Kollegiatstift, später Benediktinerkloster Reinhausen

Kloster Reinhausen stands on a hill south of Göttingen in the Gleichen district. It began in 1079 as a collegiate foundation by the Reinhausen counts—Konrad, Heinrich, Hermann III. and their sister Mathilde—who dedicated the site to God, the Virgin Mary and Saint Christopher. Four canons and a provost named Sibold were installed, while the counts moved their main seat to the twin peaks of the Gleichen castles. Mathilde later married a Bavarian count of Formbach and had a son named Hermann who took the name Winzenburg. After the provost’s death, the counts transferred the property to Benedictine monks, and the first abbot, Reinhard, was consecrated by Archbishop Adalbert I of Mainz in the early 12th century. The abbey flourished under the Bursfelde Congregation in the 15th century when reforms revived its original ideals. A new hospital and infirmary were built in 1460 to care for the sick and poor. By 1542 the monastery had become Lutheran, and by 1574 only two Lutheran convent members remained before monastic life ended with the death of the last abbot. Parts of the church and some monastic buildings survived the transition. The first abbot Reinhard wrote an account of the foundation in old age, and his damaged seal shows him seated with crozier and book. Visitors today find the medieval church and remaining monastic structures on the Kirchberg. The oval seal of Abbot Reinhard, once kept in the State Archive at Hanover, shows a seated figure holding a book and staff. A copy of the founding charter is held in the university and state library at Düsseldorf. The hilltop setting offers views across the surrounding countryside, and the surviving stonework tells the story of more than five centuries of religious life.