Kloster Fürstenberg

The origins of the monastery date back to 1076/79, when a chapel dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours was consecrated on the Fürstenberg. Archbishop Friedrich I von Schwarzenburg transferred this chapel to the Benedictine abbey of Siegburg in 1116. Through a donation by Heinrich von Dornick in 1119, a monastery was established, evolving into a double monastery with male and female religious members. By around 1144, the Monastery of St. Mary, with its Romanesque abbey church, was already completed. In the early 13th century, the male members of the order left the Fürstenberg, and the monastery became solely for women. In 1259, against the will of the resident Benedictine nuns, the monastery was sold to the Cistercian Order. After the final takeover by the Cistercian nuns in 1284, the monastery suffered further destruction: in 1460 during conflicts between Kleve dukes and the Archbishop of Cologne, in 1499 by arson, and definitively in 1586 by Spanish troops during the Eighty Years' War. The Cistercian nuns subsequently found refuge in Xanten. On the ruins of the abbey church, they erected the Cross Chapel in 1671/72, which passed into private ownership during the secularization and remains preserved to this day.

The former monastery is located in Wesel, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on the Fürstenberg near Xanten.

The historic Cross Chapel, built on the ruins of the abbey church, is preserved to this day and is privately owned. On the site of the former monastery's farmstead, the Fürstenberg Manor House was built starting in 1843.

• Fürstenberg Castle (Castle, approx. 197 m away)
• Roman Theatrum Vetera (Ancient Buildings, approx. 1463 m away)
• Lau Manor House (Manor and Estate House, approx. 1519 m away)
• Xanten Cathedral (Sacred Building, approx. 1824 m away)