Kloster Holzheim

Kloster Holzheim, also known as ‘Kluse’, was a convent of Augustinian nuns in Neuss-Holzheim. It stood beside the church on the former estate of the Helpenstein family. The nuns followed the Augustinian rule, though the exact date they adopted it remains unknown. The convent’s history appears in records from 1432 onwards. It was probably founded between 1367 and 1413 after Friedrich von Helpenstein killed his brother in 1367. The first superior, Dena Mengwaters, arrived in 1432 with three sisters and a lay sister. A papal bull of 1487 mentions the buildings and a plan to merge the nearby St Martin’s parish church, though this never happened. Today the site holds the later parish church of St Peter and St Paul. Its tower survived the 1944 bombing and still contains Neuss’s oldest bells, cast in 1399 and 1444. Two Romanesque columns from the earlier church have been built into the tower’s three-part window.