rdfs:comment
| - In 1056, Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, founded a Benedictine monastery on the Martinsberg, overlooking the village of Altdorf, an inheritance from his mother. The name Weingarten ("vineyard") is documented from about 1123. (In 1865, the village took the name of the monastery to become the present town of Weingarten). He settled it with monks from Altomünster Abbey. In 1126, Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, withdrew here after his abdication; he died the same year and was buried in the abbey church.
|
abstract
| - In 1056, Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, founded a Benedictine monastery on the Martinsberg, overlooking the village of Altdorf, an inheritance from his mother. The name Weingarten ("vineyard") is documented from about 1123. (In 1865, the village took the name of the monastery to become the present town of Weingarten). He settled it with monks from Altomünster Abbey. In 1126, Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, withdrew here after his abdication; he died the same year and was buried in the abbey church. The monks worked among other things at manuscript illumination. Their most famous work is the Berthold Sacramentary of 1217, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. Also of especial note is the Welfenchronik, written and illustrated in about 1190, chronicling and glorifying the House of Welf which had its seat at Ravensburg nearby. The monastery was elevated to the status of a "Reichsabtei" (i.e., independent of all territorial lordship except that of the monarchy) in 1274. It acquired territory of 306 km², stretching from the Allgäu to the Bodensee and including many forests and vineyards, and was one of the richest monasteries in southern Germany. From 1715, the Romanesque abbey church, constructed between 1124 and 1182, was largely demolished, and replaced between 1715–1724 by a large and richly decorated Baroque church, which since 1956 has been a papal basilica minor. This church was intended to stand within a monastic site built to the ideal layout, but this undertaking was only partially completed as the north wing would have blocked the via regia or imperial road. Following the order on April 27, 1728 to stop construction on the north wing, the southern wing was extended and the east wing was completed. In 1803, during secularisation, the abbey was dissolved. At first, it became part of the possessions of the House of Orange-Nassau, and then in 1806 part of the Kingdom of Württemberg. The buildings were used inter alia as a factory and as a barracks.
|