St. Ulrich and Afra Monastery (Augsburg)

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Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor with haloes (1400-1806) .svg
Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Reichsstift St. Ulrich and Afra
coat of arms
Coat of arms Reichsstift St. Ulrich and Afra Augsburg.png


Alternative names Imperial Abbey
Arose from Hochstift Augsburg
Form of rule Corporate state
Ruler / government Reich Abbot
Today's region / s DE-BY
Parliament In the Imperial Council represented by Rhenish prelate Empire College
Reichskreis Swabian Empire
Capitals / residences augsburg
Denomination / Religions Roman Catholic
Language / n German , Latin


Incorporated into Electorate of Bavaria


Collegiate Church and Abbey, illustration from the Seld Plan of 1521
Benedictine Abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra Illustration from 1627
Ortisei and the former monastery buildings converted into barracks, around 1900
Ortisei and Ulrichsviertel, behind the church there has been a conference hotel in place of the monastery since 1975

The monastery Sankt Ulrich und Afra was an imperial abbey of the Benedictine order in the southern old town of Augsburg in Bavaria on the site of today's house Sankt Ulrich.

history

From the monastery to the imperial abbey

A collegiate monastery of St. Afra was converted into a Benedictine monastery between 1006 and 1012 (according to monastery tradition 1012) under Bishop Brun , brother of Emperor Heinrich II. , Which was newly occupied by Benedictines from Tegernsee . The canons went to the cathedral church . In 1323 the later Emperor Ludwig IV took the monastery under protection. Today's abbey church , begun in 1474, was declared an “imperial church” in 1500 when the foundation stone of the choir was laid by Emperor Maximilian I. Despite papal and imperial privileges, the monastery was unable to free itself from episcopal dependency until the end of the Middle Ages.

The monastery became famous for its extensive library. This is how chronicles, lives of saints and musical notices were written in the writing rooms. Shortly before its dissolution, the abbey had 689 manuscripts and 1,000 early prints. Most of the works have survived to this day. The Melk reform in the 15th century brought the monastery to a second boom and was at times one of the most important monasteries in southern Germany. The monastery also played a formative role in the development of calligraphy and typography : With the start of book printing, Günther Zainer became the first printer of the incunable period in Augsburg in 1468 . He was in charge of the monastery printing house and created printed books of high quality and beauty based on medieval manuscripts. The scribe and subprior Leonhard Wagner was the most important calligrapher of the German Renaissance, he also developed his own fonts.

During the Reformation , when the Catholic mass was banned in Augsburg in 1537, the majority of the Benedictines decided to go into denominational exile in Unterwittelsbach . After his return in 1548, a struggle for secular independence from the monastery of Augsburg began under Abbot Jakob Köplin . In 1577 the monastery finally achieved the status of a free imperial abbey . Even after acquiring imperial immediacy , the monastery was only considered an inmate in Swabia. The high court reserved the Margraviate of Burgau . A dispute over the imperial estate was waged with the bishopric of Augsburg and was not finally recognized by the bishop and emperor until 1643/44. Although not in the Reichsmatrikel recorded, St. Ulrich and Afra was in Swabian Circle used for provision of soldiers.

secularization

The monastery was dissolved in 1802 in the course of secularization . Soldiers of the Bavarian infantry occupied the imperial abbey as early as September 1802. In order to at least ensure the continued existence of his convent , the last imperial abbot Gregor Schäffler asked the electorate of Bavaria on October 20, 1802 to convert it into a local monastery . When the Electorate of Bavaria renounced the area, the sovereignty passed to the imperial city of Augsburg. The monks remained in the abolished monastery until 1805. Ownership was then divided between the city and the state. The abbey church became the city ​​parish church in 1810 .

In 1805 a military hospital and a barracks for the cavalry were set up under the name Ulrichskaserne in the monastery complex. A new Benedictine community in Augsburg was founded in 1835 as St. Stephen's Abbey . The barracks lasted until the Second World War , when large parts of the city were destroyed in an air raid in February 1944 . After the rubble was not cleared until 1968–1971, the Sankt Ulrich conference hotel of the Diocese of Augsburg has stood here since 1975.

territory

At times the monastery owned more than 300 settlements. Since the 15th century these were divided into Bauding districts, such as Bonstetten , Reinhartshofen , Häder and Erkhausen . Other possessions included the Dasing and Unterliezheim court brands and the Finningen rule . For Unterliezheim, which was under Palatinate-Neuburg regional sovereignty, the Abbot of Ortisei and Afra was Palatinate-Neuburg land. Due to high debts, the monastery lost a large part of its property between 1755 and 1788. In 1802 St. Ulrich and Afra owned 100 houses, gardens, meadows, Änger, mills and the upper Lech bridge including customs house in and around Augsburg.

List of former possessions

Coat of arms related to the pen

  • Bonstetten

  • Haders

  • Haunstetten

  • Kissing

  • Merching

  • Reinhartshofen

  • Scherstetten

List of Abbots

→ Main article: List of Abbots of St. Ulrich and Afra (Augsburg)

literature

  • Michael Hartig: The Benedictine monastery of Sankt Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg (1012–1802) , Augsburg 1923.
  • J. Hemmerle: The Benedictine monasteries in Bavaria (= Germania Benedictina , Bd. 2), Ottobeuren 1970, pp. 45-50.
  • Norbert Hörberg: Libri sanctae Afrae. Ortisei and Afra in the 11th and 12th centuries. Studies on the history of the Augsburg Benedictine monastery with special consideration of the library traditions , Göttingen 1981.
  • Wilhelm Liebhart: The imperial abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg. Studies on possession and rule (1006–1803), Munich 1982.
  • Wilhelm Liebhart: The Reichsstifte - St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg in: Kraus, Andreas (Hrsg.): History of Swabia up to the end of the 18th century; 3rd edition, Munich 2001, pp. 320-325, in: Spindler, Max (founder): Handbook of Bavarian History, Volume III, Part 2
  • Rolf Schmid: Reichenau and St. Gallen. Their literary tradition at the time of monastery humanism in St. Ulrich and Afra zu Augsburg around 1500 (= Konstanz Working Group for Medieval History : Lectures and Research , Special Volume 33 ISSN  0933-4467 ), Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1985, ISBN 3-7995-6693-7 (Dissertation University of Augsburg 1982, 211 pages full text online PDF, free of charge, 211 pages, 124 MB)
  • Manfred Weitlauff (Ed.): Benedictine Abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg (1012–2012). History, art, economy and culture of a former imperial abbey. Commemorative publication for the millennium. I. Text volume (= yearbook of the Association for the History of the Augsburg Diocese , Volume 45), Augsburg 2011, DNB 1021065684 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Kloster Sankt Ulrich und Afra (Augsburg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 21 ′ 41 ″  N , 10 ° 54 ′ 1.4 ″  E

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Building history - Catholic parish of St. Ulrich and Afra, 86150 Augsburg. Retrieved December 28, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Alois Knoller: A monastery through 1000 years. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  3. ^ Augsburg, Benedictine monastery St. Ulrich and Afra | MRFH 165.Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  4. ^ Pötzl, Walter (Ed.): The district of Augsburg, Volume 3, rule and politics. From the early Middle Ages to territorial reform; Augsburg 2003, p. 195
  5. ^ House of Bavarian History - Monasteries in Bavaria. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  6. ^ All lexicon articles. Retrieved December 28, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Wilhelm Liebhart: ¬Die¬ Reichsabtei Sankt Ulrich and Afra at Augsburg (=  [Historical Atlas of Bavaria / Swabia part / 2] ). 1982, ISBN 978-3-7696-9931-9 ( bib-bvb.de [accessed December 28, 2018]).