The Benedictine Abbey of St. Emmeram in Regensburg

The monastery of St. Emmeram is situated within the old center of Regensburg in the province of Bavaria. Regensburg can trace its history back to antiquity, when it was founded as a fortress for the Roman Legio III Italica in 170. Soon after, a civilian municipality was founded just westwards from the fortress. During the early middle ages, Regensburg was a comparatively large city with still intact fortifications and walls hailing from Roman times and as such it was chosen as the main residence of the ruling dynasty of the Bavarians – the Agilolfingers. Accordingly, the early history of the abbey of St. Emmeram saw close relations with the dukes of Bavaria. In fact, the affiliation of Saint Emmeram with the Agilolfingers goes back even further than the foundation of the actual monastery.

St. Emmeram – hailing from a wealthy Frankish family– was a representative of his time, i.e. the 7th century. According to his Vita, in his earlier life, having first risen to the honour of the bishopric of Poitiers in Aquitania, he sought to seek God as an ascetic and bring the Christian faith to the Avars in Hungary. Inspired by the preregrinatio of the wandering Irish monks in the tradition of St. Columban, who held prominence in the intellectual and spiritual life of Western Europe, Emmeram cut ties to his worldly attachments and began wandering towards his destination.

However, before he could reach Hungary, duke Theodo I of Bavaria sought to bring Emmeram into his service, who then redirected his missionary work to the rural Bavarians who were still keeping to their old pagan traditions. The story goes on about how Ota, Theodos‘s daughter, had a secret liaison with the son of a judge and as the couple was expecting a child, they feared being put to death as punishment and pleaded to the Saint for help. Moved by compassion, Emmeram proposed to take the blame on himself. When Lantpert, Theodo‘s son, was made aware of the incident, Emmeram was already on a pilgrimage to Rome and interpreting this as an attempted flight, he pursued and executed the monk near Munich. Soon enough, however, Theodo, realizing the true course of events, brought Emmeram to Regensburg and buried him in the crypt of the later monastery. Thus, thanks to the presence of this famous Saint, the benedictine monastery, which was founded in 739 by Saint Boniface, quickly grew in size and prominence.

From its foundation until the 12th century the abbey experienced a Golden Age of learning in the domains of the sciences, philosophy, theology and art. Under duke Tassilo III (748-787), the original intent of Emmeram could finally be fulfilled, as the monks were given lands in the march of Cham, from whence they could begin their missionary work with the Avars. Around 780 a new church was erected, which is still the foundation for the current Basilica. In the crypt, there are still wall paintings from this time. The most illustrious possession of the abbey of that time is a Codex Aureus – a highly decorated Bible – which was gifted by Emperor Arnulf (887-899) in 893. Under the later canonized bishop Wolfgang (972-975), the offices of the bishopric and abbotship were separated for the first time. His friend and successor, Ramwold, initiated the reconstruction of the church into a triple-naved Basilica. Around the turn of the millennium, the Scriptorium of St. Emmeram produced some of the finest examples of Ottonian book art, such as the Uta-Codex and the sacramentary of Heinrich I. However, it seems that around the latter half of the 10th century, moral decline must have affected the fraternity.

Furthermore, after Ramwod‘s death, his successors had to secure the newly-found independence of the abbey from the bishopric of Regensburg.  In response to these problems, both the Reforms of Cluny and the reforms of Gorze were introduced. These sought to bring about strict adherence to the benedictine code, the relinquishment of worldly attachments and to substantiate their autonomy from episcopal rule. Some of the most creative attempts to secure this position were made by the monk Otloh (1010-1070), who was both a gifted writer and scholar. Otloh produced several forgeries of Imperial and Papal donations and the granting of imperial immediacy to argue for the primacy of the monastery over the bishopric of Regensburg. In the Liber Visonum – a collection of visions supposedly received by Otloh and other monks of St. Emmeram – he reports that the decline of the abbey was due to the actions of the bishops of Regensburg and how the divine punishment for their misdeeds is imminent.

Lastly, the so-called ‚forgeries of Saint-Denis‘ are associated with Otloh. In these, the abbey claimed that they possessed the bodily remains of Saint-Denis of Paris after Emperor Arnulf had brought them back from a campaign and gifted them to his favourite monastery. For this reason, in 1050 a transept was added to the western side of the Basilica, which gave room for the relics of both Saint-Denis and Saint Wolfgang, the latter of which was the former abbot and bishop who was canonized in 1052. Two fires in 1062-68 and 1166 damaged large parts of the Romanesque nave, which was largely revised afterwards.

It was just in 1295 that the forged granting of immediacy was confirmed by King Adolpf of Nassau, making St. Emmeram an imperial abbey. The following centuries marked a slow decline in its importance, although St. Emmeram remained a hub of intellectual discourse. In the 16th century, however, the monastery lost all importance for a time, when Regensburg became Lutheran as a consequence of the peace of Augsburg. With the reestablishment of Catholicism in Bavaria during the Thirty Years War, St. Emmeram entered another time of flourishing, especially in the domain of the sciences. As the Benedictines could hark back on a long tradition in the natural sciences, St. Emmeram maintained the Academy for the free imperial city of Regensburg, which was to be a counter-balance against the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. As of 1658 and again confirmed in 1731/33, St. Emmeram was made a princely abbey, with the respective elective rights at the imperial diet. In order to match this new prominence, the monastery was refashioned in the manner of the Baroque, as can still be viewed today, between 1731 and 1733. St. Emmeram‘s steep rise was, however, cut short in 1802 with the Secularization of church properties. The monastery complex was transferred to the royal house of Thurn und Taxis, turning it into a residence. The Basilica became a parish church for Regensburg.

FORMAL ANALYSIS