The daughter monasteries

The place that Ailbertus had chosen in 1104 to live a life of poverty and service dedicated to God in seclusion and solitude was characterised early on by its opposite. The monastic community he had founded in the land of Rode soon proved an attraction for many people. Fully in line with the ecclesiastical reform movement that occurred in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many Christians, not only clergy but also laity, both men and women, felt drawn to the ideal of poverty and life in a Christian-oriented community. Inspired by the ideal of the vita apostolica, they aspired to a life like that of the first Christians who gathered in a community around the apostles. A characteristic aspect of these developments in the twelfth century and in the first half of the thirteenth century was the emergence of double monasteries. Here men and women lived as mons and nuns in separate buildings but on the same territory, usually under one and the same leadership.

Embrico, ministerial of the Count of Saffenberg who is described in the Annales Rodenses as a well-known, rich and esteemed man from Mayschoss, also felt urged by divine inspiration to change his way of life. He had been impressed by what had come to his attention about Ailbertus and the holy life the priest led. He came to Kloosterrade from the Ahr valley and entered together with Adeleida, his wife, and his children Heriman and Margareta. Many other lay brothers and sisters followed. The ever-increasing number of women was a development that Ailbertus could not reconcile with his ideal. Since he could not agree with Embrico and Adeleida on a common form of living together, he left the monastery in 1111. His successor Abbot Richer did not consider it appropriate either for brothers and sisters to live together in one and the same place in a monastic community. This was in breach of the monastic rules that he had introduced following the example of the Bavarian abbey from which he had come. When his attempts to provide accommodation for the nuns elsewhere failed, he decided to limit the number of women to no more than eight, enough to ensure domestic care for the choirmasters. They were at the same time subjected to strict disciplinary rules. His successor Bruno undertook another attempt to separate the two communities in 1126. For this purpose he had a nunnery built against the church of Kerkrade, and the upper floor of the church tower was to serve as a chapel. All the women were transferred here and led an independent monastic life that was not limited to manual labour. They celebrated the liturgical services, maintained the canonical hours and took care of the solemn chants themselves. In order to provide for their livelihood, the nuns were granted the church of Kerkrade with all the income resulting from it. Besides, the nearby farmstead Crombach, which Count Adelbert had donated to Ailbertus in 1107, was made available for the same purpose.

Still, the nuns' relocation did not offer a satisfactory solution. The Annales Rodenses mention that Borno made preparations to transfer the nuns again. His motive may have been the discontent on the part of the canons in Kloosterrade who felt their existence was threatened by the transfer of church and farm to the nuns. For ten years Abbot Borno looked for places where the nuns could reside. In 1136, through the intervention of Count Adolf of Saffenberg, he acquired land for the foundation of a new convent in the Ahr valley, where Kloosterrade Abbey had many possessions. His successor superior Johan had a monastery built there, which was named Marienthal. In 1140 he transferred the 37 nuns residing in the convent in Kerkrade to their new home, where they were assigned property of their own for their subsistence. In charters dated 28 August 1140 the foundation of the Mariental convent is confirmed by both Arnold, Archbishop of Cologne, and Adelbero, Bishop of Liege. Although these are two separate charters, their content and text are completely identical. Among other things, the text regulates the relationship to the mother monastery: Marienthal receives its own prior as representative of the abbot and the nuns choose their own mother superior. They do remain abbot and abbey from which they were transferred, show the same submission and obedience and live by the same rules as the canons there. In a third charter, also given on 28 August 1140, the Archbishop of Cologne lists the goods that Abbot Johan of Kloosterrade ceded in usufruct to the nuns of Mariental. The Marienthal convent continued to exist as a daughter convent of Kloosterrade until the French era.

With this turn of events, the nuns seemed to have definitively disappeared from Kloosterrade. Nevertheless, under Abbot Erpo, who succeeded Johan, women were once again admitted to the abbey. According to the chronicler, the motive for restoring the double monastery status was the need for nuns to perform housework and other services for which women's hands proved indispensable, such as making and mending clothes. Erpo also kept the number of nuns in the convent within bounds, but the influx of women who applied to Kloosterrade grew steadily. In 1145 a certain Adelbert donated to the abbey a chapel in Scharn near Maastricht, a donation confirmed in a charter dated 28 October of that year. Erpo founded a convent for women there against the donor's wishes but also against those of his fellow brethren. It is not clear whether Erpo transferred nuns who had newly entered Kloosterrade to Scharn.

Under the year 1151 the author of the Annales Rodenses mentions the entry into the convent of Duchess Jutta, the widow of Duke Walram II of Limburg. With this the abbey acquired noble status. She died a short time later in the same year and was buried in the abbey church at the side of her daughter-in-law Mathilde, wife of Duke Hendrik II of Limburg. The influx of women continued without fail during the following decades. By 1226 it had increased so much that the Bishop Cuncio of Porto and St-Rufina, papal envoy to Cologne, ordained that the number of convent sisters in Kloosterrade was not allowed to exceed 30. After several fires in the convent of women, Abbot Marsilius decided to establish an entirely new monastery for the monks. A charter from November 1243 reveals that the abbot called on provosts, deacons and other clergy for generous support to pay for the construction. The choice fell on Sinnich, a place northeast of Aubel in the Voer region, where the abbey owned property. The new convent accommodated not only the nuns from Kloosterrade, but the canonesses from the previously mentioned convent in Scharn were also brought here. On the occasion of the transfer of nuns from Kloosterrade and Scharn to Sinnich, abbot Marsilius and the convent of Kloosterrade assigned all the abbey's goods in Sinnich and possessions elsewhere to the new convent for women by the deed of 11 June 1243. The status of Kloosterrade as a double monastery had now definitively ended. Just as the convent of Marienthal, the convent of Sinnich also had to close its doors in 1796 by order of the French government.

In addition to the monasteries of Marienthal and Sinnich, the monastery of Hooidonk in North Brabant was also a daughter monastery of Kloosterrade Abbey.  Alongside the year 1146 the annalist writes that at that time the priest Leo was allowed to leave the abbey on the condition that he founds a monastery on his own and without financial support from the abbey. He built a chapel there, but the monastery -- one for men and women --, proved little viable. Leo placed his foundation under the authority and care of Kloosterrade. The convent in Hooidonk was to continue to exist as a convent for women. Nicholas Heyendal, in his Continuatio Annalium Rodensium, the continuation of the Annales Rodenses, notes that the monastery's condition in 1301 was far from flourishing. During a visitation in that year abbot Theobald noted that it was encumbered with large debts and that there were more monastic nuns than could be maintained. For that reason he limited their number to no more than 21. When sovereignty over the northern part of Brabant passed to the States General in The Hague in 1648 and Hooidonk also fell into State hands, the convent was dissolved.

Besides the connection with the monasteries in Marienthal, Scharn, Sinnich and Hooidonk, there was also a relationship between Kloosterrade Abbey and some monasteries in Friesland. These were the abbeys in Ludingakerke and Achlum, the provosties Bergum and Haske and the female priory in Anjum. How this relationship came about is not known. It is not likely that they were founded from Kloosterrade, but they may have been put under the jurisdiction of Kloosterrade by order of their bishop. What is certain is that the connection with Kloosterrade came to an end when the Frisian monasteries joined the congregation of Windesheim in the fifteenth century. No charters have been found in the abbey archives that testify in any way to the existence of this relationship.