Kloster Wald

The Cistercian convent of Wald stands in the village of Wald in the Sigmaringen district of Baden-Württemberg. Founded in 1212 by Burkard of Weckenstein for his sisters Judintha and Ita, both Cistercian nuns, it became the first Cistercian house in Upper Swabia. The site lay deep in the forest, far from towns, where the nuns could live by their own labour in fields and woods as the order required. By the 13th century the convent had won gifts of land and rights from local nobles and even from Emperor Frederick II. Its scattered estates stretched from Göggingen in the north to Linz in the south, forming a compact territory by 1474. The nuns also owned vineyards around Überlingen on Lake Constance and fishponds near Ablach and Gaisweiler to supply food for fast days. High justice remained with the counts of Sigmaringen, but the convent ruled the villages of Wald, Buffenhofen and others as village lords. After the Thirty Years War only parts of the medieval complex survived: the Romanesque and Gothic cloister, the chapter house and the Jenner wing. In 1980 restorers found the chapter room behind coupled round-arched windows with Hirsau masons’ marks. Excavations also uncovered a 13th-century side aisle beneath the later church shown on a 17th-century plan. The convent’s quiet woods and meadows still echo the Cistercian ideal of withdrawal and work.