Saint Emmeram Monastery

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Coat of arms of the prince-abbey of Sankt Emmeram

The Imperial Monastery of Sankt Emmeram was a Benedictine abbey in Regensburg founded around 739 and existed until secularization in 1803 . As the Imperial Abbey of Sankt Emmeram (from 1731 as the Prince Abbey of Sankt Emmeram ) it was represented in the Bavarian Imperial Circle . The monastery was built on the grave of the Franconian traveling bishop Emmeram von Regensburg, who was venerated as a martyr .

history

Beginnings as an imperial monastery

Cloister of the monastery
Frescoes in the cloister of the monastery

The monastery of Sankt Emmeram emerged from a Georgskirche above an early Christian burial site, which was in the urban settlement area of ​​the Roman Castra Regina . In the 7th century AD, St. Emmeram of Regensburg was buried there. In the 8th century AD a monastery of the order of the Benedictines was built , whose rulers were the bishops of Regensburg in the diocese of Regensburg from 739 to 975 . After 920, the monastery buildings were incorporated into the area of ​​the emerging city through the construction of the Arnulfinian city wall under Duke Arnulf I. In 972 Sankt Emmeram was raised to the status of an imperial monastery and in 975 Ramwold was appointed its first independent abbot.

Almost at the same time as the St. Emmeram Monastery was founded, Duke Tassilo III gave. of Bavaria the monastery land in the Mark Chamb. The Benedictines of Sankt Emmeram supposedly built a cell in Chammünster with the Chammünster monastery as early as 739 as a Christian mission base for the Bohemian border area. The first documentary mention of the Chammünster Monastery, however, dates back to 819. Around the year 910 the cell was probably destroyed by the Hungarians. In 975, as a result of the separation of the bishop's chair and St. Emmeram monastery by Wolfgang von Regensburg, the Chammünster cell was assigned to the bishop.

Starting point for reforms

In the 11th century, Sankt Emmeram was the starting point for the Cluniac reform and the monastery reform of Gorze in the Duchy of Bavaria and in the Nordgau . Bishop Wolfgang von Regensburg and Abbot Ramwold were supporters of this reform movement of the Roman Catholic Church . In 1295 gave King Adolf von Nassau the Abbey , the regalia , which St. Emmeram the Reichsunmittelbarkeit received; In 1326 it obtained the ecclesiastical exemption , which the monastery had unsuccessfully sought in the middle of the 11th century by the dean and head of the monastery school Otloh of St. Emmeram by forging documents from kings Arnolf of Carinthia and Ludwig the child .

During this time the scriptorium of the St. Emmeram Monastery developed into a center of illumination. The sacramentary of Henry II (between 1002 and 1014) and the Uta Codex (shortly after 1002) were created. The importance of the monastery as a cultural center declined in the 16th century when Regensburg became Evangelical-Lutheran in 1555 due to the Augsburg Imperial and Religious Peace , which Ottheinrich of the Palatinate had joined from the Wittelsbach family .

Obtaining the title of prince abbot

After the beginning of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the re-Catholicization in Bavaria, after 1625 in the 17th and 18th centuries an upswing in the importance of Sankt Emmeram under the abbots Frobenius Forster and Cölestin Steiglehner and the Fathers Roman Zirngibl and Placidus Heinrich began which primarily promoted knowledge in the natural sciences. Members of the order of the Benedictines were able to fall back on a long tradition of astronomical research, including the astrolabe of Wilhelm von Hirsau . The academy of the monastery in the now free imperial city of Regensburg developed during this time into a counterpoint to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich.

After the Thirty Years War, in 1658, the Abbot of St. Emmeram took part in the Reichstag with a curate vote from the Rhenish prelates . In 1731 the emperor confirmed the dignity of the prince of the abbot of the now dignified imperial abbey of Sankt Emmeram, which was part of the Bavarian imperial circle. From 1731 to 1733 the redesign of the abbey church of St. Emmeram, which was burned out several times and then rebuilt again and again, was carried out by the brothers Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam in the Baroque style .

After secularization

Overview plan of the entire system

Sankt Emmeram and the monastery area fell to the newly founded Principality of Regensburg in 1802/1803 with the imperial city of Regensburg , the Hochstift Regensburg , the Reichsstift Obermünster and the Reichsstift Niedermünster under the prince Carl Theodor von Dalberg . In 1810 this came to the newly founded Kingdom of Bavaria under the Wittelsbachers through the Paris Treaty . A large part of his art treasures, for example the Arnulf ciborium , and his valuable books (including the Muspilli and the Codex Aureus ) came to Munich . During this secularization , the monastery buildings came to the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis in 1803/1812 , which had inhabited individual parts of the building since 1748. They had the St. Emmeram Monastery converted into the residence of St. Emmeram Castle . The abbey church became the parish church of the city of Regensburg and was given by Pope Paul VI. on March 5, 1964 with the Apostolic Letter Terra sacra raised to the minor basilica .

politics

Abbots of St. Emmeram

Cölestin step-back chair

The list of rulers of St. Emmeram includes 13 bishops of Regensburg , to whom the monastery was also subordinate as “owners” from 739 to 975, 55 and 54 “independent” abbots - including Pabo with two terms of office - in the years 975 to 1725 and from 1725 to 1802 four prince abbots who enjoyed imperial immediacy .

The first ruler as bishop of Regensburg was Gaubald (739–761), the last prince abbot was Celestine II. Steiglehner (1791–1802).

coat of arms

The coat of arms is quartered: 1 split from the Old Kingdom and France, 2 split from silver and red, an upright red palm branch at the front, an upright silver key at the back, and 3 split from red and silver, at the front an upright silver key, at the back upright red palm branch, split in 4 by France and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

There is already a picture of the coat of arms (fields 2 and 3) from 1358. In Johann Siebmacher's coat of arms book from 1605, an eighth coat of arms is shown. This coat of arms was partly used with a central shield on which St. Emmeram is depicted with the ladder. Fields 1 and 4 are likely to be a reproduction of the alleged coat of arms of Charlemagne, which includes the imperial eagle and the "French" lilies .

  • Representation of Charlemagne with the coats of arms of the Empire and France

  • Coat of arms of the Imperial Abbey of Sankt Emmeram

  • From Johann Siebmacher's coat of arms book of 1605: in the middle the coat of arms of the Imperial Abbey of St. Emmeram in Regensburg

  • Bookplate from 1800 with the coat of arms of the prince abbots

  • Coat of arms of the prince-abbey of Sankt Emmeram

Buildings

Profane building

The Schloss St. Emmeram
  • The buildings and the grounds of the monastery were acquired by the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis in 1810 . The monastery buildings were converted and expanded in 1883/88 under Prince Maximilian Maria von Thurn und Taxis by the princely master builder Max Schultze to form the residential palace in its current state, which bears the name Schloss St. Emmeram or Schloss Thurn und Taxis. The structural character of the old imperial abbey and the cloister were preserved during the renovation.

Sacred building

  • The St. Emmeram Church is a three-aisled basilica with a west transept and three choirs on a Romanesque floor plan . It goes back to a first church building, a Georgskirche from the second half of the 8th century. Numerous saints and dignitaries were buried in it, such as B. St. Emmeram and the East Frankish king and Roman emperor Arnulf of Carinthia .
  • The bell tower of St. Emmeram in the style of a free-standing campanile was built from 1575 to 1579 after the previous tower had become dilapidated due to age and several lightning strikes. The six-story tower is considered to be the most important Renaissance building in Regensburg. It is built from exposed green sandstone, stands on a square base of 10.4 square meters and has a total height of 63 m. Its location north of the monastery church was in the middle of the former monastery cemetery when it was built, near the former cemetery church of St. Michael, which had to give way to today's St. Emmeram rectory in 1890. The tower shaft is divided into the rusticated basement, the three-storey middle section and the two-storey bell storey. Cornices divide the tower into six equally high storeys like a storey building. The light is provided on the third floor through one or two double windows and on the upper floor through double arcades arranged in pairs. The crowning of the tower with a domed roof replaced the crown that was lost in a fire in 1642. During extensive renovation work, the last time in 1968 there was significant loss of the original surface of the stones used, so that only the stones of the south facade are preserved in their authentic condition.
  • The St. Rupert Church was the former parish church of the monastery on Emmeramsplatz and bears the name of St. Rupert of Salzburg . It was built in the second half of the 11th century in the Romanesque style and then rebuilt in the style of the respective time.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories and imperial immediate families from the Middle Ages to the present. 6th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44333-8 , pp. 513-514 ( Regensburg, Sankt Emmeram (imperial abbey, prince abbey) ).
  • The traditions of the Regensburg Monastery and the S. Emmeram Monastery. Edited by Josef Widemann (new print Aalen 1969 and 1988), Munich 1943, in: Sources and discussions on Bavarian history, new series 8.
  • Walter Ziegler: The Benedictine monastery of St. Emmeram in Regensburg during the Reformation . In: Thurn and Taxis Studies 6. 1970, p. 3 ff.
  • Christine Rädlinger-Prömper: Sankt Emmeram in Regensburg. Structural and functional change in a Bavarian monastery in the early Middle Ages. In: Thurn and Taxis Studies 16. Kallmünz 1987.
  • Christine Rädlinger-Prömper: St. Emmeram in Regensburg. History - art - monument preservation; Thurn and Taxis Studies 18. Kallmünz 1992.
  • Franz Fuchs : The Reichsstift St. Emmeram. Edited by Peter Schmid. In: History of the City of Regensburg. 2000, pp. 730-744.
  • P. Morsbach, photos A. Bunz: St. Emmeram zu Regensburg. Former Benedictine Abbey Church; Great art guide No. 187.Sch & Steiner, Regensburg 1993.
  • Bischöfliches Ordinariat Regensburg (Ed.): 1803 - The learned monks and the end of a 1000-year tradition; Booklet accompanying the exhibition. Regensburg 2003.
  • Michael Schmidt: The bell tower of St. Emmeram. On the relationship between tradition and retrospective in the 16th century . Working Group Regensburg Autumn Symposium (Ed.), Volume 26, Between Gothic and Baroque, Traces of the Renaissance in Regensburg . Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag 2012, ISBN = 978-3-937527-55-0, pp. 49-89.

Web links

Commons : Kloster Sankt Emmeram  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The list of bishops communicated in the files was very likely used as a model for a scribe from St. Emmeram in Regensburg, who told the story of the consecration of the St. Emmeram monastery church by Pope Formosus in 898 Sept. 24 (8th cal. Oct.) 4 Archbishops and 16 bishops mentioned as participants, including Adalpero von Augsburg ... For Pope Formosus, who had already died in 896 April 4, no stay in Regensburg can be proven. Also the church of the monastery did not burn down during these years, as one of the traditions of this consecration note wants to know ... The invention of this story belongs rather in the context of the St. Emmeram document forgeries of the 11th century, which sought papal protection for the monastery. .. The related documents Arnolfs and Ludwigs d. K. are forgeries by Otloh from St. Emmeram ... The document of Ludwig the Elder. K. also mentions the consecration of the church by Pope Formosus at Arnolf's request. ”Regesta Imperii RIplus Regg. B Augsburg 1 n.56 ( online ; accessed on November 3, 2016).
  2. ↑ Paul VI .: Litt. Apost. Terra sacra. In: Acta Apostolicae Sedis . 56, 1964, No. 15, p. 915 f.
  3. ↑ Marcus Schmöger: Coat of arms of the Reichsstift St. Emmeram in Regensburg. Online at ed-wappen.de.
  4. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Siebmachers_Wappenbuch?uselang=de#/media/File:Siebmacher013.jpg
  5. ↑ Michael Schmidt: The bell tower of St. Emmeram . In: Working Group Regensburg Autumn Symposium (ed.): “Between Gothic and Baroque” traces of the Renaissance in Regensburg . tape 26 . Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-937527-55-0 , p. 49 ff .

Coordinates: 49 ° 0 '55.4 "  N , 12 ° 5' 33.7"  E