UNTERLINDEN. - Famous Dominican monastery at Colmar in Alsace, diocese of Basel (today Strasbourg), under the patronage of St. John the Baptist.

The community, founded at Colmar in the Place of the Lindens, whence the name U., by Agnes of Mittelheim and Agnes of Herkenheim with the cooperation of the Strasbourg prior Walter O.P., moved in 1232 outside the city near a mill (Ufmühlen), but in 1252 took up residence again at U. Incorporated into the Dominican Order (1245) by Innocent IV, the monastery obtained from Card. Hugh of St. Cher an indulgence for the church then under construction, which in 1269 was consecrated by St. Albert the Great. Until 1348 U. occupies a notable place in the history of German mysticism; it has relations with Eckhart, present there in 1322, with Tauler, the Bl. Henry Suso and Venturino of Bergamo.

The prioress Catherine of Geberschweier compiled the Vitae sororum around the year 1330. In 1419 the community embraced the reform of Schönensteinbach. Detached from the province of Germany and added to the Alsatian Congregation in 1690, the monastery was suppressed in 1792, in 1793 the building became a cavalry barracks, in 1845 a girls' school and from 1849 the Municipal Museum and Library.

Bibliography10 works

BIBL.: A. M. P. Ingold, Le monastère d'U. au XIIIe siècle, Strasbourg 1896; A. Waltz, Bibliogr. de la ville de Colmar, Colmar 1902, pp. 90-97, 492-94; Joh. Meyer, Buch der Reformatio d. Predigierordens, ed. B. M. Reichert, 2 vols., Leipzig 1908-1909; id., Das älteste Verzeichnis der Dominikanerinnenkliates, ed. H. Wilms, ibid. 1928, pp. 49-50, 109; J. Beuchot, Das frühere Unterlinien-Kloster in seiner Blütezeit, Colmar 1916; id., Im 15. u. 16. Jahrh., ibid. 1917; id., Niedergang und Auflaung, s. n. t.; J. A. Ancelot-Hustache, Les Vitae sororum d'U., ed. crit. from ms. 508 of the Biblioth. de Colmar, in Arch. d'hist. doctr. et litt. du moyen âge, 5 (1930), pp. 317-509; L. Pfleger, Die Mystik in U., in Colmarer Jahrb., 3 (1937), pp. 35-45; Ch. Wittmer, L'abituaire des Dominicaines d'U., ed. crit., Strasbourg-Zurich 1946.

Angelo Walz

@incollection{ec12_unterlinden, author = {Walz, Angelo}, title = {Unterlinden}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {888}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/unterlinden} }

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