Stift Asbeke Ruins

The Asbeke Abbey was founded by Bishop Adalbert of Bremen in 1050. Its construction here in the Rehburg Hills was purely for practical reasons, as the construction of the Bremen Cathedral urgently required new sandstone deposits, which were found here. The abbey was expanded in several construction phases, but was probably abandoned during Adalbert's lifetime.Today, the foundations of the entire abbey complex can still be found here, which can be freely visited and for which there is a detailed information board about the history and building.

The Rehburg-Loccum area offers interesting evidence of the pagan and early Christian era of northern Germany from a cultural and historical point of view; when around 1979, when the fields were ploughed, constantly worked rock came to light, it attracted the attention of archaeologists, who uncovered the legendary Asbeke, a settlement that was first mentioned in the history of the bishops of the Hamburg church and is evidently dated to around the year 1000; it mentions Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen (1043-72), who founded the Esbeke monastery in the town in 1050; Since the monastery was located in the area of the diocese of Minden, and thus on foreign territory, the basis for further development and therefore continued existence was withdrawn. The complex was abandoned during Adalbert's lifetime. The settlement of Asbeke existed until the beginning of the 14th century. The residents certainly placed themselves under the protection of the castle settlement, Rehburg, founded before 1320, the abandoned nucleus of today's town of Rehburg. Sources (information board on site, Lit.: 1. Ernst-August Nebig: The archaeological mystery of Rehburg. The missing ‘Asbeke Abbey’ A failed foundation from the Middle Ages, 2. Hans-Wilhelm Heine-Norbert Steinau: The Asbeke Abbey on the Rehburg Hills: A failed foundation of Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen around the middle of the 11th century, in: Lower Saxony Yearbook for Regional History, 1986, pp. 279-287, Internet: 1. ...wikipedia)