Veit Höser

Grave monument for Abbot Veit Höser in the monastery church of Oberalteich, which he built

Vitus (Veit) Höser (also: Häser; * March 21, 1577 in Kirchenlaibach ; † August 9, 1634 in Oberalteich ) was a Benedictine and abbot in the Oberalteich monastery .

biography

Vitus Höser's father came to Regensburg with his family in the course of the introduction of the Reformation in the Upper Palatinate , where Vitus and his brother Urban attended the Jesuit high school.

In 1597 Vitus entered the Oberalteich monastery, where he made his profession in 1597 and was ordained a priest in 1601. He was appointed prior as early as 1606, but was deposed again in 1611. Together with other confreres who had complained of abuses in the life of the monastery and in the abbot's administration, he was banished from Oberalteich by Abbot Christophorus Glöckner. During this time he was accepted into the Tegernsee and Andechs monasteries . At the end of 1612 Vitus Höser was called back to Oberalteich by Abbot Christophorus on the instructions of the Bishop of Regensburg, where he was elected abbot after his death in 1614.

A report written by him about his term of office informs about his work. Abbot Vitus Höser possessed, as the activity report and his surviving convent languages ​​show, a thorough humanistic and theological training, which he should have received at the University of Ingolstadt . His main concern as abbot was the restoration of monastic discipline (introduction of the Melker reform ) and the promotion of the scientific activities of the monks. Part of the reform work was also the structural renovation of the monastery and church, which was completed with the parish festival in 1630. The fact that this extensive building program was financed in the middle of the Thirty Years' War and that the monastery property was increased at the same time shows the abbot's great economic skill. Abbot Vitus probably designed the blueprint for the art-historically significant monastery church himself.

Under Abbot Vitus, on behalf of the Bavarian Elector, the Oberalteich Monastery began to re-catholicise the Upper Palatinate.

When the war spread to Lower Bavaria in 1632 , Abbot Vitus and the convent had to flee from the monastery before the approaching Swedes. After the Swedes withdrew, the abbot and convent were able to return to the monastery in 1634, where the abbot Vitus died of the plague a few months later. Veit Höser can be considered the most important among the abbots of the Oberalteich monastery.

Works (sources)

• Viti Hoeseri Abbatis Manuscripta Historica [handwritten report by the abbot on his administration in Oberalteich (a first part about the work of his predecessor is lost)]

additional

The Veit-Höser-Gymnasium (VHG) in Bogen is named after the abbot Veit Höser , a state high school that is only about two kilometers away from Oberalteich.

literature

• Uwe Puschner: Höser, Vitus (Veit). In: Karl Bosl (ed.): Bosls Bavarian biography. Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2 , p. 359 ( digitized version ).
• Alfons Huber: Abbot Veit Höser of Oberalteich (1614–1634) . In: Georg Schwaiger (ed.), Life Pictures from the History of the Diocese of Regensburg , Part 1–2 (Contributions to the History of the Diocese of Regensburg 23/24), Regensburg 1989, pp. 239–248.
• Rupert Sigl (ed.): Wallenstein's revenge on Bavaria. The Swedish fright. Veit Höser's war diary . Grafenau 1984.
• Angelus Sturm: A monastery reform at the time of the Thirty Years War. Building blocks for the biography of Abbot Veit Hoeser von Oberalteich . In: Benedictine monthly . Volume 5, 1923, pp. 379–394.
• Angelus Sturm: Abbot Veit Höser's flight from Sweden . In: Benedictine monthly . Volume 10, 1928, pp. 457–466.