I first found Beselich on the web by accident. It fascinated me because the society for the restoration of the Klosterruine was organising a Grillfest and it seemed to me reminiscent of a group supporting the Begijnhof at Dendermonde. I put a web page together with most of the information I could find, and links to Society for the Preservation of the Beselich Klosteruine e V. and the municipality's pages on meinestadt.de. In July 2002 we managed to visit the place. Tailoring part of a holiday around a visit to a place you only know because of an accident on a whois search might seem extreme or obsessive behaviour, but those of you who know me will be aware that it's not particularly unusual. Sadly, the klösterruine site no longer contains information about events, but since we visited a new site about the cloister's history has emerged.
The municipality, in Limburg - Weilburg, is formed of four villages, Obertiefenbach, Niedertiefenbach, Heckholzhausen and Schupbach. I believe that what happened was that after 1945 the four villages grew rapidly to the size that by 1971 the area warranted municipality status and the name Beselich, from the Beselicher Hof, was adopted. The level of relatively new (but very pleasant) building in the area seems to bear this out.
It should have been relatively easy to find the place, halfway along the main road from Limburg to Weilburg; that is, if I'd found the right road out of town. Instead, and rather fortuitously, we ended up driving along the Lahn to Runkel, and then turned north. This might not be the quickest route, but Runkel itself is worth a visit. The road goes to Niedertiefenbach – the church, which dominates the town, is pictured on the right.
We then drove to Obertiefenbach (the Tiefenbach is the local river) to photograph the church and the statue of Gottfried von Beselich. Gottfried founded the Kloster that originally sparked my interest. We wandered round the town for a while; sadly the two bars we found didn't open until the evening, but the sense of a real Beselich community was obvious. Having already made one map-reading error, I was a trifle worried about finding the Hof, but in fact it's well signposted from the road between Obertiefenbach and Schupbach.
We parked by the Grillplatz and tennis club and walked up to the castle, the ruined cloister and a small chapel are at the top. Begun in 1163, the monastery at Besleich was one of several in the area founded by the "wandering preacher" Gottfried, and by the late middle ages it had become one of the richest religious houses in the area. I'm extremely interested in Gottfried, because he's almost a contemporary of Hildegard of Bingen, but it's difficult to find information, so if you know anything about him, please contact me.
There's not a great deal of the Kloster left - part of one pillar and an end wall up to window level - but what there is shows how impressive the building once was. When it was excavated in 1954, the evidence indicated that it was about sixty by twenty feet with an apsoidal end. In comparison with other churches in the area it was plainer and simpler in construction, perhaps influenced in its design by churches in Limburg and Dietkirchen. A Babelfish translation insists that the monastery originally had three ships strapped to its roof. I know what Babelfish should say, but it's such a wonderful mistranslation that I'll leave you to work it out for yourself.
When the Reformation ended monastic life, the church fell into disrepair. Early in the seventeenth century the Jesuits redeveloped part of it. Drawings and maps indicate that significant parts of the ruin still existed at that time, but most of it was demolished around 1660. The monastery area was probably on the north side. At the end of the 18th century Georg Niederstraßernto, an ex-soldier turned Franciscan hermit, built the little Wallpfarrkapelle on the hill, to which a bell-tower was added in the 19th century. The chapel is still in regular use: there's at least one mass there every week and new ex-votos have been added to the large collection on the walls.
There's also a beautiful little shrine lined with shells. Shrines of this type are fairly common all over northern Europe, but for some reason, perhaps the setting, I found this one particluarly moving.
I have very fond memories of Beselich and hope to go back some day - perhaps when the bar is open.