Walkenried Abbey

 ( 1127 Establishments ) 

When in the mid 14th century Black Death epidemics depopulated the Harz region, both the mining in the Upper Harz and the agricultural business stagnated and the abbey began to decline. In the early 16th century, the premises were settled by only 12 monks and the abbot. The German Peasants' War brought the monastery to the verge of destruction, when on Easter 1525, a mob of about 800 peasants from the southern Harz region marched against Walkenried. Abbot Paulus (1520–36) and the monks fled, taking the archives with them. The abbey was plundered and the church spire torn down, severely damaging the underlying crossing vault.

In view of the Protestant Reformation the abbey was finally declared an immediate Reichsstift (Imperial abbey) by Emperor Charles V in 1542. Nevertheless, the next abbot, John VIII (1530–59), was very worldly and extravagant; in 1546 he and his monks turned Lutheranism. Thereupon Count Ernst of Hohnstein, as patron of the abbey, laid a complaint before the Habsburg emperor, who in 1548 ordered that everything in the abbey should be restored to its former condition, but his command was unheeded. After the count's death the entire County of Hohnstein became Protestant, and in 1556, a Latin school was opened at Walkenried. Four Lutheran abbots directed the abbey until 1578 when the Count of Hohnstein appointed his son as administrator, after whose death in 1593 the Halberstadt cathedral chapter left the administration of Hohnstein and Walkenried Abbey to the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. During the Thirty Years' War the abbey was for a short time (1629–31) restored to the Cistercians. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia put an end to the existence of the Protestant monastery and the abbey was secularised. In 1668, the Latin school was closed. The Wolfenbüttel dukes ruled the former abbey's estates within an incorporated Amt also comprising the neighbouring villages of Zorge and Hohegeiß.

From that time the abbey was systematically quarried as a source of building stone. The Gothic church was greatly damaged since the destruction of the roof tower by the peasants in 1525; today only a few picturesque remains are still in existence. The library was also destroyed by the peasants, but the archives are preserved at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. Otherwise, however the claustral buildings are generally well preserved. The chapter hall has served since 1570 as a Lutheran church. The demolition of the buildings was stopped in 1817, first comprehensive works to renovate the cloister started in 1876. Since 1977 the premises are managed by the Osterode district authorities; a museum opened in 2006.