In brief: the Abbey had a set of fabulous 16th century stained glass windows which vanished in 1802 and were presumed lost or destroyed until 1904, when the English ghost story writer M.R.James was asked to catalogue the windows in the chapel of Ashridge House in Hertfordshire and realised that most of them came from Steinfeld. He was inspired by the windows to write a story entitled The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, which is partly set at Steinfeld Abbey, although he himself never visited it. The windows were auctioned at Sotheby's in the 1920s and now reside in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where a small selection of them can currently be seen in room 64.
In 2004 I wrote an article about Steinfeld Abbey for the M.R.James Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter, comparing the Abbey as it is described in M.R.James' story with the real location. At the time I was living in Bad Münstereifel, which is only about 20km from Steinfeld, so I visited the Abbey on a number of occasions. You can read that article online here: The Treasure of Steinfeld Abbey
At the end of the article I mentioned an small exhibition in the cloister at Steinfeld Abbey, which mentioned M.R.James' role in the rediscovery of the glass, and also referred to Father Nikola Reinartz, a local Catholic priest who corresponded with M.R.J. and eventually viewed the glass at Ashridge. The Steinfeld Abbey website included details of several articles written by Father Reinartz himself about the Steinfeld glass and published in the Eifel Club Newsletter, and since these sounded rather intriguing I subsequently visited the offices of the Eifel Club in Düren and read them.
This was a distinct labour of love because they were (obviously) written in rather old-fashioned German but also printed in the difficult-to-read Gothic type used in Germany in the early 1900s! However, the story they related is fascinating. For a while I became somewhat obsessed with the Steinfeld glass and Father Reinartz's connection with it. I visited his former parish of Kreuzweingarten and obtained a booklet from the church that included some anecdotes about him, and visited his grave (photo above) by the parish church of the Holy Cross (photo above).
I subsequently wrote an article which was published by the M.R.James Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter in 2008. That issue of the Newsletter is now out of print and there are no plans to publish its contents online, so I am posting it here with the kind agreement of editor Rosemary Pardoe. At the end of the article I have added some photographs of the Abbey and the glass itself.
“Lingering memories of the
treasure”
- How the lost stained glass
of Steinfeld was discovered
By
Helen Grant
The Steinfeld glass adorned the cloister[i]
of the abbey and is thought to have been installed between 1522 and 1557; Abbot
Johann VI von Ahrweiler initiated the work but did not live to see its completion,
which was achieved under his successors Abbot Simon Diepenbach von Hasselt and
Abbot Jakob II von Panhausen[ii]. The
content of the windows is now known from two handwritten catalogues, the first,
created by Prior Johann Latz, dating to 1632[iii],
and the second, by Canon Heinrich Hochkirchen, created in 1719. These
catalogues were sad necessities – owing to the repeated threat of war the
stained glass had to be removed from the windows and hidden no less than five
times, and a guide was required to ensure that they were correctly re-installed.
The catalogues detail an ambitious cycle of magnificent pictures guaranteed to
make any mediaevalist’s mouth water: a Biblia
pauperum starting with the Fall of the Angels and the Fall of Man, covering
both Old and New Testament stories and culminating in the Last Judgement, with
a glimpse into God’s kingdom in Heaven and Lucifer’s kingdom in Hell. There
were additional pictures of local significance including representations of the
clerics and patron saints of parishes affiliated to Steinfeld, the most famous
being St. Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian order. The damage which
inevitably occurred during the removal and re-installation of the glass – no
matter how carefully it was done - is appalling to contemplate. In 1785 the
glass was removed for the last time[iv] and at the
beginning of the nineteenth century when the abbey itself was closed[v]
it vanished completely from Steinfeld, making its way across the Channel to
England through the agency of John Christopher Hampp, a German dealer living in
Norwich. For all those connected with Steinfeld, the fate of the glass passed
into a deep obscurity that would last for over a century.
In 1904, M.R.James went to Ashridge Park to
inventory the stained glass in the chapel there for Lord Brownlow. Noticing the
inscription “Abbas Steinfeldensis” on one of the panes, he deduced that its
origin was the abbey church at Steinfeld.[vi]
The glass proved to be the inspiration for a story written to complete his Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, published
later that same year. In March 1907 a Dr. Förster noted in a column entitled Literarisches und Verwandtes[vii]
in the Eifelvereinsblatt (Newsletter
of the Eifel Club): “The Englishman M.R.James from Cambridge tells a ghost
story from Steinfeld in his agreeably-written book ‘Ghost Stories of an
Antiquary’, London 1904, Arnold, 270 pages, pages 229-270 (“The Treasure of
Abbot Thomas”).” Förster remarked that MRJ had correctly attributed Steinfeld
to the Eifel, whereas others had misplaced it to the Ardennes; however he gave
no further description of the story before passing on to other topics. This
very brief notice piqued the interest of Nikola Reinartz, a young priest with a
strong interest in local history, but it was not until the following year that
he was able to satisfy his curiosity, when church business took him to England.
Nikola Reinartz himself was an intriguing
character. He was born on 6th December 1874[viii]
to Adam Heinrich Reinartz of Kall-Heistert and his wife Gertrud, née Pünder. His
mother died when he was only three years old, and his older brothers not long
afterwards; his father never remarried, devoting himself instead to bringing up
his young son. Something of a prodigy, young Nikola is said to have been able
to read the newspaper before he started school and later to have shone at Gymnasium (grammar school). After
studying at Cologne he became a priest in 1899, an event his father did not
live to see. The first two decades of his ecclesiastical career were spent as
curate and rector at various locations in the Rhineland; it was during this
period that he visited Ashridge Park. In 1920 he became the Pfarrer (parish priest) of
Kreuzweingarten near Euskirchen, in the Eifel, and remained there until 1949,
in which year he celebrated the golden anniversary of his ordination. He died
in 1954, a few months short of his eightieth birthday.
The majority of published photographs of
Nikola Reinartz date from the last decade of his life, and show a
kindly-looking, composed, bespectacled elderly man faintly reminiscent of
Donald Pleasence. A photograph from the district picture archive, thought to
date from 1932, shows Father Reinartz in middle age, standing next to the
remains of the Roman canal in Kreuzweingarten, clad in bowler hat, a rather
natty coat and boots, and carrying a walking stick. His expression is
good-humoured but unsmiling; unusually, he is looking straight at the camera.[ix]
The location is significant: Father Reinartz was renowned for his passion for
local history and culture.
Reminiscences of Father Reinartz in the Chronik und Kirchenführer[x]
of the parish church at Kreuzweingarten describe him as an upright and
god-fearing man. Twelve years younger than M.R.James, he lived to see the
horrors of the Second World War, and was a fearless and outspoken opponent of
Nazism. In an autobiographical essay provocatively entitled Mein Kampf he described his personal
struggle against Nazism, which led him into confrontations with local party
members and the Gestapo[xi]. “How often
proceedings were taken against me, I do not know myself,” he wrote. On one
occasion he was said to have been warned by the verger that two strangers,
probably party spies, were amongst his Sunday congregation, but, undeterred, he
proceeded to denounce Nazism in no uncertain terms. The result of his efforts
was that the state contribution to parish funds was slashed, but Father
Reinartz was undaunted, especially since rampant inflation of the tax paid to
the church took the sting out of the gesture. He considered the especially good
harvest that year to be a sign of the Almighty’s support.
Following his visit to Ashridge Park in
1908, Nikola Reinartz wrote several articles about the Steinfeld stained glass.
The first appeared in the Eifelvereinsblatt
number 10, in 1909. A little under
3,000 words in length, it was written when the visit to England was still fresh
in his mind, and contains the fullest description of his correspondence with
M.R.James. This document is, sadly, very difficult to come by nowadays.[xii]
After the sale of the Ashridge glass in 1928[xiii],
Father Reinartz wrote a further, but shorter account of his visit to England,
prompted no doubt by the renewed interest in the fate of the glass. This
article appeared in the Eifel Kalendar
of 1930. From these two articles, written in rather archaic German and printed
in the crabbed Gothic script of the period, it is possible to follow Father
Reinartz’ journey from the point at which he read Dr. Förster’s brief notice
about The Treasure of Abbot Thomas to
the moment he stepped into Ashridge Park chapel and feasted his eyes upon the
Steinfeld stained glass. As we shall discover, none of this would happened at
all, if it were not for the tale of hidden treasure which M.R.James hastily
added to his collection of stories in 1904. Let us take up the story in Father
Reinartz’ own words, from the point at which he read Dr. Förster’s notice.
“In the year 1906, a book was published –
already in its third edition – by Edward Arnold, ‘Ghost Stories of an
Antiquary’, of which Dr. James, the provost of King’s College, Cambridge, was
the author. Amongst these ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’ was one tale
entitled, ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas of Steinfeld” (sic). The book, which
was mentioned in the Eifel Club newsletter without any further details about
the content, caught my attention.” Nikola Reinartz was instantly intrigued.
“What did this Englishman know of a treasure of Abbot Thomas? How on earth had
he come across Steinfeld, which nowadays lies forgotten by the world, away from
the main tourist routes and the railway, on its lonely Eifel heights? The
thought had continually dogged me.”
In 1908 he went to London for a number of
weeks in order to attend the Eucharistic Conference, and thought that he would
take the opportunity to travel up to Norwich and see the stained glass of
Mariawald at St. Stephen’s. For this he required a travel guide, and
accordingly visited the bookstalls in Charing Cross, which were, he remarked,
“No modern antiquarian bookshops with well-ordered stock and catalogues, but
where the books lie in jumbled heaps and the booklover simply steps up, to look
for and purchase what he pleases.” He began to search for a Bädeker guide to
Great Britain. “At the same time, however”, he writes, “I had another book
written in English in mind, which I had once made a note of years before:
‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’, in which there was supposed to be a tale, ‘The
treasure of Abbot Thomas of Steinfeld.’….and so I wondered, after I had sought
in vain for a Bädeker, whether this book was perhaps known or available. The
bookseller shrugged his shoulders: he didn’t know himself. So I decide to take
my leave; then, as I lift my hand from the pile of books by which I had been
standing, my gaze falls upon the book which my hand had happened to rest upon,
and – in large black type on a coarse white clothbound volume there starts out
at me: ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.’” Father Reinartz was not the only one
to be astounded by this coincidence: “The bookseller himself is flabbergasted,
and is happy to let me have the desired volume for a few shillings. It would set
me on the trail of much more significant remnants of Rhenish glass painting
than the ones which are in Norwich.” Eagerly devouring the story, Father
Reinartz was sufficiently convinced by M.R.James’ scholarly style that he at
first assumed that the “Sertum Steinfeldense Norbertinum” quoted at the
beginning was a real book. “My first thought,” he relates, “when I read of this
historical source, previously unknown to me, was that I should perhaps track
down the remains of the old Steinfeld library.” But where to start? “Since I did not personally know the
author, Dr.M.R.James of Cambridge University, I approached him in writing with
a request for information about the material which his story mentioned. I
received the following reply: ‘The story of Abbot Thomas including the Sertum
Steinfeldense, which you have asked me about, is, as I must unfortunately
confess, completely and utterly my own invention…however there really are some
stained glass windows from Steinfeld in the castle[xiv]
chapel of Earl Brownlow in Ashridge Park near Berkhamstead, although they, too,
in no way ressemble those described by me.’” Echoing the words of the narrator
of The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, MRJ
added, “I must also confess, that I have never been to Steinfeld, and therefore
also do not know what of the splendour of the old abbey of St. Potentinus is to
be found there.”[xv]
In Father Reinartz’ later article of 1930,
he somewhat romantically conjectures that MRJ was “so drawn under the magic
influence of the windows…that he created this ghost story out of them”, in
spite of never having been at Steinfeld itself. This is not the only reference made by Father Reinartz to
some special spiritual influence exerted by the glass. In the same article he
refers extensively to the catalogue of the windows created by Prior Johann
Latz. Coincidentally, this document was discovered in the Trier library by Dr.
H.Oidtman and published almost contemporaneously with Father Reinartz’ visit to
Ashridge. Father Reinartz writes of Prior Latz, that he was the son of the
abbey’s lay helper, Peter Latz of Heistert, one of Reinartz’ own forefathers.
“This personal association is so very extraordinary,” he writes, “that I had to
mention it here. Was it the ghost of the good Prior who, at the same time as
his little book was resurrected from the dust of the library and summoned up
the image of former Steinfeld glories, himself set his descendant upon the
trail of their remains?”
At any rate, Nikola Reinartz was galvanised
by the letter from M.R.James. “I knew enough,” he declared resolutely. A glance
at the map quickly located Ashridge Park for him, but he almost immediately ran
into an obstacle. “My request to view the Earl’s private chapel was at first
roundly turned down by the estate management, who guarded their treasure
jealously from others.”[xvi] Nikola
Reinartz was not, however, one to be easily discouraged, as his later life
showed. He obtained a letter of reference from M.R.James, and thus armed
presented himself at the gates of Ashridge Park. “On production of my papers
the gates were opened to me with no further difficulties,” he relates. “Barely
glancing at the other exquisite works of art, I had myself directed straight to
the chapel.” Stepping inside, he felt that “stroke of magic” which transported
him back to the Rhineland, “as though I were standing in the great cathedral in
Cologne engrossed in gazing at the dazzling splendour of the mediaeval art in
the windows of the north aisle; only the impression is now more self-contained,
clearer.” With the help of an index supplied by M.R.James, he quickly
orientated himself, picking out figures and inscriptions from his Rhenish
homeland. Awe was quickly succeeded by melancholy and even the first stirrings
of anger.
“Admittedly my joy was not unclouded. It
was more and more mixed with sadness, sadness not only over the injustice, that
had stolen these magnificent treasures of my homeland, but above all at the
absolute crime against art, perpetrated when they were thrown together and
jammed in as fillers for their current places with total ignorance. At least I
must describe it thus today, since I have obtained a picture of their whole
former magnificence from the the notes of the old Steinfeld prior[xvii].
From this colossal artistic creation, the great cycle of pictures in the
cloister at Steinfeld, now only a glittering ruin remains. There are fragments
from nearly all the windows described, but they are just fragments – in total
there is probably only about a third remaining.” Years later, when Father
Reinartz penned his article of 1930, the injustice still rankled. “So London
has its stained glass from Steinfeld’s former glory, just as Paris has the
shrine of holy Potentinus,” he remarked with bitter regret. “The archive and
library, once widely famed, are strewn to the four winds. Also vanished from
the wide halls are the white-clad monks, who nurtured all that wonderful human
knowledge and expertise. The best of them still live on in the thoughts of the
local population,” he mused, concluding: “Their life and striving, also
Christian virtue and perfection, in the favourite saints of the people of the
Eifel, the holy Hermann Joseph[xviii], whose
bones, the most precious treasure of Steinfeld, still lie up there in their
sarcophagus of Eifel marble, “grande decus patriae” – an expression which could
equally apply to Hermann Joseph as to Steinfeld itself: the Eifel’s illustrious
ornament.”
Nikola Reinartz died on 4th
August 1954, outliving M.R.James by eighteen years. Several streets are named
after him: Pfarrer Reinartz Straße in Kall-Heistert, where his parents’ house
(bombed flat in World War II) once stood, and Nikola Reinartz Straße in
Kreuzweingarten, where he served as parish priest so many years. His name is
inextricably entwined with that of Steinfeld in local remembrance. At Steinfeld
abbey, taken over by the Salvatorian order in 1923, his name has a place of
honour in the literature and small exhibition about the Steinfeld glass, as
does the name of M.R.James. His mortal remains lie close by the south wall of
the parish church, the church of the Holy Cross, in Kreuzweingarten. A very
simple gravestone bears the words:
Nikola
Reinartz
6.12.1874
† 4.8.1954
Pfarrer
in Kreuzweingarten
1920-1950
RIP
It is a curious sensation to stand by this
grave, and contemplate the connection between this Roman Catholic Father from
the Rhineland and the English ghost-story writer who sleeps under a similarly
modest memorial in the cemetery at Eton. Curious, too, to think that in spite
of the great body of academic work produced by M.R.James, it was his fictitious
Abbot Thomas who at last pointed the
way to Steinfeld’s lost treasure.
[i] The north wing was completed around 1517 and glazing began shortly
afterwards.
[ii] Abbot Johann VI von Ahrweiler 1517-1538 was succeeded by Abbot
Simon Diepenbach von Hasselt 1538-1540 and Abbot Jakob II von Panhausen
1540-1582.
[iii] Sad to relate, this document in the Trier town archive was
destroyed in World War II; however a copy resides in the Victoria and Albert
Museum.
[iv] It is thought that this was not done due to the threat of war but
to allow the damp cloister to dry out more efficiently, since the sunshine
would then fall through clear glass.
[v] The abbey was dissolved in 1802 under secularisation.
[vi] In an article entitled The
Mariawald-Ashridge Glass in The Burlington Magazine (November 1944) Bernard
Rackham says that MRJ mistakenly assumed that all the stained glass at Ashridge
was from Steinfeld, whereas in fact some of the glass was from Mariawald. David
King’s article The Steinfeld cloister
glazing in GESTA (1998) says that Lord Brownlow acquired thirty eight
panels of the Steinfeld glass, which were installed at Ashridge. Father
Reinartz raises the question of whether all the Ashridge glass came from
Steinfeld in his 1909 article, but leaves it open to debate.
[viii] St. Nicholas’ Day in the Roman Catholic calendar; Nikola is short
for Nikolaus.
[ix] In an undated
studio portrait apparently also from his middle age, his eyes seem to gaze at
something to the photographer’s left, as though he is deep in thought.
[x] Chronicle and church guide; the full title is 200 Jahre Pfarrei Hl. Kreuz “Kreuz”-Weingarten 1804-2004 Chronik
und Kirchenführer (ed.
Hermann Josef Kesternich).
[xi] Father Reinartz remarks in Mein
Kampf that the Gestapo even visited him on the day of his 40th Jubilee!
[xii] I obtained a copy from the Eifel club’s headquarters in Düren. There
is apparently another copy in the Eifelbibliothek in Mayen, near Koblenz. The
other local libraries and archives in the area do not appear to have copies.
Since researching this article, I have presented copies of this and the 1930
article to the district archive in Euskirchen and to the Nikola Reinartz
website.
[xiii] By auction at Sotheby’s.
[xiv] Ashridge Park, built in the Gothic style, does indeed present the
aspect of a castle rather than a manor house.
[xv] This is a translation back into English of MRJ’s letter, which was
rendered in German in Father Reinartz’ article; the substance is therefore
correct but the wording may not be exactly as per the original.
[xvi] In his article of 1909 Reinartz says that he was turned down, but
in the later article he says (perhaps for tact’s sake) that his letter went
unanswered.
[xvii] i.e. The catalogue of Prior Latz, from 1632.
[xviii] St. Hermann-Josef (born and died between 1150 and 1250) was a choir
master at Steinfeld. A fine Baroque tomb with effigy of the saint created in
1702 and located in the central aisle of the abbey church houses the shrine
containing his bones.
Above: the cloister (photo: William Bond)
Above: the Abbey church, interior
Above: detail, the Fall of the Rebel Angels
Above: Abbot Johann von Ahrweiler and Saint Norbert
Above: Peter Blanckenheim and his patron St. George
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