Munsterbilzen Abbey was an abbey of Benedictine nuns in Bilzen, Limburg, Belgium, founded in around 670 by Saint Landrada.
It was an imperial abbey of the Holy Roman Empire separately administered from the surrounding County of Loon. The abbess exercised lordship over the village of Munsterbilzen and four more villages nearby until 1773, when she was forced to recognize the suzerainty of the Prince-Bishop of Liège. The abbey was dissolved and its property confiscated at the time of the French Revolution.
Dating back to the time of the Merovingian dynasty, it is considered the oldest women's convent in the Greater Netherlands, and, together with the abbey of Sint-Truiden, the abbey of Aldeneik, the abbey of Susteren, and the abbey Rolduc, one of the most important monasteries in the Dutch-speaking part of the diocese of Liège.
Buildings
Almost nothing is left of the once powerful medieval monastery. From the old parish church, right next to the disappeared abbey church, only the church tower from 1565-67 remains. The church itself is neo-Gothic. In the interior there is a Roman baptismal font, the tombstone of canoness Anna van Merode, and a large number of paintings and sculptures from the 15th-18th century. Also during excavations in 2006 under the parish church the remnants of an early medieval church were found.
The so-called abbess house and the main entrance in Maaslandse renaissance style were rebuilt around 1730-50 after a design by the Aachen architect Johann Joseph Couven. The abbey school was built in 1725 at the expense of Abbess Anne-Antoinette of Tilly d'Aspremont of Lynden van Reckheim and was among other things meant for free education to six poor girls. The abbey complex is surrounded by a partly renovated monastery wall, on which are found the coats of arms of some abbesses.
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