Key ring "Companion

Winding, stamping, hardening and nickel plating are the four work steps that go into this key ring. It’s produced in a specialized shop using a design by Friar Pater Abraham from Königsmünster Abbey. The message embossed on the ring is a blessing: "Der Herr segne dich. Er behüte dich auf all deinen Wegen." ("May the Lord bless you and protect you on your way".) The purpose of the ring is equally clear, namely to provide a beautifully worked, discrete companion.

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.