History of Muensterschwarzach 780–1803

Muensterschwarzach was founded in the year 780 by Fastrada, the third wife of Charlemagne, as monastery for women. It was a proprietary monastery of the Carolingian ruling house; daughters of the imperial family were its abbesses. When the last Carolingian abbess died in the year 877, the nuns gave up the monastery. Then the Benedictine monks of the monastery of Megingaudshausen (District of Scheinfeld), which had been founded by the Franconian Count Megingaud in the year 816, moved to the “Monasterium Suarzaha,” “the monastery on the Schwarzach.” After initially flourishing, it experienced the decline of the 10th century, but nevertheless it recovered again under Abbot Egbert (1047–1077) who brought with him the reform of his home monastery of Gorze in Lothringia and among other things founded a school for the education of young noblemen.
In 1066 Bishop Adalbero of Wuerzburg consecrated a Romanesque basilica. Muensterschwarzach has been dedicated for years to St. Felicitas who suffered martyrdom with her seven sons in a Roman persecution. Her memory is celebrated on 23 November. (Her relics are in the crypt of the present abbey church). During the following centuries the monastery suffered severe external and internal harm: economic and religious ruin, fires and attack by robbers. In the end it was almost completely destroyed in the Peasants’ War in 1525.

© Abtei
Monastery in 1698

Under Abbot Johannes Burkhart (1563–1598), the energetic associate of Bishop Julius Echter, the abbey rose again to new splendor. An important period for the monastery came after the horrors of the Thirty Years War with personalities like Abbot Remigius Winkel (1646–1654), Abbot Benedict Weidenbusch (1654–1672) and Abbot Placidus Büchs (1672–1691) who all saw to the intellectual and spiritual development of the abbey. Abbot Benedict founded a philosophical-theological college. One last remnant of the monastery of that time is the gate house built in 1652.Towards the end of the seventeen century, a grand baroque plan began to be realized. The architects were Josef Greising and Valentino Pezani whose guest house built in 1696–97 is still partially preserved.

© Abtei
Sketch of the Balthasar Neumann basilica of Muensterschwarzach,dedicated in 1743, demolished in 1825

For the construction of a new basilica in place of the dilapidated Romanesque church, Balthasar Neumann was acquired, in addition to the most outstanding painters and stuccoers of that time. He created a sacred space of enormous size and magnificence. It was dedicated in 1743 by Bishop Friedrich Karl von Schönborn. The measurements of that baroque basilica corresponded somewhat to those of the present-day abbey church. The height of the dome above the intersections of the nave was that of today’s east tower: 52 m (170 ft).

This splendor, however, was short-lived. On 7 May 1803 the monastery fell victim to secularization. A thousand years of Benedictine praise of God came to a sudden end as a result of the enlightened, materialistic spirit of the age. The property of the monastery was either destroyed or sold off down to the very last vestiges. The church itself, after being struck by lightning and fire in 1810, was used as a stone quarry and thus given up to complete ruin.

In the 19th century the former monastery property changed owners several times. In 1825 Friederich Bauer of Oberzell near Wuerzburg bought the baroque monastery mill built by Balthasar Neumann in 1749 and set up a paper factory that was in operation until 1863.