Weissenburg Abbey (Alsace)

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Peter & Paul Collegiate Church in Wissembourg, part of the former monastery

Weissenburg Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey (1524–1789: Kollegiatstift ) founded in the 7th century in Weißenburg ( French : Wissembourg ) in Alsace in what is now France .

history

In modern history, the Weißenburg monastery is considered to have been founded by the Speyer bishop Dragobodo , as indicated by a traditional note from the year 661.

Through donations from the nobility and local landowners, the monastery acquired property and lands in Alsace , the Palatinate and in the Ufgau on the right bank of the Rhine . Lords and servants' farms were established and systematic agriculture was introduced to obtain fertile arable land.

Weißenburg developed into one of the richest and most culturally important monasteries in the Franconian Empire and later the Carolingian Empire . Already in 682 it was able to buy saline shares in Vic-sur-Seille for the high sum of 500 Solidi , in 760 it received the Mundat Forest, among other things .

The Gospel Book, which the Weißenburg monk Otfrid von Weißenburg created around 860, is an early testimony to the German language and literature . At that time the monastery was subordinate to the abbot Grimald von Weißenburg , an eminent personality of the imperial church at that time; he was also abbot of the St. Gallen monastery and chancellor of King Ludwig the German .

The monastery experienced a significant loss of possessions when in 985 the Salian Duke Otto appropriated a total of 68 places belonging to the monastery (" Salian church robbery ").

Around 1100 it was important for the Weissenburg Monastery, which had now become rich, to distance itself from the Bishop of Speyer and his influence. For this purpose, a different tradition was constructed about the origins of one's own monastery and they did not hesitate to represent this by means of forged documents (although it must be noted that forgery of documents was not unusual in the Middle Ages). In the case of Weißenburg, the Merovingian king Dagobert I was invoked , who is said to have founded the monastery in 623.

Especially the transition from the self-management of monastic property for the award as a fief drew the loss of most possessions for themselves, as the vassals over time their feud as allod , as free property, considered. As a result, the once extensive monastery property gradually evaporated. In the 16th century the once thousands of monastery's farms still exactly three yards (Steinfeld, were Schweighofen and Koppelhof ) and the tithe in White Castle and Bergzabern with an annual income of 1,500 florins left.

Already at the time of the decline, the abbot Edelin , who ruled from 1262–1293, tried to stop the loss of the monastery property by recording the monastery property and to regain lost property. This directory, called Liber Edelini or Liber Possessionum , is currently kept in the Speyer State Archives. In 1524, at the insistence of the last abbot, Rüdiger Fischer, the completely impoverished monastery was converted into a secular collegiate monastery, which was merged with the Speyer monastery in 1546 .

The prince provost of Weißenburg had a virile vote in the Reichstag in the Imperial Council of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . In the course of the French Revolution , the monastery was dissolved in 1789.

Part of the library ended up in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel in the 17th century , and the monastery archives largely perished in the turmoil of the revolutionary era.

territory

In 1764, the secular state of the prince of Weißenburg had the following positions and components (today's spelling):

  1. The provost office with a court master, provost council, secretaries, builders and messengers
  2. the relay court in Weißenburg with nine officials
  3. the Fauthei Schlettenbach with four officials and with the places Bobenthal , Bundenthal , Bärenbach , Finsternheim and Erlenbach
  4. the Propsteigericht in the Zweibrückischen Amt Kleeburg with three officials
  5. the offices of Altenstadt and St. Remig with eleven officials and the towns of Großsteinfeld , Kleinsteinfeld , Kapsweyer , St. Remig, Schweighofen , Schleithal and Oberseebach
  6. the Schaffnerei zu Hagenau with two officials for the monastery at St. Walbourg
  7. the mayor's workshop in Uhlweiler near Hagenau

Towards the end of the 18th century, the territory of the Weißenburg Propstei comprised about 28 square miles with 50,000 inhabitants.

List of the abbots of Weißenburg

In his monastery chronicle, first published in 1551, the theologian and historian Kaspar Brusch also passed on a list of abbots for the Weißenburg monastery, which is of course partly fictitious (at least for the abbots supposedly reigning before Dragobodo - compare the telling name "Principius" of the supposed 1st abbot) . Brusch himself points this out (“Nihil enim de his Abbatibus primis aliud scriptum reperi, quorum seriem etiam ac successionem aliquid erroris habere non dubito”. As a source for the abbots before Adalbertus (no. 23) he gives information that he dated received at the time Bishop of Speyer).

Benedictine monument at the collegiate church St. Peter & Paul in Wissembourg
  • Principius
  • Cheodonius
  • Radefridus
  • Ehrwaldus
  • Instulphus
  • Astrammus
  • Gerbertus
  • Ehrimbertus
  • Dragobodo (also Bishop of Speyer)
  • Charialdus
  • Bernhardus (or Wernharius; later Bishop of Worms)
  • David
  • Wielandus
  • Grimald , (around 825-839)
  • Odgerus (or Odogarius, 839–847, also Archbishop of Mainz)
  • Grimald , (847–872, for the second time)
  • Volcoldus
  • Smell
  • Voltwicus
  • Mimoldus
  • Adelhardus
  • Gerrichus
  • Ercarmius
  • Adalbertus (abbot since 966, archbishop of Magdeburg in 968, died there in 981)
  • Sanderadus (970 to 985. His term of office apparently ended violently in connection with the so-called Salian church robbery)
  • Gisillarius (985 to 989)
  • Gerrichus (989 to 1001)
  • Sigebodo (1001 to 1002)
  • Luithardus (1002 to 1032. During his tenure, in 1004, the monastery burned down)
  • Volmar (1032 to 1043)
  • Arnoldus (1043 to 1055, since 1051 also Bishop of Speyer)
  • Samuel (1055 to 1097; cf. "New German Biography", vol. 22, p. 411.)
  • Stephen
  • Menigandus
  • Ulrich
  • Werinharus
  • Ernestus
  • Benedictus
  • Engiscalus
  • Gundelacus (or Gundericus)
  • Godefridus
  • Walramus (or Wolframus; 1197 to 1224)
  • Chuno (1222 to 1248)
  • Conradus (1248 to 1251)
  • Friedricus (1251 to 1262)
  • Edelinus (1263 to 1293)
  • Wilhelmus (1293 to 1301)
  • Egidius (1301 to 1312)
  • Bartholomaeus (1312 to 1316)
  • Wilhelmus (1316 to 1322)
  • Johannes (1322 to 1337)
  • Eberhardus (1337 to 1381)
  • Hugo (1381 to 1402)
  • Johann II. Von Veldenz (1402 to 1434; participant in the Council of Constance )
  • Philipp Schenk von Erbach (1434 to 1467), brother of the Archbishop of Mainz, Dietrich Schenk von Erbach
  • Jakob von Bruck (1468 to 1472)
  • Henricus (1475 to 1496)
  • Wilhelmus (1496 to 1500)
  • Rudigerus (1500 to 1545; during his tenure, the completely impoverished monastery was converted into a secular collegiate monastery in 1524 , which was merged with the Speyer Monastery in 1546 ).

This ends the line of abbots. The provosts of the collegiate monastery were identical to the bishops of Speyer .

Quote

In 1592, Bernhart Hertzog describes the Weissenburg Monastery in the Edelsasser Chronik in the following words:

"The Closter Weissenburg Sanct Benedicten Order was the most powerful and oldest of the Clöszters in Germany; is paid under the four abbeys of the Roman Empire, was built in Alsace on the mountain Vogeseo in the Reichsstatt Weissenburg by the river called the Lautter, which flows through the middle of the state, in a funny place of the diocese; the ancients called it Witzenburg or the castle of wisdom, meanwhile the Münch always kept such closters in good teaching. "

The name Weißenburg does not originate from the wisdom of the monks, but from the white limestone of the region.

literature

  • Martin Burkart: Durmersheim. The history of the village and its inhabitants. From the beginning to the early 20th century . Self-published, Durmersheim 2002.
  • Christoph Dette (Ed.): Liber Possessionum Wizenburgensis . (Sources and treatises on the history of the Middle Rhine church, vol. 59). Mainz 1987.
  • Anton Doll (Ed.): Traditiones Wizenburgenses. The documents of the Weissenburg monastery. 661-864 . Introduced and from the estate of Karl Glöckner ed. by Anton Doll. Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt 1979.
  • Wilhelm Harster: The property of the Weissenburg monastery . (Program for the annual report of the K. Humanist Gymnasium Speier), 2 volumes. Speyer 1893-1894.
  • Ernst Friedrich Mooyer: Necrology of the Weißenburg monastery, with explanations and additions . In: Archive of the historical association of Lower Franconia and Aschaffenburg 13 (1855), pp. 1–67.
  • Wolfgang Schultz: The Codex Berwartstein of the Weissenburg monastery in Alsace. (1319) 1343-1489 . Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 2008, ISBN 978-3-9810865-5-3 (with edition).
  • J. Rheinwald: L'abbaye et la ville de Wissembourg. Avec quelques châteaux-forts de la basse Alsace et du Palatinat. Monograph historique . Wentzel, Wissembourg 1863 (reprint: Res Universis, Paris 1992).
  • Johann Caspar Zeuss (ed.): Traditiones possessionesque Wizenburgenses. Codices duo cum supplementis; impensis societatis historicae Palatinae . Speyer, 1842.

Web links

Commons : Weissenburg Abbey  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eugen Ewig : The space between Selz and Andernach from the 5th to 7th century. In: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Current problems from a historical and archaeological point of view. Sigmaringen 1979 p. 293
  2. ↑ Michael Frey : Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal. bayer. Rheinkreises , Volume 2, Speyer: F. C. Neidhard, 1836, p. 158 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ Kaspar Brusch : Chronologia monasteriorum Gemaniae praecipuorum , Sulzbach 1681

Coordinates: 49 ° 2 ′ 13 ″  N , 7 ° 56 ′ 32 ″  E