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Founded: c. 1040Category: Religious sites in Germany
Historical period: Salian Dynasty (Germany)
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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 remained as a parish church. At the beginning of the fifth coalition war (1809) resided Napoléon Bonaparte for several days in the Prelature of the dissolved monastery. The 'Napoleon Room' still exists. In 1935 the Holy Cross Abbey returned to religious use.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.