Michaelsberg Abbey, Bamberg
Encyclopedia
for Michaelsberg Abbey in North Rhine-Westphalia, see Michaelsberg Abbey, Siegburg

Michaelsberg Abbey or Michelsberg Abbey, also St. Michael's Abbey, Bamberg ( or Michelsberg) is a former Benedictine monastery in Bamberg
Bamberg
Bamberg is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. Bamberg is one of the few cities in Germany that was not destroyed by World War II bombings because of a nearby Artillery Factory that prevented planes from...

 in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

, 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...

. After its dissolution in 1803 the buildings were used for the almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

 Vereinigte Katharinen- und Elisabethen-Spital, which is still there as an old people's home. The former abbey church remains in use as the Michaelskirche.

Abbey

After the creation of the Bishopric of Bamberg by 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...

, the first Bishop of Bamberg, Eberhard I
Eberhard I
Eberhard I, count of Bonngau and count in Zulpichgau and in Keldachgau , son of Erenfried I of Maasgau.He left issue:*Hermann I count in Auelgau , which had issue:**Eberhard II count in Auelgau , and...

, founded the abbey in 1015 as the bishop's private monastery. Accordingly the abbot answered directly to the bishop of Bamberg, and to no-one else. The monks for the new establishment were drawn from Amorbach Abbey
Amorbach Abbey
Amorbach Abbey was a Benedictine monastery located at Amorbach in the district of Miltenberg in Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany.- History :...

 and Fulda Abbey.

The abbey soon flourished under Bishop Otto
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...

 (d. 1139), whose burial in the abbey church and subsequent canonisation in 1189, together with the papal protection granted to the abbey in 1251, was of enormous advantage in increasing the independence of the abbey from the bishops. The award to the abbots of the pontificalia had taken place some time before 1185. The abbey's financial status rested securely upon its great ownership of lands in 441 places in the bishopric.

In 1435 the abbey came into conflict with the townspeople of Bamberg and was plundered. It also suffered during the German Peasants' War
German Peasants' War
The German Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt was a widespread popular revolt in the German-speaking areas of Central Europe, 1524–1526. At its height in the spring and summer of 1525, the conflict involved an estimated 300,000 peasants: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000...

 of 1525, the Franconia
Franconia
Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...

n Markgräflerkrieg and from an occupation of several years' duration by the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 army during the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

. In the 17th and 18th centuries the abbey recovered, and enjoyed a new period of prosperity.

By the time of the secularisation of Bavaria
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 1802 the abbey still owned substantial property in Bamberg itself as well as estates in no fewer than 141 places in the surrounding area. On 30 November 1802 Bavarian troops confiscated the abbey's assets. Valuable books were removed to the library of the Bavarian court, the predecessor of the present Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The 24 monks then resident were obliged to leave the monastery. The abbey buildings passed into the possession of the city of Bamberg, who by popular request transferred into them the old almshouses from the city centre; these are still located there.

Abbey church

The first church on the site, dedicated to Saint Michael, was built in about 1015 and was destroyed by an earthquake, probably in 1117. The present building is basically a Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 church, consecrated in 1121. In 1610 it was badly damaged by a fire, as a result of which the nave (with its ceiling paintings of the Garden of Heaven, completed in 1617) and the westwork, with the two west towers, had to be more or less rebuilt from scratch. The still-extant organ-loft was also constructed very soon after the fire, in 1610, and is a significant work of the German Late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. From 1696 Leonhard Dientzenhofer
Leonhard Dientzenhofer
Leonhard Dientzenhofer wasa German builder and architect from the well known Dientzenhofer family of architect....

, under the instructions of abbot Christoph Ernst, created a two-storey Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 exterior facade. Johann Dientzenhofer
Johann Dientzenhofer
Johann Dientzenhofer was a builder and architect during the Baroque period in Germany.Johann was born in St. Margarethen near Rosenheim, Bavaria, a member of the famous Dientzenhofer family of German architects, who were among the leading builders in the Bohemian and German Baroque which included...

 built the terrace in 1723.

In 1833, on the orders of King Ludwig I of Bavaria
Ludwig I of Bavaria
Ludwig I was a German king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.-Crown prince:...

, the gravestones and memorials of the bishops of Bamberg from the 16th to the 18th century were removed from Bamberg Cathedral
Bamberg Cathedral
The Bamberg Cathedral is a church in Bamberg, Germany, completed in the 13th century. The cathedral is under the administration of the Roman Catholic Church and is the seat of the Archbishop of Bamberg....

and set up in the Michaelskirche, as described in a guidebook of 1912:
"An entirely alien component of the church furnishings consists of those episcopal gravestones which Ludwig I ordered to be removed from the cathedral during its restoration, as stylistically inappropriate, and which were set up in the Michelskirche instead."


The former abbey church of Saint Michael is now an ancillary church to the cathedral.

Sources and external links

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