Paulinerkloster St. Jakob

The origins of the monastery date back to 1335, when the Counts of Sponheim handed over an already existing St. James Chapel within the Celtic ring wall complex to the priest Heinrich from the Holy Sepulchre Monastery in Speyer. The aim was to establish a monastery of the Hermits of Saint Paul, the Paulines. Even before this foundation, a hermit, Brother Conrad von Dreisen, lived here, whose death is recorded in the necrology as early as 1323. A document from the Archbishop of Mainz, Heinrich III von Virneburg, from 1337, confirms an already established pilgrimage to the St. James Chapel on the Donnersberg at that time. In 1370, the Paulines received the chapel, house, farmstead, field, and forest from Count Heinrich II von Sponheim-Bolanden and built a small monastery. Two indulgences granted by Cardinal Pietro Pileo di Prata in 1380 supported the construction of the monastery. From approximately 1400 to 1418, the community managed the Marian pilgrimage chapel in Fischbach. In 1449, the St. James Monastery was entrusted with the pastoral care of the castle chapel of Tannenfels Castle. In 1544, the Pauline provincial Niklaus Zorn handed over the by then ruinous monastery and all its appurtenances to the sovereign, Count Johann Ludwig von Nassau-Saarbrücken, who planned its renovation. Following the Reformation, the monastery was dissolved around 1554 and converted into a hunting lodge by Count Albrecht von Nassau-Weilburg. After the Thirty Years' War, the complex was described as destroyed and in 1670 was leased out as a farmstead and rebuilt. In 1855, the Bavarian state acquired the area, demolished most of the buildings, and reforested the site.

The former Paulinerkloster St. Jakob is situated on the Donnersberg in the Donnersbergkreis, a region in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Today, only foundation walls near the current