Altenburg Abbey
The Altenburg is a Benedictine abbey in Altenburg in the town of Altenburg at Horn in Lower Austria . The parish and collegiate church of St. Lambert belongs to the deanery Horn in the diocese of St. Pölten . The entire facility is under monument protection .
history
.JPG)
The monastery was founded in 1144 after Gebhard von Poigen's death by his widow Hildburg von Poigen-Rebgau next to St. Stephan founded her husband's crypt church as a small monastery. She endowed it with land ownership and the two-thirds of the tenth of her parish in Horn (Lower Austria) and transferred the property to the Diocese of Passau . Four years after Gebhardt's death in 1144, twelve Styrian Benedictine monks moved into the cells. They named the monastery after their home monastery “St. Lambrecht zu Altenburg ”and prayed according to their dedication for the lords of the“ Poigreich ”, the then manor of Horn. Hildburg's son Hermann held the bailiwick of the small monastery. The bailiwick comprised the patronage and limited jurisdiction over the monastery property by the founding family and their descendants and obliged the monks to pray on certain days of the week, month or year. The donor families had the right to be buried within the monastery walls. These “sea equipment” were initially provided in Altenburg by the counts and nobles of Poigen-Hohenberg and Rebgau, then those of Hertenberg and Streitwiesen, those of Kotzendorf and Sonnberg , von Stockern u. a. m. So it came about that the Altenburg Benedictine Abbey gradually came into the possession of lands, farms and castles that were located next to Vienna and St. Pölten. Twelve years after the founding of the monastery, the founding family of those von Poigen died out in the male line. The bailiwick fell - as a Passau fief - to the Babenbergs , margraves and dukes of Austria, and the Altenburg monastery shared the political and religious fate of Lower Austria.
In the election of the abbot on October 26, 1681, Raymundus Regondi , who was born in Kaisersteinbruch am Leithaberg, received the most votes. On the same day it was installed with special permission from the court chancellery in Vienna. During his years attacking troops of the Turks and their auxiliary peoples in the Great Turkish War and rebellious Hungarians during the uprising of Franz II Rákóczi devastated the Abbey in Altenburg.
Today's impressive baroque design of the monastery complex was created under the abbots Maurus Boxler and Placidus Much . Under Emperor Joseph II , the admission of novices was forbidden until 1794, but the monastery remained and was not closed and in 1797 served as an Austrian military hospital. In the 19th century, the Altenburg Benedictine Abbey owned the estates and castles Wildberg, Limberg, Drösiedl, Mahrersdorf and farms in Mühlfeld, Wiesent, Grub and Wappoltenreith in addition to the monastery. From 1754 to 1848 the Eggenburg fortress and the regional court were under the control of the Benedictines.
After the occupation of Austria by the National Socialists in 1940, the monastery was abolished, expropriated in 1941, the abbot arrested and the convent expelled. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the building complex served as troop accommodation for the Russian-Soviet occupation army.
The heavily worn monastery building was renovated and restored under Abbot Maurus Knappek (1947–1968). He also founded the Altenburg Boys' Choir in 1961. Bernhard Naber , abbot from 1978 to 2005, directed further restoration work in the monastery. In 2002 a complete renovation of the church tower began. He organized special exhibitions and pilgrimages in Lower Austria (1985), for example The old monastery (1995), Paul Troger (1998) and archeology in Klösterreich (2000).
Additional restoration work began in 2001 and was completed in 2013. 12.7 million euros were invested in maintaining the Altenburg Abbey. The state of Lower Austria contributed around 35 percent. Roofs, exterior figures and facades were renewed. In the center of the monastery, artificial marble, stucco and gilding were restored. The altar made of Lasa marble was designed by the Salzburg artist Wilhelm Scherübl .
On January 17, 2014, Thomas Renner OSB was elected 52nd Abbot of Altenburg Abbey, and took over this position on March 12, 2014 from his predecessor and current Abbot President Christian Haidinger .
In 2018, Altenburg Abbey was awarded the state prize for exemplary forest management and the prize in the special category “climate-friendly forest”.
Description of the pen system
In the south of the local area of Altenburg rises in a dominant position on a rocky plateau that slopes steeply to the east and south above the Kamptal, the spacious baroque complex, which originates from the Middle Ages .
In the middle of the monumental 208 meter long three tracts existing eastern main front is the geostete collegiate church whose choir circuit risalitartig projects. In front of this central part is an arbor , under which the remains of the medieval monastery complex uncovered at the beginning of the 21st century are located. The central part of the main front is joined to the north by the marble wing with a sala terrena and to the south by the library wing with the crypt .
To the west, behind this main front, are some courtyards, which are enclosed by further building wings. Behind the marble wing is the large monastery courtyard and to the west of it the Johannishof . The middle section of the main front delimits the churchyard north of the collegiate church, followed by the prelate's courtyard in the west and, south of the collegiate church, the fountain courtyard with the inner medieval monastery area and the cloister followed by the convent courtyard and the kitchen courtyard in the west.
The “Garden of Religions” , which is located northwest of the Johannishof, is also part of the complex .
Collegiate church
The patron saint of the collegiate church is “St. Lambert of Maastricht ”. In the church with the characteristic tower (built in its present form after a fire in 1820 - resting on Romanesque foundations) the monks' activities become unity with their prayer: "ora et labora"! It is the central room of the baroque monastery complex. It connects the monk's wing in the south with the guest and administrative wing in the north. The rooms south of the church face the forest, the silence: they symbolize the "contemplatio" of monastic life.
Those north of the church face the village of Altenburg, where guests and even the emperor are invited. The choir boys live in these parts of the monastery today , here are the rooms for the parish and for the administration of the monastery, they symbolize the "actio" of monastery life.
The Gothic monastery church, destroyed by the Swedes in the Thirty Years' War, was rebuilt by the abbots Benedikt Leiß and Maurus Boxler , but it was not until Abbot Placidus Much that the splendid conversion to a baroque church took place between 1730 and 1733. Master builder Joseph Munggenast and his site manager Leopold Wißgrill spared the Gothic structure as far as possible; today's central building was created by vaulting the nave with a longitudinally oval dome.
Paul Troger was hired to fresco the four domes, the plastic stucco of the collegiate church was created by Franz Josef Holzinger , the marbling work by Johann Georg Hoppl.
The high altar picture belongs to the apocalyptic program of the church. Troger paints the Assumption of Mary into heaven. The great organ work comes from Anton Pfliegler from Vienna and was completed in 1773.
The Teatro Barocco takes place annually in the library of the monastery , a festival at which unknown or rarely performed works of musical theater are brought back to the stage by the director Bernd R. Bienert in a historically accurate form.
See also
literature
- Honorius Burger : Historical representation of the foundation and fate of the Benedictine monastery S. Lambert zu Altenburg in Lower Austria., Its pastor and possessions and several local events. , Vienna, Gerold's son, 1862.
- Honorius Burger: Documents from the Benedictine Abbey of St. Lambert in Altenburg: Lower Austria KOMB from the years 1144 to 1522 , Vienna 1865, digitized
- Austrian Art Topography - Volume V , published in 1911 by the kk Central Commission for Art and Historical Monuments. The monuments of the political district Horn in Lower Austria, part 2 - judicial district Horn, section Altenburg, pp. 259 - 322
- Gerhard Stenzel : From pen to pen in Austria. With aerial photographs by Lothar Beckel. Verlag Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1977, there: Altenburg Benedictine Abbey in Lower Austria, page 169 f. and pages 47 to 51 with extensive illustrations, ISBN 3 218 00298 2
- Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria. Lower Austria north of the Danube . Edited by Evelyn Benesch, Bernd Euler-Rolle u. a. Verlag Anton Schroll & Co, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7031-0652-2 , pp. 11–31.
- Willi Erasmus: Castles, monasteries and chateaus in the Waldviertel, Danube region, South Bohemia, Vysočina, South Moravia regions. Photo book, Destination Waldviertel GmbH, Zwettl 2007, ISBN 978-3-9502262-2-5 , p. 13 ff.
Web links
- Altenburg Abbey - Homepage
- Entry on Altenburg floor tiles, Altenburg Abbey (Veitskapelle) in the database of the state's memory of the history of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )
- Documents (1144-1943) (Altenburg Abbey) in the European document archive Monasterium.net .
- Altenburg Boys' Choir
- Altenburg Abbey. In: 40 Denkmäler, ORF III documentary series, 2013. December 17, 2013, accessed on January 7, 2014 .
- Teatro Barocco - Priamo e Tisbe by Johann Adolf Hasse 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmuth Furch ; Historical lexicon Kaisersteinbruch. Communications from the Kaisersteinbruch Museum and Culture Association , 2004. Regondi Raymund , S 633. ISBN 978-3-9504555-8-8 .
- ↑ Bundesdenkmalamt: Monument of the month April 2003 - Altenburg, Stift, general renovation ( Memento of the original dated November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . (on bda.at).
- ↑ Report on the completion of the restoration on www.noe.gv , accessed on September 30, 2013.
- ^ ORF-Online: New abbot elected at Altenburg Abbey ; Retrieved December 17, 2013.
- ^ State Prize for Altenburg Abbey . Article dated October 17, 2018, accessed October 19, 2018.
- ↑ Death peeps from every corner in FAZ from November 19, 2015, page R5.
- ^ Leopold Friedl: The organ building of the Altenburg monastery and its incorporated parishes . Diploma thesis at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Institute for Organological Research , Vienna 1985, p. 13.
Coordinates: 48 ° 38 ′ 40 " N , 15 ° 35 ′ 38" E