Wiki source code of Tegernsee

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  1: 1 Tegernsee Abbey
  2: Tegernsee Abbey or the Imperial Abbey of Tegernsee (German Kloster
  3: Tegernsee, Abtei or Reichsabtei Tegernsee) is a former Benedictine
  4: monastery in the town and district of Tegernsee in Bavaria. Both the abbey
  5: and the town that grew up around are named after the Tegernsee, the lake
  6: on the shores of which they are located. The name is from the Old High
  7: German tegarin seo, meaning great lake.
  8: 
  9: Tegernsee Abbey was first built in the 8th century. Until 1803 it was the
 10: most important Benedictine community in Bavaria.
 11: 
 12: Today the monastery buildings are known as Schloss Tegernsee (Tegernsee
 13: Castle) and are in the possession of the Wittelsbach family. The local
 14: Catholic parish church of Saint Quirinus is in the former abbey church.
 15: The former abbey premises also accommodate a restaurant and Tegernsee
 16: Grammar School (Gymnasium Tegernsee).
 17: 
 18: 1.1 Foundation and early history
 19: The monastic community at Tegernsee was founded in the mid 8th century (in
 20: either 746 or around 765). Settled by monks from St. Gall and dedicated to
 21: Saint Quirinus of Rome, whose relics were brought here from Rome in 804,
 22: the monastery soon spread the message of Christianity as far as the Tyrol
 23: and Lower Austria.
 24: 
 25: The founders were the brothers Otkar or Oatkar and Adalbert, members of
 26: one of the ancient noble clans of Bavaria, although it has not proved
 27: possible to say with certainty which. There is little definite information
 28: on the early days of the monastery, as a result of a fire in about 970,
 29: which destroyed earlier evidence.
 30: 
 31: There developed however a well-known and detailed (but nevertheless
 32: entirely unverifiable) tradition about the foundation:
 33: 
 34: According to this, Otkar and Adelbert were princes of the Huosi, kin of
 35: the Bavarian ruling house of the Agilolfinger, whose principal territory
 36: was the area now known as the Huosigau in south-west Bavaria, although
 37: they had many other lands elsewhere in Bavaria and in Burgundy. They and
 38: their families lived at the court of Pippin the Younger, King of the
 39: Franks (714-768), whose son fell into a rage during a game of chess and
 40: killed the son of Otkar with the chessboard. Pippin was afraid of the
 41: revenge of such a powerful family. He therefore summoned Otkar and
 42: Adalbert before they could hear of the killing, and asked them for their
 43: advice: "How would you deal with a terrible evil if there were no way to
 44: change it?" The brothers replied: "All one could do in such a case would
 45: be to accept the evil with humility and submission to the will of God."
 46: Only then did Pippin tell them of the death of Otkar's son. The brothers,
 47: bound by their own judgment, were unable to take up arms and found
 48: themselves forced to accept the murder. Instead, they decided to turn
 49: their backs on the world. They returned to their homeland in the south of
 50: Bavaria and founded a monastery on an unusually beautiful site by the
 51: shores of the Tegernsee, into which they withdrew. The scene of the
 52: princes playing chess was for many centuries to be seen depicted on a
 53: large panel in the nearby church of Egern.
 54: 
 55: After the fall of Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria (748-788) Tegernsee became
 56: a Carolingian royal monastery. The community was greatly weakened by
 57: Hungarian raids and by repeated attempts at secularisation during the
 58: reign of Arnulf I, Duke of Bavaria (907-937) and in the course of the 10th
 59: century suffered a sustained decline, culminating in the fire of around
 60: 970.
 61: 
 62: 1.1 Middle Ages
 63: Restored and re-founded however under Emperor Otto II (973-983) as an
 64: Imperial Abbey in 978, and re-settled by monks from St. Maximin's Abbey,
 65: Trier, Tegernsee entered a new period of growth. With the activities of
 66: the monk Froumund (1006-1012) and Abbot Ellinger (1017-1026 and 1031-1041)
 67: the abbey became a centre of literature, manuscript production and
 68: learning, and was also active in the resettlement of other Benedictine
 69: houses in Bavaria, including the newly-founded abbey of Saints Ulrich and
 70: Afra in Augsburg in c. 1012.
 71: 
 72: This golden age of the abbey lasted almost to the end of the 12th century.
 73: Among the literary and scientific works produced at that time were:
 74: "Ruodlieb" (considered the first German novel; last third of the 11th
 75: century); the Quirinals (12th century); "Game of the Antichrist" (1155?);
 76: and the Tegernsee Letter Collection (1178 to 1186). The well-known
 77: Tegernseespruch of Walther von der Vogelweide dates either from a little
 78: before 1206 or from c. 1212, and thus belongs, not to this period, but to
 79: the beginning of the period of decline that followed. Tegernsee was
 80: largely spared the political and ecclesiastical confusions arising from
 81: the conflict between Pope Alexander III (1159-1177) and Emperor Frederick
 82: II, and even managed to acquire substantial privileges from both pope and
 83: emperor.
 84: 
 85: The shape of the future however was made plain with the appointment to
 86: this Bavarian abbey in 1189 of Abbot Manegold of Berg, son of the Count of
 87: Berg, as the result of political intrigue by the Counts of Andechs, Vögte
 88: (lords protectors) of Tegernsee, and Bishop Otto of Freising. The
 89: political and economic interests of the noble families of Berg, Andechs
 90: and Hohenstaufen now came to dominate the abbey, and as a result it
 91: declined during the 13th and 14th centuries into little more than a
 92: private monastery dependent on a small number of noble families. To make
 93: matters worse, it burnt down in 1410.
 94: 
 95: 1.1 Later history to dissolution
 96: 
 97: However, in 1426, Tegernsee received a Visitation from the Vicar-General
 98: Johannes Grünwalder which marked a new beginning. Over the next decades,
 99: with the support of the Papal Legate Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues, it became
100: a focus of the Reforms of Melk Abbey, which opened Benedictine houses
101: hitherto restricted to the nobility to a wider range of social classes. In
102: 1455 monks of Tegernsee settled Andechs Abbey and were appointed abbots at
103: Benediktbeuern, Oberalteich, Wessobrunn and others. In 1446 a Passion
104: altar was dedicated, Johannes Keck (who was the Tegernsee delegate at the
105: Council of Basle and died in 1450) wrote a work on music, and the Prior of
106: Tegernsee, Bernhard von Waging (d. 1472) composed his mystical writings.
107: 
108: This second flowering continued into the Early Modern period. From 1573
109: the monastery had its own printing press, which thanks to Imperial
110: privileges was allowed to print many books on theology, liturgy and the
111: theory of music. The community survived the confusion of the Thirty Years'
112: War (1618-1648), when the abbey was raided by Swedish soldiers. The
113: monastic buildings and the church were refurbished in the Baroque style
114: between 1684 and 1688. The former abbey church built at the end of the
115: 10th century had been converted in the 11th to a Romanesque basilica,
116: which in its turn had been re-fashioned between 1455 and 1460 into a
117: Gothic church. Tegernsee Abbey was also a prominent member of the
118: Benedictine Bavarian Congregation, established in 1684.
119: 
120: During the abbacy of Abbot Benedikt Schwarz (to 1787) the first signs
121: began to show of the secularisation which eventually took place on 17
122: March 1803, thus bringing the abbey to an end. Gregor Rottenkolber, the
123: last Abbot of Tegernsee, died on 13 February 1810. The greater part of the
124: site was bought by Baron Drechsel for his brewery, but he later sold a
125: small part back to an unofficial monastic community, who remained until
126: 1861.
127: 
128: The buildings of the monastery itself were acquired in 1817 by the ruling
129: Wittelsbach family, attracted by the unusually beautiful location, and
130: turned into a summer residence, Schloss Tegernsee, still the property of
131: the family.