Amelungsborn Abbey

[3] Siegfried IV, the last Count of Northeim-Boyneburg and Homburg[4] gave the land at Amelungsborn for the foundation of a Cistercian monastery, which was officially settled by a community of monks from Altenkamp Abbey[5] on 20 November 1135.

With the establishment of this monastery and of the nearby Burg Homburg, built at around the same time, it seems that Count Siegfried was aiming to secure a part of his possessions that lay distant from his ancestral seat in North Hessen.

In 1145 Amelungsborn provided the entire community (12 monks and an abbot) for the foundation of Riddagshausen Abbey near Braunschweig, of which it was thus the mother house.

Even after the alienation of their Mecklenburg estates, principally round Satow and Dranse, in the 14th century, Amelungsborn Abbey remained an extensive landowner, thanks largely to the generosity of the Edelherren of Homburg, successors of the founder, and the Counts of Everstein, who gave many estates between the Weser and Leine, among them lands at Allersheim near Holzminden, Schnedinghausen near Moringen, Erzhausen, Bruchhof and Holtershausen near Greene, besides possessions in the towns of Einbeck, Höxter and Hameln, and forests near the abbey itself.

When in 1875 the school was taken over by the state and the educational duties of the abbey ended, the office of abbot remained as an honorary title for members of the senior Brunswick clergy From 1912 the position was left vacant for political reasons.

In World War II the buildings were severely damaged, including the outer ring wall, on 8 April 1945, when the premises were heavily bombed by American troops in pursuit of fleeing SS units.