The Founding of Kloosterrade and Its Development into an Abbey

The buildings of Kloosterrade Abbey are located directly on the current border between the cities of Kerkrade in the Netherlands and Herzogenrath in Germany. The element "rade" found in these names is a later variant of the toponym "rot," a form etymologically related to a verb meaning "to clear," "to clear away," or "to clear the ground of trees and roots." This suggests that these areas were forested. It was here that the priest Ailbertus (c. 1065–1122), a native of Wallonia, arrived in 1104 in search of a place where he could realize his life’s goal: the ideal poverty of the hermit’s life. Ailbertus came from the noble family of the Lords of Antoing near Tournai on the Scheldt. He was educated at the cathedral school in nearby Tournai, where he specialized in philosophy and the seven liberal arts. After completing his education and being ordained a priest, he remained associated with the cathedral chapter as a canon and served as a teacher at the cathedral school there. During Ailbertus’s time, interest grew in the ideas of church reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085). In canonical circles, the desire for a strictly regulated life of asceticism and total poverty grew ever stronger. This renewal movement did not leave the chapter of Tournai unaffected. Ailbertus himself was so influenced by this Christian ideal of poverty and abstinence and by the lives of the apostles and the first Christian communities that he gave up his life as a canon and left Tournai. Together with his brothers Walgerus and Thyemo, he set out in search of a suitable place between the Meuse and the Rhine to devote himself to a life of contemplation and asceticism, work, and prayer. Near Castrum Rodense, the Rode Castle in Herzogenrath, he recognized the place that had “previously been shown to him repeatedly by God in his dreams,” as stated in the Annales Rodenses, the 12th-century chronicle describing the abbey’s early decades. The landowner, Count Adelbert of Saffenberg, lord of Rode Castle, granted him a plot of land on which Ailbertus and his brothers built a hermitage as their dwelling. While Walgerus set out shortly thereafter as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, Ailbertus and Thyemo devoted themselves to manual labor and helping the poor. To celebrate the Mass, they built a wooden chapel, which was demolished in 1106 and replaced by a presbytery with a stone vault on the site of today’s crypt. Drawn by the fame of his holiness, the local inhabitants came to him in great numbers, asking for advice and prayer. Lay brothers and sisters joined the monastic community. Among them was the wealthy ministerial Embrico of Mayschoß on the Ahr, who, along with his wife Adeleida and his children Heriman and Margaretha, joined Ailbertus and his followers. On this occasion, Embrico transferred all his possessions—his serfs, fields, and vineyards—to the newly emerging monastic community. Ailbertus was regarded there not only as the founder, but above all as verus doctor animarum, the true teacher of souls.

By contributing all of his possessions, Embrico gained a certain degree of authority and thus exerted influence over the course of events. He succeeded in persuading Ailbertus to demolish the stone chapel, and construction began on the same site of a larger church, which was to consist of a crypt and an upper church. One year later, on December 13, 1108, the crypt was consecrated by Bishop Otbert of Liège to Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. On this occasion, Otbert issued a charter bearing the date of the consecration. In this charter, whose authenticity has been disputed for years, the Bishop of Liège recognized the community of Rode and granted the monastery ecclesiastical immunity for all its possessions. At the same time, Otbert granted the community the right to freely elect its superiors, to baptize the children of freedmen, to admit them to Communion, and to bury them. In return, Count Adelbert of Saffenberg granted secular immunity for all his estates in the land of Rode, which he had donated. The attainment of secular and ecclesiastical independence was the decisive step toward existence as an independent monastery. The charter of December 13, 1108, can therefore rightly be regarded as the abbey’s founding charter.

Embrico envisioned a large and magnificent monastery for both men and women and wanted to use the monastery’s assets for its construction. This put pressure on Ailbertus’s ideal. Due to their differences of opinion, the relationship between the founder and Embrico and Adeleida became increasingly strained. These tensions manifested themselves in two ways. Thanks to numerous donations, the abbey’s wealth grew steadily. True to his ideal of living in absolute poverty, Ailbertus wanted to use it to alleviate the plight of the poor, while Embrico wanted to use it for the continued construction of the church and monastery. Above all, however, Ailbertus found the presence of women, the so-called Sorores, in the community incompatible with his ideas of monastic life. From 1109 onward, the number of lay brothers steadily increased, and with them, the group of women within the community also grew. Adeleida, Embrico’s wife, had taken charge of these nuns. Ailbertus toyed with the idea of providing the sisters with their own quarters near the Church of St. Lambert in Kerkrade. Adeleida, however, rejected this plan and was supported in this by her husband Embrico. Realizing that his original ideal could not be realized and that he could not live in harmony with Embrico, Ailbertus decided to leave the community, just seven years after he had experienced the place where he had thrown himself to the ground in 1104 as having been destined by God. He went to northern France, where he founded a new hermitage in Clairefontaine near Vervins to continue his life in solitude in accordance with his original ideal. While traveling through Kloosterrade, where he intended to visit friends and acquaintances, he died on September 19, 1122, at the age of 42, in Sechtem near Bonn, and was buried there in the cemetery next to the church.

After Ailbertus’s departure, the remaining monks sought a superior who could provide the community with a structure in the spirit of Ailbertus. They found their new superior in Richer, a monk from Rottenbuch Abbey in distant Bavaria. Rottenbuch was a thriving reform monastery of the Augustinian Canons, a monastic community that had emerged from the ecclesiastical reform movement, which Ailbertus had already joined as a canon in Tournai. In leading a vita apostolica, the canons drew inspiration from the example of Augustine, to whose way of life and monastic community two rules were attributed. Consequently, various observances with differing degrees of strictness had emerged within the regular canons. Alongside a moderate form, the so-called ordo antiquus, a strict branch developed, the ordo novus. This was characterized by absolute silence, mandatory manual labor, and complete abstinence from meat. The abbey in Rottenbuch belonged to the moderate branch, and Richer introduced the monastic rule in effect there to Kloosterrade. These so-called Consuetudines, which established the customs and practices belonging to the Regula Sancti Augustini, governed the regulation of daily affairs. Among other things, they required the canons to participate in communal liturgical prayer and daily worship. In 1119, the new superior received the abbatial blessing from Frederick of Namur, the Bishop of Liège. Until then, he had held the title of prior; from that point on, with an abbot at its head, the monastery was referred to as Abbatia Rodensis, the Abbey of Kloosterrade.

Soon after his election, Richer emerged as an advocate for stricter adherence to the monastic rule. In the very same year he was appointed abbot, he made changes to the *Consuetudines *. Among other things, these changes concerned mealtimes. Until then, the Rule of St. Augustine had allowed the monks to eat meat three times a week; now they had to abstain from meat entirely. In doing so, Abbot Richer adopted the ideas of the ordo novus, a movement in which asceticism and abstinence played a greater role. He set high standards for the religious development of the lay brothers, whom he admitted only to a limited extent. His attitude toward the sorores did not differ from that of Ailbertus, and since he, too, could not find a suitable place for them, he limited their number to a maximum of eight.

At the same time, Richer sought close ties with monasteries and individuals sympathetic to the reform movement. The stay of Norbert of Xanten, the founder of the Norbertine Order, in Kloosterrade between 1115 and 1119 is characteristic of the developments under Richer and of the fame and influence that the young abbey had already attained. Norbert meticulously studied the Consuetudines as they were practiced in Kloosterrade. The way Richer and his canons lived greatly inspired Norbert in drafting the monastic rule for his own order, which he founded in 1120. The request made by the Archbishop of Salzburg, Conrad, to Richer in 1121 to advise him on the reform of the local cathedral chapter also underscored the reputation Kloosterrade had earned. Richer sent him four highly capable and experienced canons.

On March 25, 1122, Pope Calixtus II signed the bull addressed to “Richero abbati et canonicis in ecclesia Sancti Gabrielis de Rodo,” in which he approved the rule of life formulated by Richer. Calixtus personally signed this charter with the words: “Ego Calixtus catholice ecclesie episcopus laudans.” Part of the lead seal still exists. However, Abbot Richer was no longer able to read this confirmation; he died on February 5, 1122. The founder, Ailbertus, followed him in death a few months later, on September 19.