Mariental Abbey

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Mariental Abbey (German: Kloster Mariental), in the present-day municipality of Mariental in Lower Saxony, Germany, is a former Cistercian monastery founded in 1138, now used and owned by a Lutheran congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick. The monastery was founded by Friedrich II von Sommerschenburg (c. 1100 – 1162), Count palatine (Pfalzgraf) of Saxony. It then was a daughter house of Altenberg Abbey of the filiation of Morimond. The initial complement consisted of twelve monks from Altenberg under an abbot (Bodo) from Amelungsborn Abbey. The Augustinian nunnery of Marienberg in nearby Helmstedt was subsequently established in 1176. When the Sommerschenburg family became extinct in 1179, Mariental Abbey with its possessions were seized by the Welf duke Henry the Lion. The abbey soon achieved great prosperity: its estates extended as far as Magdeburg, Jüterbog and Braunschweig. In 1232 it established a daughter house of its own, Hude Abbey. However, at the end of the 14th century it entered a phase of steady decline. The monastery was dissolved in 1569 as a consequence of the Protestant Reformation.