Monasteries in Germany
St. Boniface's Abbey
St. Boniface"s Abbey is a Benedictine monastery founded in 1835 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, as a part of his efforts to reanimate the country"s spiritual life by the restoration of the monasteries destroyed during the secularisation of the early 19th century. The abbey, constructed in Byzantine style, was formally dedicated in 1850. It was destroyed in World War II and only partly restored. The church contains ...
Founded: 1835 |
Location:
Munich, Germany
Gengenbach Abbey
Gengenbach Abbey was an Imperial Benedictine Abbey from the late Carolingian period to 1803. It was founded by Saint Pirmin (d. 735) sometime after his expulsion from Reichenau in 727 and settled by monks from Gorze Abbey. It enjoyed good relations with the Carolingian dynasty and soon became an Imperial abbey, with territorial independence. In 1007, however, Emperor Henry II presented it to his newly founded Prince-Bisho ...
Founded: c. 730 AD |
Location:
Gengenbach, Germany
Stolpe Abbey Ruins
Stolpe Abbey was the first monastery in Pomerania. Ratibor I, Duke of Pomerania, founded the abbey on 3 May 1153 in memory of his brother Wartislaw I. Wartislaw, who had subdued the area and converted its people to Christianity in the late 1120s, was killed near the site of the future monastery; according to legend he was murdered by a Liutician pagan. The abbey was settled by Benedictine monks from Berge Abbey near Magd ...
Founded: 1153 |
Location:
Stolpe, Germany
Blaubeuren Abbey
Blaubeuren Abbey was a house of the Benedictine Order founded in 1085 by the Counts of Rück and Tübingen, against the background of the Investiture Controversy and the Hirsau Reforms. The first abbot, Adzelinus, and monks were from Hirsau Abbey. Abbot Fabri was closely involved with the foundation of the University of Tübingen in 1477. In 1493 the high altar was created. The choir stalls by Jörg Syrlin ...
Founded: 1085 |
Location:
Blaubeuren, Germany
Schöntal Abbey
Schöntal Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey famous as one of the most impressive pieces of Baroque architecture in northern Württemberg. It was founded in 1153 in Neusass by Wolfram von Bebenburg and was settled by monks from Maulbronn Abbey. The original site proved unsuitable and the new community moved to the present location in Schöntal on the Jagst between 1157 and 1163. The land for the new site was p ...
Founded: 1153 |
Location:
Schöntal, Germany
Beuron Archabbey
Beuron Archabbey is a major house of the Benedictine Order. It was founded in 1863 by the brothers Maurus and Placidus Wolter, in buildings which until 1802 had housed an Augustinian monastery. Between 1875 and 1887 because of political conditions during the 'Kulturkampf' the monks had to leave the abbey, but used the opportunity to found new communities elsewhere, which afterwards joined together under the lead ...
Founded: 1863 |
Location:
Beuron, Germany
Deutz Abbey Church
Deutz Abbey was founded in 1003 on the site of a Roman fort by the future Saint Heribert, Archbishop of Cologne, close adviser of Emperor Otto III. Heribert died in 1021 and was buried in the Romanesque church he had had built here. The theologian Rupert of Deutz was abbot during the 1120s. The abbey had extensive properties, but its strategic position by the Rhine exposed it to involvement in fighting, and ...
Founded: 1003 |
Location:
Cologne, Germany
Steingaden Abbey
Dedicated to John the Baptist, the Steingaden abbey was founded in 1147 as a Premonstratensian house by Welf VI, third son of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria, and brother of Duke Henry the Proud. The first monks and their abbot came from the Premonstratensian Rot an der Rot Abbey. The Romanesque abbey church was dedicated in 1176. Between 1470 and 1491 the abbey buildings were refurbished under Abbot Caspar Suiter in the ...
Founded: 1147/1663 |
Location:
Steingaden, Germany
St. Mang's Abbey
The Benedictine abbey of Saint Mang was founded in the first half of the 9th century as a proprietary monastery of the Prince-Bishops of Augsburg. The reason for its foundation goes back to the hermit Magnus of Füssen (later Saint Mang) and his Benedictine brother Theodor, both from the Abbey of Saint Gall, who built a cell and an oratory here. The saint"s body, amid miracles, was discovered uncorrupted, a proof of h ...
Founded: 9th century |
Location:
Füssen, Germany
Herrenalb Abbey
Herrenalb Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery founded probably in 1147 or 1148 by Count Berthold of Eberstein. The new monastery was settled by monks from Neubourg Abbey in Alsace. The abbey owned scattered estates and communities in the Alb valley in the northern Black Forest. The abbey was however never able to concentrate its lands so as to maximise their economic potential, and never became particularly wealthy. T ...
Founded: c. 1147 |
Location:
Bad Herrenalb, Germany
Hirsau Abbey
Hirsau Abbey was once one of the most important Benedictine abbeys of Germany. In the 11th and 12th century, the monastery was a centre of the Cluniac Reforms, implemented as 'Hirsau Reforms' in the German lands. The complex was devastated during the War of the Palatine Succession in 1692 and not rebuilt. A Christian chapel at Hirsau dedicated to Saint Nazarius had already been erected in the late 8th century. The monast ...
Founded: 830 AD |
Location:
Hirsau, Germany
St. Matthias' Abbey
St. Matthias" Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Trier. The abbey church, a Romanesque basilica, is a renowned place of pilgrimage because of the tomb of Saint Matthias the Apostle, after whom the abbey is named, located here since the 12th century, and the only burial of an apostle in Germany and north of the Alps. The abbey was originally named after Saint Eucharius, first Bishop of Trier, whose tomb is in the cry ...
Founded: 977 AD |
Location:
Trier, Germany
Alpirsbach Abbey
Alpirsbach Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1095 by Count Adalbert of Zollern. It was settled by monks from Sankt Blasien in the Schwarzwald. It was dissolved as a Catholic monastery in 1535 in the course of the Reformation by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, but the buildings have continued in Protestant use for various purposes until the present day.
Founded: 1095 |
Location:
Alpirsbach, Germany
Neuburg Abbey
Neuburg Abbey was founded in 1130 by Anshelm, a monk from the Benedictine Lorsch Abbey, as a priory of Lorsch. It did not thrive, and in 1195 was turned into a nunnery by order of Conrad of Hohenstaufen, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and raised to the status of abbey, but its condition did not improve as had been hoped. When Lorsch Abbey was suppressed in 1232 Neuburg passed under the authority first of the Bishop of Mainz ...
Founded: 1130 |
Location:
Heidelberg, Germany
Neustadt am Main Abbey
Neustadt am Main Abbey was first mentioned in a document dating to 768/769. Reportedly, the consecration of the abbey church was in 793. Berowelf, who succeeded Megingoz as Bishop of Würzburg, sent 50 monks to join him at this Nivenstat or Nuovenstatt ('new place'). To establish the new foundation"s independence from Würzburg, Megingoz succeeded in making it a Königskloster, chartered by the ...
Founded: 760-793 |
Location:
Neustadt am Main, Germany
St. Augustine's Monastery
The church and monastery of the Augustinian hermits in Erfurt was built around 1300. Martin Luther, the famous Augustinian monk, was admitted to the monastery on 17 July 1505. The Augustinian Monastery pays tribute to Martin Luther with a new exhibition. The Lutherzelle (Luther's cell) can be visited as part of the exhibition. Since 1988 the monastery has been used as an ecumenical conference centre and a memorial to Luth ...
Founded: 1300 |
Location:
Erfurt, Germany
Wiblingen Abbey
Wiblingen Abbey was a former Benedictine abbey which was later used as barracks. Today its buildings house several departments of the medical faculty of the University of Ulm and is part of the Upper Swabian Baroque Route. Wiblingen Abbey was founded in 1093 by the counts Hartmann and Otto von Kirchberg. The counts offered monks of St. Blaise"s Abbey in the Black Forest lands near the river Iller, which the monks us ...
Founded: 1093 |
Location:
Ulm, Germany
Freiburg Charterhouse
Freiburg Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery founded in 1345 or 1346 by Johannes Schnewlin, knight, Bürgermeister of Freiburg. It was dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, in honour of the Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble. In the early 16th century, the premises were extended by the addition of the refectory and the church, which was constructed in the Late Gothic style with ribbed vaulting and flying buttres ...
Founded: 1345 |
Location:
Freiburg, Germany
Ursberg Abbey
Ursberg Abbey is a former Premonstratensian monastery, now a convent of the Franciscan St. Joseph"s Congregation. The monastery, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint John the Evangelist, was founded between 1126 and 1128 by the nobleman Wernher of Schwabegg-Balzhausen. It was the first Premonstratensian foundation in southern Germany. The monastery became an Imperial abbey in 1143. As was usual with early Premonstrate ...
Founded: 1126-1128 |
Location:
Ursberg, Germany
Höglwörth Abbey
Höglwörth Abbey is a former monastery of the Augustinian Canons, dedicated to St. Peter and Paul. It was founded in 1125 by Archbishop Conrad I of Salzburg. It was the only monastery saved from the secularization of Bavaria (1802 and 1803), until Rupertiwinkel became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816. The last provost Gilbert Grab sought relief from secularization from 1813, but this was not granted until 1 ...
Founded: 1125 |
Location:
Höglwörth, Germany