Gengenbach Abbey was a Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monastery in Gengenbach

Gengenbach

Gengenbach is a town in the district of Ortenau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany and a popular tourist destination on the western edge of the Black Forest with about 11,000 inhabitants....

 in the district of Ortenau

Ortenaukreis

Ortenaukreis is a district in the west of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rastatt, Freudenstadt, Rottweil, Schwarzwald-Baar and Emmendingen...

, Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

History

It was founded by Saint Pirmin

Saint Pirmin

Saint Pirmin , also named Pirminius, was a monk, strongly influenced by Celtic Christianity and Saint Amand.-Biography:...

 (d. 735) sometime after his expulsion from Reichenau

Reichenau Island

Reichenau Island lies in Lake Constance in southern Germany, at approximately . It lies between Gnadensee and Untersee, two parts of Lake Constance, almost due west of the city of Konstanz. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway that was completed in 1838...

 in 727 and settled by monks from Gorze Abbey

Gorze Abbey

Gorze Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Gorze in the present arrondissement of Metz-Campagne, near Metz in Lorraine. It was prominent as the source of a monastic reform movement in the 930s.-History:...

. It enjoyed good relations with the Carolingian

Carolingian

The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 dynasty and soon became an Imperial abbey, with territorial independence. In 1007, however, Emperor Henry II

Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry II , also referred to as Saint Henry, Obl.S.B., was the fifth and last Holy Roman Emperor of the Ottonian dynasty, from his coronation in Rome in 1014 until his death a decade later. He was crowned King of the Germans in 1002 and King of Italy in 1004...

 presented it to his newly-founded Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg

Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg

The Bishopric of Bamberg was established in 1007, to further expand the spread of Christianity in Germany. The ecclesiastical state was a member of the Holy Roman Empire from about 1245 until it was subsumed to the Electorate of Bavaria in 1802...

. Whilst situated within the Ortenauer Reichslandvogtei, under the protection of Rudolph of Habsburg (1273–91), the territory's protectors were an array of local lords: the Zähringen were followed in 1218 by the Staufen dukes of Swabia and in 1245 by the bishops of Strasbourg until the 1550s. These Vögte

Vogt

A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...

and confirmations of their rights — both Papal (1139, 1235, 1252, 1287) and Imperial (1309, 1331, 1516) — ensured the Abbey's continual independence.

Gengenbach was deeply embroiled in the Investiture Controversy

Investiture Controversy

The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe. In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of Popes challenged the authority of European monarchies over control of appointments, or investitures, of church officials such...

 and two of its abbots were driven out for supporting the Imperial rather than the Papal cause. Shortly after this, the abbey was involved by Abbot Theoger (1080–1139) of St. George's Abbey in the Black Forest

St. George's Abbey in the Black Forest

St. George's Abbey in the Black Forest was a Benedictine monastery in St. Georgen im Schwarzwald in the southern Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.-Foundation to Reformation:...

 and Bishop Otto of Bamberg

Otto of Bamberg

Saint Otto of Bamberg was a medieval German bishop and missionary who, as papal legate, converted much of Pomerania to Christianity.-Life:Otto was born into a noble family in Mistelbach, Franconia...

 in the Hirsauer Reform, during which the abbey church was demolished and rebuilt to the Hirsau

Hirsau Abbey

Hirsau Abbey, formerly known as Hirschau Abbey, was once one of the most prominent Benedictine abbeys of Germany. It was located in the town of Hirsau, in the Diocese of Speyer, near Calw in the present Baden-Württemberg.-History:...

 model. Subsequently, it has been remodelled in the Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

, Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 and neo-Romanesque styles.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the abbey was instrumental in developing the town of Gengenbach to economic maturity. The abbey avoided further monastic reforms, and although in danger of suppression during the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, survived that too.

In 1575 and 1580, the abbey applied for membership of the Imperial College of Prelates but was refused, due to concern about its Imperial immediacy and Vogtei; membership was eventually approved in 1645 but this approval was not implemented until 1751. It was secularised in the wake of the German Mediatisation

German Mediatisation

The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred in Germany between 1795 and 1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era....

 of 1803, and shortly afterwards its territories were absorbed into the state of Baden

Baden

Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....

.

Abbots of Gengenbach

• Rustenus (8th century)
• Burkhard, Leutfried, Cosman, Anselm, Gauthier, Volmar, Otho, Benno, Rado, Ammilo (?)
• Alfram (c. 820)
• Germunt (c. 826)
• Lando (c. 840)
• Dietrich I, Dietrich II, Gottfried I, Walther I, Walther II and others
• Reginald (before 1016–28)
• Rusten (1028–34)
• Berthold I ( –1052)
• Bruning ( –1065)
• Poppo ( –1071)
• Acelinus ( –1074)
• Ruotpert ( –1075)
• Willo ( –1085)
• Hugo I (1089, 1096)
• Friedrich I (before 1109–20)
• Gottfried II. (before 1140–62)
• Anselm ( –1147?)
• (anon.) ( –1173)
• Friedrich II ( –1182)
• Landofrid ( –1196)
• Salomon ( –1208)
• Gerbold (1210)
• Eggenhard ( –1218)
• Gottfried III (1218–37)
• Walther III (1237–48)
• Dietrich III (1248–1263?)
• Hugo II (1263?–1270?)
• Gottfried IV (1270?–1276)
• Berthold II (1276–97)
• Gottfried V (1296)
• Berthold III (1297–1300)
• Dietrich IV (1300–23)
• Albero (1323–24)
• Walther IV (1324–45)
• Berthold IV (1345–54)
• Lambert von Brunn (1354–74)
• Stephan von Wilsberg (1374–98)
• Konrad von Blumberg (1398–1415)
• Berthold V Mangolt-Venser (1416–24)
• Egenolf von Wartenberg (1424–53)
• Volzo von Neuneck (1454–61)
• Sigismund von Neuhausen (1461–75)
• Jakob von Bern (1475–93)
• Beatus II von Schauenburg (1493–1500)
• Konrad von Mülnheim (1500–07)
• Philipp von Eselsberg (1507–31)
• Melchior Horneck von Hornberg (1531–40)
• Friedrich von Keppenbach (1540–55)
• Gisbert Agricola (1556–86)
• Johann Ludiwig Sorg (1586–1605)
• Georg Breuning (1605–17)
• Johann Caspar Liesch (1617)
• Johann Demler (1617–26)
• Jakob Petri (1626–36)
• Erhard Marx (1636–38)
• Columban Meyer (1638–60)
• Roman Suttler (1660–80)
• Placidus Thalmann (1680–96)
• Augustinus Müller (1696–1726)
• Paulus Seeger (1726–43)
• Benedikt Rischer (1743–63)
• Jakob Trautwein (1763–92)
• Bernhard Maria Schwörer (1792–1803/07)

External links

• Gengenbach Abbey in the Abbeys of Baden-Württemberg database at the State Archives of Baden-Württemberg Gengenbach Abbey on Landeskunde online