Murbach Monastery

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St. Leodegar Church Murbach
Neo-Gothic statue of Pirmin near Murbach Monastery
Late Gothic grave of Count Eberhard inside the church
Murbach monastery garden

Murbach Abbey was a formerly famous Benedictine abbey in southern Alsace in a valley at the foot of the Großer Belchen (French Grand Ballon ) in the Vosges . Murbach is located in the Haut-Rhin department in eastern France .

The abbey in the municipality of Murbach , near the Alsatian municipality of Guebwiller (Eng. Gebweiler), was founded in 727 by St. Pirminius . Their area formerly comprised three cities and 30 villages. The buildings, including the monastery church, one of the earliest domed Romanesque structures, were devastated by insurgent peasants in 1789 , and the abbey was subsequently closed.

Of the Romanesque abbey church, the St. Leodegar Church, only the transept with its two towers and the eastern part with the choir that has just ended are preserved. There is now a cemetery where the nave used to stand .

history

The abbey was founded by Count Eberhard, brother of Duke Liutfrid , from the Etichonen tribe . In 727 he entrusted Bishop Pirmin of the Reichenau Monastery in Lake Constance with establishing a monastery community. Pirmin introduced the rule of St. Benedict in the Vivarius Peregrinorum monastery ( Latin for the wandering monks' refuge) .

According to the founding legend handed down to us by the chroniclers of the Murbacher Annalen, the first Scottish monks settled in the village of Bergholtz - Zell, but since they could not find the necessary quiet there, they went further up into the valley, above Buhl, at the entrance of the little valley of Murbach, at the place of the Weihermatt. This place was then called Vivarium Peregrinorum (pilgrims' pond). The term can possibly be seen from the context of the writings of Cassiodorus , who founded the Monasterium Vivariense of the same name in Italy in the 6th century . As if he wanted to confirm this to us, the Murbach library catalog lists a few books by Cassiodorus.

Count Eberhard furnished the monastery richly and granted it extensive privileges, including the free choice of the abbot. The monastery had to be committed to its privileges on a regular basis; it was directly subordinate to the Pope and the Emperor - after 1680 the French King . Murbach was placed under the patronage of St. Leodegar (French: Saint Léger ), who had also introduced the Benedictine rule in Burgundy in the 7th century . The monastery played an important political role; thus Charlemagne appointed himself secular abbot of the monastery ( Pastor Murbacencis ) in the years 782 to 783 . Around the year 850 Murbach was one of the intellectual centers on the Upper Rhine, at that time the library comprised around 340 theological , grammatical and historical works . As from St. Gallen , Reichenau or Lorsch , an extensive library catalog from the 9th century has been handed down from this monastery, even if not in the original. The Murbach library catalog from the 9th century has only survived in one copy, dated from 1464. This copy is now in Colmar .

At the same time the worldly goods of the abbey increased thanks to many donations. Murbach owned real estate and rights in approximately 350 localities. Most were in Alsace, in the dioceses of Strasbourg and Basel . There were also properties on the right bank of the Rhine and even in the Black Forest . For example, in 805 the Alemannic nobles Egilmar, Focholt, Wanbrecht and Nothicho donated their property and a church in today's Grißheim ( villa Cressheim in pago Brisachgaginse ) to the monastery. In addition, the abbey acquired the Lucerne area in Switzerland . The monastery also owned a number of goods in the Palatinate , in the area of Worms and Mainz .

This first period of prosperity ended in 936 when the Hungarians invaded Alsace. The monastery recovered by the 13th century and again played an important role in Alsatian and Upper Rhine history. The city of Lucerne was founded from Murbach in 1178 .

The Murbach monastery played a decisive role for the up-and-coming Habsburg dynasty , not least because they had received extensive fiefs from the monastery as bailiffs of Murbach. These included the bailiwick of the Lucerne monastery , the courtyards in Pratteln , Augst , Möhlin , Schupfart , Wittnau and Gipf in Aargau , as well as the Murbach estates in Breisgau , including the courtyards in Bellingen , Bamlach , Schopfheim and Rötteln Castle .

In the 14th century, the monastery gradually lost its influence. 1543 united Pope Paul III. Murbach with the monastery cell in Lure (Haute-Saône) , then still called Lüders (or Luders ). In 1544, Emperor Charles V gave the abbey the right to mint the silver obtained on its property; the mint was in Guebwiller (Gebweiler). In 1548 Emperor Ferdinand I granted the abbey the rank of prince abbey with a seat and vote in the Reichstag . From 1680 to 1789 the monastery got caught in the tension between the French king and the empire. The prince abbot Kasimir Friedrich von Rathsamhausen (Léger von Rathsamhausen) gave up the Benedictine rule around 1759 and converted the monastery into a noble knighthood. He moved the headquarters of the abbey to Guebwiller. In 1789, the French Revolution and rebellious peasants ended the history of the abbey four years after Rathsamhausen's death.

Coat of arms of the Murbach monastery

Murbach COA.jpg

The coat of arms shows a jumping black dog on a white shield and a miter as a crest. The poet Lienhart Ott said of the coat of arms in 1525:

"The Muorbach Abbey has a black dog that has already bitten"

List of the abbots of the Murbach monastery

  • Pirminius 727 (founder)
  • Romanus 727-751
  • Baldebert 751-762
  • Herbert 762-774
  • Amicho 774-786
  • Simpert , Bishop of Augsburg 786–792
  • Charlemagne , lay abbot 792–793
  • Agilmar (Intermegilmer) 793
  • Geroch , Bishop of Eichstätt, 793–808 (?)
  • Guntram, certified 811
  • Sigismar (Sigismundus), authenticated 829
  • Iskar (Isker), certified 870
  • Friedrich, authenticated in 876
  • Nandbert, certified 910
  • Abbey vacant from 926–959
  • Landeloh 959-977?
  • Beringer 977-988?
  • Helmerich 988−?
  • Werner? -994
  • Degenhard certified 1012-1025
  • Eberhard 1026–? (Reclining figure in the abbey church)
  • Wolfrad, certified 1049
  • Ulrich von Lorsch , 1073-1075
  • Samuel von Weissemburg 1080-1097
  • Erlolf von Bergholtz, Abbot of Fulda,? -1122
  • Bertolf 1122-1149
  • Egilolf von Erlach 1150–1162
  • Konrad von Eschenbach authenticated from 1173 to 1186
  • Widerolph 1187-1188
  • Simbert II? -1149
  • 1194-31. March 1216 Arnold von Frohburg
  • Hugo von Rothenburg , builder of Hugstein Castle from 1216–1236
  • Albrecht von Frohburg, administrator 1237–1244
  • Theobald von Faucolgney, 1244-1260
  • Berthold von Steinbronn, 1260–1285
  • Berchtold von Falkenstein 1286–1299
  • Albrecht von Liebenstein, 1299–1303
  • Konrad von Widergrün from Stauffenberg 1305–1334
  • Konrad Wernher von Murhard, 1334–1343
  • Heinrich von Schauenburg 1343–1353
  • Johann Schultheiss 1354-1376
  • Wilhelm Stoer von Stoerenburg 1377-1387
  • Rudolf von Wattweiler 1387-1393
  • Wilhelm von Wasselnheim (Wasselonne) 1393–1428
  • Peter von Ostein 1428-1434
  • Dietrich von Hus 1434–1447
  • Bartholomäus von Andlau 1447–1476
  • Achatius von Griessen 1476–1489
  • Walter Mönch von Wilsberg 1489–1513
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literature

  • Philippe Legin: The abbey church of Murbach in Upper Alsace . Colmar, Editions SAEP Ingersheim 1980.
  • Otto Feld: On the building history of the Murbach monastery church. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 24, 1961, pp. 242–249.
  • Barth, Médard, From the liturgical life of Murbach Abbey. Calendars and litanies of saints (11th – 15th centuries), in: Freiburger Diözesanarchiv 73 (1953), pp. 59–87

Web links

Commons : Murbach Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philippe Legin: The abbey church of Murbach in Upper Alsace . Colmar, Editions SAEP Ingersheim 1980, p. 7.
  2. ↑ See the discussion page
  3. ^ Wolfgang Milde, The library catalog of the Murbach monastery from the 9th century. Issue and relations with Cassidor's "Institutiones". In: Supplements to the EUPHORION magazine for the history of literature Werner Gruenter and Artur Henkel (eds.), 4th issue, 1968, p. 44.
  4. ^ Wolfgang Milde , The library catalog of the Murbach monastery from the 9th century. Issue and relations with Cassidor's "Institutiones". In: Supplements to the EUPHORION magazine for the history of literature Werner Gruenter and Artur Henkel (eds.), 4th issue, 1968.
  5. ↑ Aloys Schulte : History of the Habsburgs in the first three centuries . Innsbruck, 1887, p. 89 ( digitized in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ For the spelling of Luders see: Topographia Alsatiae: Luders
  7. ↑ a b Arthur Engel; Ernest Lehr: Numismatique de l'Alsace . Paris, Leroux, 1887, pp. 130-138.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Friedrich von Mülinen: The Oberaargau. Contributions to the local history of the canton of Bern, Deutsche Theils, issue 5, Verlag von Nydegger & Baumgart, Bern, 1890, p. 80.
  9. ^ Ambros Kocher: Solothurn document book . First volume 762-1245. State Chancellery of the Canton of Solothurn, Solothurn 1952, family table 4: Counts of Fro [h] burg. Swabia . In: Detlev Schwennicke (Hrsg.): European family tables , family tables on the history of European states . New episode. tape  XII . Verlag von JA Stargardt, Marburg 1992, plate 113: The counts of Fro [h] burg 1110-1367, and the counts of Homberg.
  10. ^ Xavier Mossmann: Cartulaire de Mulhouse, Volume 1, p. 3.
  11. ^ Ambros Kocher: Solothurn document book. First volume 762–1245, State Chancellery of the Canton of Solothurn, Solothurn, 1952. Family table 2.
  12. ↑ Historisches Museum Basel: Georg von Massmünster's coat of arms. In: Georg von Massmünster's coat of arms. Historisches Museum Basel, accessed on February 9, 2018 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 55 ′ 24 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 29 ″  E