The Donkey and the Monastery
Founding legends transported on the backs of donkeys are particularly popular for monasteries. And Allerheiligen Monastery also has such a donkey legend. The donkey of the founder Uta von Schauenburg was loaded with gold and sent off. A monastery was to be erected at exactly the site at which the animal would throw off its load. Underway the donkey appeared to be thirsty and began to scrape at a certain spot with its hooves. Suddenly a spring bubbled up there. Then the donkey continued along its way. A chapel was built in honor of St. Ursula at the point where he dropped the sack. From there the sack of gold is said to have rolled into the valley down to the later location of the monastery. A wayside shrine at the spring still commemorates the legend with the donkey.
Document of Founding
The actual document of founding of Allerheiligen Monastery has not been preserved, however a confirmation of this founding from Heinrich VI from 1196 still exists, "In the name of the holy, undivided Trinity: I, Uta, Duchess of Schauenburg, extend greetings to all believers. As we have learned from God's teachings that the eternal dwellings are to be bought with earthly treasures, we shall follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and found a monastery on the stream Nordwasser and next to the cliff Buttenstein in honor of God and Aller Heiligen according to the rules of St. Augustine and the statutes of the Premonstratensian Order.(...)"
From the Order of the Day at Monastery
Midnight: Matutin (hourly prayer at night)
5:00 a.m.: Get up
5:30-6:00 a.m.: Meditation
6:00 a.m.: Prim (morning prayer), then studies, private masses until 8:30 a.m.: (on days of fasting until 9:00 a.m.)
9:00 a.m.: Kapitel Terz (prayer of the Breviary = prayer book), mass, Sext (third daytime prayer of the Breviary), "Partikularexamen" (prayerful soul-searching of the individualidual)
10:00 a.m.: Lunch, Miserere (psalm of repentance), Non (hour of prayer), then ΒΌ hour spiritual discussion on the reading at the table, then recreation
12:00 p.m.: Studies or work until 2:30 p.m. On Tuesday and Thursday recreation with walk until Vesper (evening hour of prayer of the Breviary)
3:00 p.m.: Vesper (liturgical evening mass)
4:30 p.m.: Religious reading
5:00 p.m.: Evening meal, recreation until 7:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.: Komplett (evening prayer), soul-searching
8:00 p.m.: Bedtime. Checked at 8:30 p.m. by the prior
The Angel's Pulpit
One of the cliffs which raises high above the western side of the waterfalls of Allerheiligen is called the "Engelskanzel" (Angel's Pulpit). Once, as the legend goes, a virgin whose virginity was threatened fled from her pursuers onto this cliff. As the girl was finally faced with jumping to her death or the disaster which would be brought upon her by her enemies, she decided to jump after commending her soul to God. At this moment an angel waved from the opposite side of the gorge. Instead of being smashed to pieces on the rocks below, the pursued girl was miraculously rescued by the angel.
Romance and Nature
In 1876 Nepomuk Hirz wrote in his "latest guide through the Rench valley and its medicinal springs" about the impression imparted by the ruins of Allerheiligen Monastery: "From here one soon enters a meadow-green basin where the buildings and ruins of Allerheiligen Monastery approach us. This lonely corner of the earth surrounded by high mountains and fir groves has something extraordinarily attractive about it. The dominant silence and invigorating freshness of the forest, and the memories of the past awakened in us everywhere here, are sufficient explanation for the magic exerted by this loneliness on the human soul."