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Schöntal

Schöntal - Abbaye Within the idyllic Hohenloher Jagst valley you can find the monastery of Schöntal. It was founded as a cistercian abbey in the year 1157 by the monks from Maulbronn, over the centuries the monastery had developed to a mighty and flourushing monestic area with its mill, bakery, brewery and barns for cattle and crops. In the year 1418 they became selfgoverning under the King Sigismund. The complete facility is surrounded by a wall with two octagonal towers that face the slope and a gatetower. It ows its imposing barock looks caused by a monumental double tower facade to abbot Benedikt Knittel (1650 – 1732), Johann Leonhard Dientzenhofer supplied the plans. In the inside of the church with 3 naves almost completely hidden by the magnificant barock style you can still find the gothic room draft. During the period of abbot Benedikt Knittel starting 1683 the new abbey was built with its splendid stair well and the imposing banquet hall as well as the chapell of the holy grave on the Kreuzberg. Also worth seeing is the order hall with more than 300 paintings of contemporary habit and the cloister with the mausoleum of the knight Götz von Berlichingen (died 1562). After the secularization of the monastery there was a protestant theology seminar in it for 165 years starting 1810. Nowadays the new abbey and its former brewery and distillery are used as a conference house by diocese Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

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