Bertha (Fraumünster)

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Bertha (* between 833 and 839 ; † March 26, 877 in Zurich ) was the youngest of four daughters of Ludwig the German and the second abbess of the Fraumünster monastery . She was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Charlemagne and granddaughter of Louis the Pious .

Berta, Hildegard and the stag with the shining antlers , fresco by Paul Bodmer in the cloister of the Fraumünster.

Live and act

Bertha's sister Hildegard was abbess in the women's monastery Münsterschwarzach am Main from 841 to 853 . A legend tells from the year 853 that she and Bertha lived in Baldern Castle on the Albis so that the two of them could devote themselves entirely to God in isolation from the world. When they were hiking to Zurich one day to pray in the chapel of Saints Felix and Regula , they met a deer with shining antlers in the forest and showed them a place where a church was to be built. Her father Ludwig the German obeyed this divine mandate. The only thing that is historically certain is that on July 21, 853, he re-founded a monastery that already existed at this location under the name Fraumünster and made Hildegard abbess. Bertha then became abbess in Münsterschwarzach.

Hildegard died in 856 or 859, whereupon Bertha transferred to the Fraumünster Abbey and held the office of abbess there. During her term of office the completion of the abbey church, which was consecrated between 871 and 876 by Bishop Gebhard I of Constance , fell.

In a document dated February 10, 878, Charles III confirmed . that his sister Bertha was abbess of the Säckingen monastery and that his wife Richardis should succeed her.

In 1272 Hildegard and Bertha were reburied in the south transept of the Fraumünster.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philippe-André Grandidier: Histoire de l´eglise et des évêques-princes de Strasbourg . Levrault, Strasbourg 1778. Vol. 2, Appendix, pp. CCLXVI f. Online at Google Books (in the PDF document p. 600 f.)
  2. ↑ Klemens Schaubinger: History of the Säckingen monastery and its founder, St. Fridolin . Verlag K. and N. Benziger, Einsiedeln 1852, pp. 30, 33. Online at Google Books
predecessor Office successor
Hildegard Abbess of Schwarzach am Main
853–857 		( Benedict of Aniane )
Hildegard Abbess of Fraumünster
857–877? 		Richardis
personal data
SURNAME Bertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Abbess of the Fraumünster monastery
DATE OF BIRTH before 839
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 877
Place of death Zurich