Lüne Abbey, Benedictine nunnery in Lüneburg, Germany.
Lüne Abbey is an Evangelical-Lutheran convent in Lüneburg, founded in 1172 as a Benedictine nunnery. Its brick buildings, rebuilt in Brick Gothic after a major fire in 1380, form an L-shaped complex around a cloister. The convent church of St Bartholomew, built 1373–1479, is 32.71 m long and 14.16 m high, with a polygonal choir and tall pointed-arch windows. A slender tower with a spire rises at the roof junction.
Lüne Abbey was founded in 1172 by a community of fewer than ten noblewomen from Nordborstel, led by Hildeswidis von Marcboldestorpe, who moved into a vacant chapel built in 1140. The foundation charter was signed by Bishop Hugo of Verden, Henry the Lion and Abbot Berthold II of St Michael's in Lüneburg. The convent adopted the Rule of Saint Benedict during the 13th century, and its buildings burned down in 1240 and 1372 before being rebuilt closer to Lüneburg.
The convent takes its name from the village of Lüne, and the abbey gave its name to the Amt Lüne and the parish of Lüne. Its nuns came mostly from Lüneburg patrician families and were taught Latin, the liberal arts, Christian doctrine and liturgy. Since 2023 the abbess has been Amélie Gräfin zu Dohna, who succeeded Reinhild Freifrau von der Goltz.
Visits are best arranged through guided tours, which can be booked through the Klosterkammer Hannover authority. Plan enough time to explore the cloister, church, and textile collections at a relaxed pace.
The refectory's east wall carries murals attributed to Hinrik Levenstede the Younger, painted around 1490: an Anna selbdritt flanked by seven male and seven female saints. They were hidden under plaster after the Reformation and only later uncovered. Above the nuns' choir altar hangs a Lamentation from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, with a painted wooden candelabra Madonna of about 1500 above it.
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