Roede, Anna, -1578

Anna Roede was born likely in the last decade of the 15th century to a bourgeois family in Münster that had connections to Kloster Herzebrock. Her nephew, Johannes, became abbot of Liesborn Monastery in 1582. Anna entered Kloster Herzebrock before 1516, and around 1520 she took over the scribal office of rent clerk until around 1560. She died in 1578, and the convent held her memorial service on September 15. After Kloster Herzebrock joined the Bursfeld Congregation in 1467, there was a need to document its history and privileges. Without older histories to draw on, Anna Roede wrote two chronicles of the monastery using oral tradition and written legal documents. Although she knew Latin, she wrote in the German language so that her fellow sisters might have access to the chronicles. Anna also created a special cartulary for Herzebrock that was used in the disputes between the Bishop of Osnabrück and Count Konrad von Tecklenburg over the sovereignty of the region. She copied the tax registers, the 82 documents from the cartulary of Johann von Hamm, Ertwin Ertman's chronicle of Osnabrück bishops, and letters from the Reformation period.