Zisterzienserinnen-, zuvor Benediktinerinnenkloster St. Laurentius, Magdeburg

A medieval convent once stood in Magdeburg’s Alte Neustadt. The Zisterzienserinnenkloster St. Laurentius was founded early in the 13th century by nuns from Wöltingerode near Goslar. Its church was consecrated in 1209, and in 1282 the convent supplied the first sisters for the new Zisterzienserinnenkloster in Jüterbog. After the Reformation the monastery survived until 1577, when the administrator Joachim Friedrich closed it and the remaining nuns moved to the Agnetenkloster. The site lay along today’s Lorenzweg, between the present-day houses numbered nine and fifteen. Nothing of the original buildings remains above ground. Researchers have reconstructed its layout from old records and maps, showing a church with a nave and choir, a cloister, and domestic ranges for the sisters. Textile work played an important part in the community’s life, and scholars have studied surviving evidence of the nuns’ craftsmanship. Visitors today find a quiet residential street in Magdeburg’s Alte Neustadt. A small plaque marks the former location, and passers-by can stand where the church once rose. The area around Lorenzweg is otherwise ordinary, giving little hint of the convent’s long history. A few metres away, modern houses stand where the cloister once enclosed the nuns’ daily round.