Loccum Abbey

An ancient account describes it as being "in a place of horror and a desert of solitude and a dwelling of thieves and brigands" (Latin: in loco horroris et vastæ solitudinis et prædonum et latronum commorationis);[a] and adds that, after suffering much from want and from the barbarity of their neighbours, the monks in time brought the land into cultivation, and the people to the fear of God.

[1] Loccum very quickly grew wealthy and was under the direct protection of the Pope and the Emperor as an Imperial abbey (i.e., territorially independent).

[2] The monastery retained its property and wealth until the agrarian reforms of the 19th century, when it was included in the territory of the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, otherwise Hanover.

Since 1891 the monastery has also operated as a Protestant seminary and academy, a tradition going back to around the start of the 19th century.

[citation needed] The monastery's ponds and woods also throw an interesting light on the abbey's medieval economy.[how?]