Riddagshausen Abbey

thumb|Riddagshausen Abbey
Riddagshausen Abbey (Kloster Riddagshausen) was a Cistercian monastery just outside the city of Brunswick in Germany.
It was founded as Marienzelle by Ludolf the Wend, a ministerialis of Henry the Lion and steward of Brunswick, and settled in 1145 by monks from Amelungsborn Abbey. Henry endowed the new foundation in 1146 with the neighbouring village of Riddagshausen, from which it took its name.
The abbey early acquired reichsunmittelbar status as an Imperial abbey.
It was mediatised in 1569 by Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, when it became a Protestant establishment. From 1690 it was also the home of a prestigious Lutheran seminary for training of preachers, the first in Germany. The religious community and the seminary were dissolved in 1809. The seminary was however refounded in 1837 and after a century in various premises in Wolfenbüttel and closure because of World War II, was eventually re-established in Brunswick in 1952, although in the town's former Franciscan friary, not in Riddagshausen Abbey.
The site, now included within the city of Brunswick, is now mostly a nature reserve and arboretum.
The surviving buildings include the abbey church and the gate house, now home of the Cistercian Museum
==Notes==
==References==
* Riddagshausen: local history and photo gallery
* Riddagshausen Abbey photo gallery
* Riddagshausen Abbey photos 
* Theological seminary formerly in Riddagshausen Abbey
Category:Cistercian monasteries in Germany
Category:Imperial abbeys
Category:Monasteries in Lower Saxony
Category:1145 establishments
Category:Religious organizations established in the 1140s
Category:Lutheran seminaries
Category:Christian monasteries established in the 12th century
de:Kloster Riddagshausen
nl:Abdij Riddagshausen