Steyl

Arnold Janssen founded the Society of the Divine Word at Steyl in 1875, choosing the spot because it was just inside the Dutch border and Prussia's Kulturkampf had made founding a missionary house in Germany impossible. The society grew fast and sent missionaries worldwide, and between 1875 and about 1915 four large monastery complexes were built along the Maas here - the mission house, two convents and a further foundation - so a village of a few hundred people acquired a monastic quarter of a scale entirely out of proportion to it. The Missiemuseum in the mission house is the reason to visit: a nineteenth-century mission museum kept as it was, with ethnographic material gathered by missionaries, minerals, and a very large taxidermy collection in old cases, which is a preserved example of a museum type that has almost disappeared. Communities are still present.

History

From the late Middle Ages Steyl was a Maas port for unloading marl, wine, coal and other goods for the Duchy of Jülich, and its merchants grew rich in the 18th century. In the 1870s the German priest Arnold Janssen founded the Society of the Divine Word here, the Moubis mansion was sold in 1876 to nuns from Münster, and in 2004 the monastery quarter became a protected conservation area (Wikipedia, Steyl).

Highlights

• Four monastery complexes - built between 1875 and about 1915 in one village.
• A mission museum kept as it was - ethnographic material and a preserved display style.
• A large taxidermy collection - old cases of mounted animals, a vanishing museum type.
• A Kulturkampf foundation - established here because it could not be done in Germany.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Good to know

The museum's presentation is nineteenth-century and its ethnographic collecting reflects the missionary context, which is not neutral. Communities live here and quiet is expected. Limited opening hours.

Nearby

Venlo is north; the German border is a few kilometres east.

Key facts