Maulbronn Monastery
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
How it came to be
In 1138 a free knight, Walter von Lomersheim, gave the Cistercians an estate at Eckenweiher for a new monastery, and Neubourg Abbey sent a party of twelve monks. The site lacked water and pasture, so in 1147 Bishop Günther von Henneberg of Speyer moved them to Maulbronn, near the source of the Salzach. The abbey church was consecrated in 1178 by Arnold I, Archbishop of Trier.
Between 1210 and 1220 an unnamed architect trained in Paris built the narthex, the south walk of the cloister and the monks' refectory, counted as the first Gothic architecture in Germany. The monks laced the valley and hills with reservoirs, canals and drains, used to drive a mill, raise fish and irrigate their fields. In the 1460s the community reached 135 monks.
In 1504 Duke Ulrich of Württemberg took Maulbronn after a seven-day siege. In 1556 Duke Christoph turned it into a Protestant seminary, whose pupils later included Johannes Kepler, Friedrich Hölderlin and Hermann Hesse. As the most complete medieval monastic complex north of the Alps, with an extensive water system, it was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1993.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).