind (barley, oats, rye, rarely wheat; plus apples and pears, pigs, chickens, geese, etc.) and - increasingly - in services ( Sowing, mowing and hay days, provision of horses and carriages or other assistance). In this way, the Rumbeck Abbey was able to keep personnel costs low, at least during the "peak" of the agricultural year (sowing - harvesting - sowing), because even then the approximately 30 employees of the monastery did not work for "God's wages".
The lease for the individual farms was delivered at fixed times either directly to Rumbeck or – mostly – to the “Schulten”, tenants of larger Rumbeck farms, in Soest and Werl. These monitored the punctual payments (e.g. to "Martin" = November 11) and delivered the proceeds - for a small fee - to Rumbeck.
The tenants often fell into arrears with their leases, especially in times of war. Contrary to the frequently expressed view that the monasteries and monasteries had "enslaved" their tenants, the Rumbeck provosts showed a lot of patience and understanding. In such situations, which we would call “hopeless” today, they often granted the tenants support with loans in the hope that the economic situation would change for the better. As a rule, this support was unsuccessful, so that the lease had to be dissolved - sometimes many years after the start of the arrears - sometimes with the help of a court.
This was a severe blow for those affected, because the farm had often been leased to the same family for generations, so that they regarded themselves - albeit wrongly - as the "owners" of the farm.
Succession in the lease was closely monitored.
If, for example, the wife of a deceased tenant wanted to remarry and asked to maintain the lease concluded with her deceased husband, the Rumbeck provosts checked very carefully whether the new husband was also capable of running the farm profitably for Rumbeck Abbey.
There are – rare – cases in which such a lease succession has been refused. Then a new tenant took over the farm and the family of the deceased tenant was faced with the question of entering the service of the new tenant – if the latter agreed – or moving out.
The prudent economic management of the Rumbeck provosts succeeded in creating a well-established agricultural company with several leasehold farms from the formerly "pauperen" = poor Rumbeck monastery.
After secularization in 1804, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt (from 1806 the Grand Duchy of Hesse) sold this agricultural, debt-free property at a profit.
The Rumbecker Forest extended in the area from Uentrop to Oeventrop on both sides of the Ruhr. Forest care - as we are familiar with it today - only came up after secularization by the Hessians and then the Prussians.
Until then, the forest was used for the - rather disorderly - extraction of construction and firewood, for hunting and above all for feeding the pigs with acorn fattening.
The institution of the Marche (agricultural land, forest, streams, rivers, quarries, etc.) and the Marche cooperatives have been known for centuries. The Markwald is a forest area that is managed jointly by the residents of several villages or farms. It is part of a common district, the Markgenossenschaft. The Mark comrades were entitled to a proportionate right to use the Mark; he could claim his share of the market use based on and according to the size of the arable land in the field. The Mark comrades had the right to cut wood in the Markwald (construction wood, timber and firewood), to let their cattle graze in the forest (Viehtrift (Hude) for grazing the cows, cattle and calves) and the right to the important acorn fattening ( where pigs were driven into the woods to be fed) and similar authorizations (removal of litter, sods = earth sods, etc.).
The three villages of Dinschede, Glösingen and Oeventrop were part of the Dinscheder Mark. When the Rumbeck Monastery had acquired farms in these towns, which were entitled to the mark (Dinschede: Bause and Sonntag, Glösingen: Weber and Necker-Schmidt, Oeventrop: Hachmann, Raulff, Schwinebrock and Siepen), it became a member of the mark with all the rights. These were reported in "Echtwerken" ("genuine word"), which were inextricably linked to the possession of the court. Almost inevitably, the respective Rumbeck provost ("Mr. Prelate") was appointed "wood judge", who presided over the "wood court" ("wood thing"), which dealt with all matters relating to the Mark on the day of the "mast setting". The Rumbeck provost was also a “wood judge” in the Schwiedinghausen and Hüsten brands, since Rumbeck was a member of the mark through his Odenhausen/Udenhusen/Ausserhof farm. Rumbeck was entitled to 16 (of 187) genuine works; a real plant was 12 acres in size.
In the Wennemer Mark, Rumbeck also had mark rights over the Flinkerbusch farm in Freienohl.
Although the market cooperatives were not entitled to hunt, the Rumbeck Abbey was allowed to hunt small game up to the size of young deer with dogs and "Manchgarn" (= fishing nets) "on both sides of the Ruhr" from the outset. Several provosts enforced this right in court proceedings and retained it until secularization in 1804.
The majority of the Rumbecker Klosterwald stood to the east of the monastery to the right and left of the "Mühlenbach", formerly called "Rurabeke" (= Bach zur Ruhr), with designations such as "Knippenberg", "Hopfenberg", "Stierskopf" and in the "Damberg" beyond the dysentery.
In these forests, for example, the timber for the elaborate Rumbeck buildings was felled, which the provosts erected in the 17th century. The forests were also used for firewood for the many stoves in the various residential buildings of the monastery.
Very early on, the Rumbeck provosts created fish ponds that were fed by the "Rurabeke". These were vital because the rule of St. Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian order, originally demanded the strictest abstinence from all meat dishes and from the use of animal fat. It was only Pope Pius II in 1460 who restricted the ban on meat and fat to the Advent and Lent season.
So it is understandable that the Rumbeck Abbey cherished and cared for its fish ponds on the one hand and on the other hand fiercely defended its fishing rights in the Ruhr (in the area of the Rumbecker estates and in the area of the Rumbecker Hof Odenhausen in Hüsten) and even had papal protection against attacks from Arnsberg, Hüsten and Neheim called and was granted.
In order not to be dependent on the water level of the creek during the seasons, the Rumbeck Abbey created a pond in the upper part of the Mühlbach valley, which did not get its water from the creek, but by collecting surface water by means of ditches from the well-springing western slope. It was collected in a kind of upper ditch and fed to the pond ("rain retention basin") through a trench (= flow made of stones) under the forest path. This system made it possible to obtain, maintain and regulate water independently of the Mühlenbach.
A similar - still functioning - system is known in Germany only in the Maulbronn Monastery.
The Rumbeck Abbey also created another large pond in the Mühlbach valley above today's Schützenwiese. Behind a high earthen dam, the water of the Mühlenbach dammed up like a lake in the extensive valley. Only when the road to Hellefelderhöhe was built (after 1804) was the dam broken and the pond drained. After that, the Mühlenbach dug deep into the earth.
Later, the provosts realized that the water from the Rumbeck forests could also be used. Around 1750 they created five more ponds, with the water from which the mills could be operated all year round, even in dry weather. Because they had set up a grinding and oil mill for the grain of the Rumbecker farms as well as a sawmill to process the oak and beech trunks felled in their own forests and hired a miller.
The provosts, especially provost Arndts (1746 to 1754), supplemented this early industrial production by building an iron hammer below Rumbecks on the Ruhr. Pig iron was processed here. The water from the Mühlenbach was directed onto a large water wheel, which drove a long wooden shaft with a large hammer attached to the end. With his power, red-hot blocks of iron were formed into wheels for agricultural wagons, for example.
To smelt the pig iron, a lot of charcoal was needed (hard coal was still unknown), made from beech wood. There had always been charcoal burners in the Rumbeck forests who had moved here from the Sauerland. They increased the production of charcoal and brought it "by the cartload" to the iron forge.
(At the same time, the city of Arnsberg delivered 15,000 wagons of charcoal, produced in the municipal Buchenwald, to the ironworks in Warstein.)
The Rumbeck Abbey set up another smaller industrial production facility at the beginning of the Mühlbach valley: an "ash hut" in which wood was burned to ashes. This was then mixed with water in large pots ("Pötten") and evaporated - with considerable use of wood. The result, the "potash", was used in the production of glass (own glassworks) and was sold to monastery-based soap manufacturers and cloth dyers.
The Rumbeck provosts set up two additional "businesses" in the 16th century: on the one hand, a linen bleaching shop. A prerequisite for their activity was that there was enough canvas for bleaching. In a laborious process, canvas was first produced in the monastery by spinning and weaving flax fibers that they had harvested themselves. In large vats, filled with water from the now renamed "Mühlenbach" via a scoop wheel, unwanted coloring of the canvas was removed in the "Bleiche" with the addition of caustic soda.
On the other hand: Using a hollow spindle with a twist hook, tear-resistant twine was produced by twisting several yarns, which was partly used in the company's own embroidery and tailoring workshop for the production of chasubles and paraments (= fabric objects for religious purposes), partly sold at a profit.
The former "workforce" was not sufficient for these industrial activities. Additional workers were hired.
Not only the agricultural profits, but also the proceeds from the "early industrial" production increased the income of the Rumbeck Abbey, which when it was secularized in 1804 - in contrast to other dissolved monasteries and foundations - was not only debt-free, but had invested money profitably – even “abroad” such as in Soest.
Rumbeck Abbey was dissolved after almost 825 years. The community of sisters was allowed to live in their monastery in Rumbeck until the death of the last sister.
The Hessian government confiscated lands and farms, industrial production, cash and financial investments in Rumbeck. The lands and the iron hammer were first leased out and later sold. Most of the forest became “state forest”.
According to a report by the first chief forester in Hesse, Meyer, most of the servants who were dismissed from the monastery lived “in the (Rumbeck) forests like animals” (probably in earthen huts). They only slowly got used to the sparse everyday life in Rumbeck as “Kötter” or in the surrounding area as “day labourers”.
Fritz Timmerman