Mescheder monastery knife

From Italy have survived from the 16th century some bread knives, in which the table prayer was engraved along with the associated melody immediately. It is hard to believe that the monks actually needed this mnemonic device for the daily recurring verse. Rather, such a knife had a reminder function, namely to be mindful of thanks to God for daily bread already at mealtime.
Such a knife has been brought back to life by the Benedictine Abbey Königsmünster - in cooperation with the Solingen knifemaker Herder. The stately blade (length 17.5 cm) in traditional "Hamburger Form" bears the verses "God bless our daily bread / and protect us in all adversity". A knife of the best quality, which the monks have assigned the same commemorative function as its historical model.

According to an old Latin verse, the Cistercians preferred valleys, the Benedictines mountains, the Franciscans small towns, and the Jesuits large towns for their monasteries: “Bernhardus valles, montes Benedictus amabat, / oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes”. The Benedictines of the Königsmünster Abbey have certainly kept to this, for their monastery towers high above Meschede, town in the mountainous Sauerland region. From a bird’s eye view, you’ll easily spot that the monastery’s buildings build up a small town on their own: in the foreground the grammar school and some of the monastery buildings, flanked by the House of Silence and the “Oasis”, further back the workshops with a smithy and carpentry plus the agricultural buildings – all this embedded in a park-like garden.