Benediktinerinnenkloster Hagenbusch (vor dem Meertor), Xanten

The Benedictine convent of Hagenbusch once stood just south-west of Xanten’s old town in the Hochbruch district. Founded between 1140 and 1144 by Abbot Volmar, it received its charter from Archbishop Arnold I of Cologne in 1156. The nuns later exchanged annual food dues with the nearby Fürstenberg convent for cash, using the money to buy land in Xanten and several neighbouring villages. By 1370 the community could not pay a papal levy and fell into debt, forcing them to borrow from the Cistercian nuns of Fürstenberg to repair their collapsing abbey church. Repeated disputes arose when the city levelled the marshy land around the convent to turn it into farm fields. Despite gaining limited rights to use certain plots in 1407 and 1432, the nuns’ poverty and the decay of their buildings led to the convent’s closure in 1465. The last abbess, Adam Meyer, allowed the sisters to stay or leave as they chose. A new group of Benedictines arrived in 1473 and built a wall to mark the abbey’s boundary with the town. Fresh quarrels broke out in 1483 when the city leased nearby fields without permission, prompting the convent to secure guarantees that no more land would be sold without its agreement. By the early 1500s the community had again dispersed, taking refuge in the shared Agnetenkloster in Xanten. Today only grassy mounds and a few foundation stones remain where the abbey once stood. The last remnants vanished in a fire of 1926, leaving little trace above ground. Visitors walk over the quiet field where the church and cloister once rose, imagining the Benedictine nuns who lived and worked there for more than three centuries. The site lies close to the old Meertor gate, where the convent’s outer wall once met the town’s defences. A low stone marker recalls the abbey’s name and the turbulent history of its final years.