Christianization of Lower Austria
The Christianization of Lower Austria took place from the west and was operated by the Diocese of Passau .
Historical background
Noricum was born in 15 BC. To the Roman province. After the retreat of the Romans around 450 AD, the Avars and Slavs first settled the Danube region, until Charlemagne conquered the area around 800 and incorporated it into his empire as Marcha orientalis . Towards the end of the century the Magyars invaded and defeated the East Franconian army in the Battle of Pressburg in 907 , with which they also took over the country. It was not until the battle of the Lechfeld in 955 that the Magyars were pushed back and the land was finally taken from the Bavarians . With the dwindling danger from the east, settlements spread along the traffic routes and along the Danube .
Beginnings
Christianity first came to what is now Lower Austria with Roman soldiers and traders. Outstanding are Florian von Lorch , who worked as head of the law firm in Aelium Cetium , and Severin von Noricum , who lived in the Danube region and whose deeds are reported in the Vita Sancti Severini . From this time, places of sacrifice and cemeteries have been preserved, as were common in early Christianity .
Original parishes
There are hardly any original sources about the Christianization between 800 and 900 AD for Lower Austria, because fiefs were awarded without a written contract, which means that one adheres to traditions and artefacts . With the conquest, the land became part of the Diocese of Passau and the monasteries in it, such as the Niederaltaich monastery , the Niedernburg monastery or the Altötting collegiate monastery took over the missionary work. During this time parishes were established either on the royal estate or on the grounds of the monasteries. The thus in St. Valentin , St. Pölten , St. Andrä , St. Agatha in Hausleiten and St. Michael in der Wachau , St. Martin in Stollhofen (Traismauer municipality) , St. Martin am Ybbsfelde , Rust im Tullnerfeld , Neidling , Parishes established in Spitz , Wilhelmsburg , Hadersdorf am Kamp , Absdorf , Mautern an der Donau and Aschbach can be regarded as the oldest parishes and as the original parishes of Lower Austria. It is characteristic that many places have a Saint in their name, which indicates a settlement around an eponymous church.
During this time the remnants of the Avar population were forcibly Christianized.
Buildings testify to the spread of Christianity several times without written sources. An octagon was built in Wieselburg , the St. Othmar in Mödling goes back to Carolingian times, the parish church Bad Fischau-Brunn already existed in the 9th century.
Steinakirchen am Forst was repopulated by Bishop Wolfgang von Regensburg , according to a certificate from Emperor Otto II dated October 14, 979. Another documentary mention was made in 996 when Otto III. gave 950 hectares of land in Neuhofen an der Ybbs to the Bishop of Freising .
St. Valentine
The place named after Saint Valentin on the border with Upper Austria was already settled by Bavaria in the 6th century. After the Avars raged here around 700, St. Valentin was again one of the first places to be recaptured. The church and place are mentioned for the first time in the year 1050 in the deed of foundation of the Erla monastery , but the first church is likely to have been built in late Roman times, as Roman gravestones are walled up in the outer walls.
St. Polten
The Roman Aelium Cetium was abandoned and evacuated around 450 AD. The beginnings of today's St. Pölten Abbey go back to around 790, when the Tegernsee Monastery founded a subsidiary here and they also brought the eponymous Hippolyte relics to St. Pölten. From 828 the monastery was owned by the Diocese of Passau and the missionary activity extended into the Great Moravian Empire , as the church on Pöltenberg in Znojmo suggests.
St. Agatha in Hausleiten
The year of foundation is not exactly documented, but coincides with the missionary work of Bavarian monks around 900. The reference to Saint Agathe also refers to Bavaria. The somewhat secluded place Hausleiten does not appear in documents until the beginning of the 14th century. The parishes of Schöngrabern, Hollabrunn, Göllersdorf and Sierndorf were founded by St. Agatha. The lost places St. Michael and Kirchheim still existed south of it.
St. Michael in the Wachau
At the site of the fortified church in St. Michael there used to be a Celtic sacrificial site. Charlemagne had a small place of worship built around 800, which developed into a parish. The first written mention dates back to 987.
St. Martin in Stollhofen
The Martinskirche and St. Ruprecht in neighboring Traismauer may have their roots in late Roman times.
St. Martin am Ybbsfelde
The church of St. Martin was first mentioned in 1147, but it is also likely to be much older.
Envious
A church in the Neidlinger municipality is mentioned for the year 828.
Wilhelmsburg
Settlement is suspected before 850, when a Franconian nobleman named Wilhelm founded a castle here. The first church was built in the 10th century, and the city was first mentioned in 1083 under the name Willehalmspurch .
Absdorf
Absdorf was first mentioned in a document in 864, when the German King Ludwig the Pious donated the land on the Schmida to Niederaltaich Abbey . In 1011 King Heinrich renewed the donation. The church consecrated to Saint Mauritius , a farm yard and a mill "am Abtsperg" are documented.
Mautern on the Danube
King Arnolf of Carinthia donated the area around Mautern, already known from Saint Severin, to Kremsmünster Abbey in 893 , which established a parish between 1045 and 1065
Aschbach
Aschbach was first mentioned as asbahe in 823 .
Mother parishes
After the reconquest, the country was finally settled from Bavaria and the diocese of Passau was active again. In 1014, Emperor Heinrich II gave five goods to the diocese under Berengar von Passau , which included the mother parishes of St. Stephan in Krems , St. Stephan in Herzogenburg , St. Stephan in Tulln , St. Stephan in Kirchberg am Wagram and St. Stephan in Stockerau , all of which were consecrated to Saint Stephen and thus establish a connection to Passau Cathedral . A church and a priest's house were built, together with an estate with a royal hoof of land, from which the clergy were supported. The places Sigemaresweret named in the documents can be identified with Altenwörth south of Kirchberg and otcinesseuue as an abandoned place south of Stockerau; here the churches were relocated to flood-proof areas after a few years.
Shortly afterwards, many other parishes with St. Stephen's consecrated churches emerged from Passau, such as the Weistrach , Stephanshart , Amstetten , Petzenkirchen , Melk , Hürm , Zwentendorf , Mautern and Weiten parishes , creating a closely connected network on both sides of the Danube duration. The only foundation in Passau that deviated from this scheme was the Gaubitsch - Krut parish in the middle of the 11th century.
Around 1050 further mother parishes were founded, which appear as Babenberg own parishes , but which do not represent Babenberg foundations, but lie on pre-Babenberg possessions. The first written mention of these prairies took place in September 1135 in a document in which Margrave Leopold III. the saint renounced the tithe in the district of 13 Babenberg's own parishes in favor of the diocesan bishop of Passau . These are the 13 large parishes of Meisling , Gars-Eggenburg , Altpölla , Weitersfeld , Pulkau , Eggendorf im Thale , Falkenstein , Mistelbach , Oberleis , Großrußbach , Niederhollabrunn , Klosterneuburg and Alland , some of which are dedicated to St. Stephan.
Margrave Leopold III. In 1113 donated the areas of Ravelsbach , Wullersdorf , Weikendorf , Mödling and Traiskirchen to Melk Abbey , which, if not available, also founded parishes there. These areas were also part of the pre-Babenberg family and the Babenberg family. This also applies to the parishes in the former Hungarian Mark , namely the parishes Drösing , Stillfried , Hainburg and Unterwaltersdorf , as well as later to the parishes in Vienna , Mannswörth , Stadlau and Pillichsdorf , which fell to the bishop. Likewise, the parishes of Probstdorf , Leobendorf , Pottenstein and Horn - Neukirchen were founded as free-owned foundations and in the Pittner Mark parishes were created in Neunkirchen , Pitten , Fischau and Lanzenkirchen .
There are no documents about the foundation of many of the above-mentioned parishes, which is why it is generally assumed that they were founded around 1050. Occasionally, the date can be narrowed down using the church consecration, for example the parish church Eggendorf in the valley of the Holy Afra , which was canonized in 1064 .
Meisling
The first parish in Meisling was already deserted in the middle of the 11th century and was rebuilt in 1111 and incorporated into Lilienfeld Abbey.
Monasteries
The oldest monastery in Lower Austria is the Hippolytus monastery in St. Pölten, which, according to legend, was founded in 791 by the brothers Adalbert and Ottokar from the Tegernsee monastery . In this year the Avar campaign of Charlemagne began . The monastery, which was abandoned in 1784, is today the bishopric.
Göttweig Abbey was founded in 1083 by Bishop Altmann von Passau and Melk Abbey in 1089 by Leopold II and in 1094 the Gloggnitz Abbey , which was dissolved in 1803, was founded. All of these monasteries are or were Benedictine monasteries .
literature
- Heide Dienst : Lower Austrian parishes in the field of tension between bishop and margrave after the end of the investiture controversy , in: Mitteilungen des Österreichisches Staatsarchiv 34, Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1981, pages 1-44
- Helmuth Feigl : The development of the parish network in Lower Austria. , Wissenschaftliche Schriftenreihe Niederösterreich 79, St. Pölten 1985 ISBN 3-85326-557-X
- Josef Vodka: Church in Austria. Guide through their history. Herder publishing house, Vienna 1959
- Rudolf Leeb , Maximilian Liebmann , Georg Scheibelreiter , Peter Tropper : History of Christianity in Austria. From late antiquity to the present. Vienna 2003.
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Zotti : Church art in St. Pölten . 1979.
- ↑ Certificate No. 229 in: Harry Bresslau , Hermann Bloch , R. Holtzmann u. a. (Ed.): Diplomata 14: The documents of Heinrich II. And Arduins (Heinrici II. Et Arduini Diplomata). Hanover 1900–1903, pp. 264–265 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )