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06.
St. Bernardushof, Aduard (NL)
Aduard Abbey was founded in 1192 as a member of the filiation
of Clairvaux. Her mother house is Klaarkamp. Her official name
is 'Ad Sanctum Bernardum'. The factual end of monastic life
in Aduard came in 1580, the legal confiscation in 1594. There
were some hundred monks and more than 500 lay brothers. The
landownership was about 7000 ha. The monks settled themselves
in an area that was continuously threatened by the sea. As a
result the abbots were compelled to regulate rivers and build
dykes and sluices and thus turned marshes into fertile farmland.
The Cistercians probably introduced the art of brick making
into the Low Countries. The oldest written sources about this
craft can be found in the monastic chronicles that were made
in the provinces of Groningen and Friesland. The building of
Aduards cross-church between 1240 and 1263 serves as an example
of great Cistercian craftmanship in the field of architecture
and brick making. Aduard has known two local saints: the Englishman
Richard de Busto and the Italian Emanuel of Cremona. The abbeyıs
library was put fire to; only ten manuscripts have survived.
Aduard had six daughter houses of which some were incorporated.
In the years 1939 till 1941 a small part of the abbey precincts
has been excavated by prof. dr. A.E. van Giffen. He was mainly
interested in the church of which the Aduard chronicle relates
that it had been drawn by a lay brother-architect. The abbot
had sent him to Clairvaux to copy the church of which the building
had been commissioned by St. Bernard himself. The church had
a ship and aisles, and an ambulatory with radiating chapels.
The excavations have shown that it was modelled on Royaumont.
Its length was ca. 85 m. Cloister and adjacent buildings followed
the standard Cistercian plan. The abbey walls and moats enclosed
an area of ca. 20 to 25 ha. The buildings have gradually been
pulled down. On the ruins a new village arose, now called Aduard.
Only the infirmary survived, because in 1595 it fortunately
was turned into a protestant church, which it still is. What
is now the main street in the village was also the central road
through the abbey precincts. Some parts of the surrounding moat
are still intact.
Internet: www.kloostermuseumaduard.nl |
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