Monasteries in 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 crypt. T ...
Founded: 977 AD |
Location:
Trier, Germany
Prenzlau Abbey
The Dominican monastery at Prenzlau was founded in 1275, joining an existing Franciscan monastery and the Nunnery of Mary Magdalen. The monastery was thus a further spiritual centre serving Prenzlau"s citizens, playing an important role in the growth of the town and ensuring its significance in the medieval Mark of Brandenburg. The Dominican monastery"s compound comprises the monastic church and the originally ...
Founded: 1275 |
Location:
Prenzlau, Germany
Werden Abbey
Near Essen Saint Ludger founded a monastery in 799 and became its first abbot. The little church which Saint Ludger built here in honor of Saint Stephen was completed in 804 and dedicated by Saint Ludger himself, who had meanwhile become Bishop of Münster. Upon the death of Ludger on 26 March 809, the abbacy of Werden passed by inheritance first to his younger brother Hildigrim I (809–827), then successively to ...
Founded: 799 AD |
Location:
Essen, Germany
Rottenbuch Abbey Church
Rottenbuch Abbey was founded as an Augustinian monastery in 1073 on land granted by Duke Welf I of Bavaria. The Abbey church was constructed between 1085 and 1125 in the Romanesque style. The design of a crossing transept and free-standing tower is unusual for a Bavarian church. Rottenbuch was a center of papal loyalty during the Investiture Controversy. Under the patronage of Emperor Louis the Bavarian in the 14th centur ...
Founded: 1073 |
Location:
Rottenbuch, Germany
Schussenried Abbey
Schussenried Abbey was a Premonstratensian monastery founded by the local landowners, Berengar and Konrad of Schussenried in 1183. It was settled from the Premonstratensian Rot an der Rot Abbey. Pope Innocent III granted it his protection and guaranteed its immunity by a privilege of 13 February 1211. It acquired substantial endowments and built up a considerable territory, and was declared an imperial abbey (i.e., territ ...
Founded: 1183 |
Location:
Bad Schussenried, Germany
Amorbach Abbey
Amorbach Abbey was one of four Carolingian foundations intended to establish Christianity in the region of the Odenwald. It is said to take its name from Amor, a disciple of Saint Pirmin, regarded as the founder. The abbey was consecrated in 734. By 800 it had become a Reichsabtei, the abbot being directly answerable to Charlemagne. Pepin united it to the Bishopric of Würzburg, although control of it was much dispute ...
Founded: 734 AD |
Location:
Amorbach, Germany
Cologne Charterhouse
Cologne Charterhouse (Kölner Kartause) was a Carthusian monastery established in 1334. The monastery developed into the largest charterhouse in Germany until it was forcibly dissolved in 1794 by the invading French Revolutionary troops. The building complex was then neglected until World War II, when it was mostly destroyed. The present building complex is very largely a post-war reconstruction. Since 1928 the Cart ...
Founded: 1334 |
Location:
Cologne, Germany
Kastl Abbey
Kastl Abbey, dedicated to Saint Peter, was founded in 1103 or shortly before by Count Berengar II of Sulzbach together with Frederick and Otto, Counts of Kastl-Habsberg. It was dissolved in 1563 in the course of the Reformation, but re-established as a Catholic monastery in 1625. From 1636 the building was used by the Jesuits, from 1773 by the Knights Hospitallers. Dissolved again in 1803, it was the seat of the Provinci ...
Founded: 1103 |
Location:
Kastl, Germany
Scheyern Abbey
Scheyern Abbey was established in 1119 as the final site of the community originally founded in around 1077 at Bayrischzell by Countess Haziga of Aragon, wife of Otto II, Count of Scheyern, the ancestors of the Wittelsbachs. The first monks were from Hirsau Abbey, of which the new monastery was a priory, founded as it was against the background of the Investiture Controversy and the Hirsau Reforms. The original site prove ...
Founded: 1119 |
Location:
Scheyern, Germany
Sankt Märgen Abbey
Between 1115 and 1118 the Augustinian monastery was established in Sankt Märgen by Count Bruno von Haigerloch-Wiesneck, Chancellor of Henry V and Provost of Straßburg, as competition to the Zähringen-founded Benedictine monastery of St. Peter auf dem Schwarzwald. The town and the monastery were dependent upon each other for many years. In 1716 a two-steepled Baroque monastery church was built, and the life ...
Founded: 1115-1118 |
Location:
Sankt Märgen, Germany
Lorch Abbey
Lorch Abbey is a former Benedictine family monastery of the Staufer family. It was founded around 1102 by the Duke Friedrich I from Staufer family. After the Reformation the abbey was turned in to the Protestant convent school in 1556. Today Lorch Abbey is open for tours.
Founded: 1102 |
Location:
Lorch, 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
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
St. Trudpert's Abbey
St. Trudpert"s Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery. According to tradition, the abbey originated with Saint Trudpert, an Irish missionary and martyr in the southern Black Forest in the first half of the 7th century. He established a hermitage in Münstertal which became a monastery in the 9th century, and which by, at the latest, 900 had expanded to a monastic community supported by the influential noble fami ...
Founded: c. 900 AD |
Location:
Obermünstertal, Germany
Dargun Abbey Ruins
Dargun Abbey was originally a Cistercian monastery, converted after its dissolution into a palace. The monastery was founded here in 1172 on the site of a former heathen temple after the conquest of the region by Christian forces in 1164. The founding community came from Esrum Abbey in Denmark. The monastery was destroyed in 1198, and the monks left, later to found another monastery at Eldena. Dargun was re-established in ...
Founded: 1172 |
Location:
Dargun, Germany
Ribnitz Abbey
The Clarissa (Poor Clares) order nunnery in Ribnitz was one of the last nunnerys or monasteries to be founded in the dutchy of Mecklenburg. In 1323, Duke Heinrich II von Mecklenburg bequeathed to the Franciscans his court stronghold in the southeast of the town of Ribnitz. The first four nuns arrived from the Clarissa nunnery in the Westphalian town of Weißenfels. In 1330, the nunnery is consecrated, while today's church ...
Founded: 1330 |
Location:
Ribnitz, Germany
St. Marienstern Abbey
The village of Panschwitz-Kuckau is dominated by the huge monastery of St Marienstern. It was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1248. The current structures mainly date from the 17th and 18th century. The complex contains a Klosterstube (monastery restaurant), a bakery, and a small botanical/herb garden to the south-east open at a small charge. The small river Klosterwasser runs through the monastery and would have se ...
Founded: 1248 |
Location:
Panschwitz-Kuckau, Germany
Wessobrunn Abbey
Wessobrunn Abbey was founded in about 753 and dedicated to Saint Peter. According a legend Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria was hunting nearby and had a vision of three springs, which his servant Wezzo duly discovered the next day (the name means Wesso or Wezzo"s spring(s)). The three springs are still to be seen, but there is otherwise no evidence of the truth of the story, and it is likely that the founders were a local ...
Founded: c. 753 AD |
Location:
Wessobrunn, Germany
Grafschaft Abbey
Grafschaft Benedictine Abbey was founded in 1072 on a site at the foot of the Wilzenberg mountain, by Saint Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, whose statue still stands at the west gate. The monastery was dedicated between 1079 and 1089. The original buildings burned down in 1270. From 1729 the premises were gradually replaced by completely new buildings in the Baroque style; the rebuild was finished in 1742 and the new ab ...
Founded: 1072 |
Location:
Schmallenberg-Grafschaft, Germany
Donauwörth Abbey
The Holy Cross Abbey in Donauwörth was founded around 1040 by Mangold I von Werd as a Benedictine convent. In the early 12th century the convent moved to the western edge of the city to the highest point insode the city walls. After buildings were damaged during the Thirty Years" War, the abbey church wa rebuilt. In 1770-1780 it was expanded to the Rococo style. The monastery was dissolved in 1803. The church r ...
Founded: c. 1040 |
Location:
Donauwörth, Germany