BRAUWEILER, ABBEY OF

Former benedictine monastery near Cologne, Germany, Archdiocese of Cologne (patrons, SS. Nicholas and Medard). It was founded in 1024 by the Count Palatine Erenfrid (Ezzo) of Lorraine and his consort Matilda. Abbot poppo of stavelot supplied the first monks; the first and third abbots, Ello and Bl. wolfhelm (1065–91), came from Sankt Maximin at Trier. The abbey sided with the emperor in the investiture struggle. It is thought that Wolfhelm may have adopted the cluniac reform from Fruttuaria-Siegburg, but the reform may have been introduced later on. Monks from Brauweiler collaborated with Count Burkhard, who wanted to convert his castle into a monastery, and thus was founded the Abbey of Komburg, which also took St. Nicholas as patron. In 1467 monks from St. Martin the Great in Cologne went to Brauweiler, which then became part of the bursfeld reform congregation. In 1802 Brauweiler was secularized. The abbey church, a late Romanesque columned basilica whose west towers and nave date from c. 1140 and whose east end and choir are early 13th century (six towers in all), is now a parish church. Its portals are richly sculptured with signs of the zodiac. Today the monastery buildings (dating from 1760–80 except for the chapter room, which has late 12th-century Biblical frescoes) serve as the provincial house of correction.

Bibliography: p. clemen, ed., Die Kansldenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, v.4 (Düsseldorf 1897). l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 1:480. w. bader, Die Benediktinerabtei Brauweiler bei Köln (Berlin 1937). p. volk, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912–) 10:457–458. p. schmitz, Histoire de l'Ordre de Saint-Benoît, 7 v. (Maredsous, Bel. 1942–56). k. hallinger, Gorze Kluny, 2 v. (Studia anselmiana 22–25; 1950–51). e. wisplinghoff, in Jahrbuch des kölnischen Geschichtsvereins 31–32 (1956–57) 6273.

[g. spahr]