GÖTTWEIG, ABBEY OF

Benedictine abbey in the Diocese of St. Pölten, near Krems, Lower Austria. It was founded (1083) for Augustinian canons by Bishop St. altmann of passau, who is buried there. Bishop Ulrich I of Passau (1092–1121) settled it with Benedictines from sankt blasien; an attached convent of nuns survived to c. 1550. sankt lambrecht in Styria, Garsten, and seitenstetten were founded in part by Göttweig, which participated in Benedictine reforms of the 15th and 17th centuries. The abbey was always devoted to pastoral care and warded off the inroads of Protestantism under Abbots Michael Herrlich, Georg Schedler, and David Corner. Scholarship flourished in the 18th century, especially under Abbots Gottfried von Bessel and Magnus Klein. Only the church and a tower survived a fire of 1718. The grandiose plan of baroque reconstruction by Johann Lukas von Hildebrand (1668–1745) was not completed. The library has 60,000 volumes, 1,100 incunabula, 1,111 MSS, music archives, and important collections of prints and coins. In 1964 the 38 monks included 32 priests; the abbey cares for 34 parishes.

Bibliography: l. koller, Abtei Göttweig (Göttweig 1953). Österreichische Ordensstifte (Vienna 1961) 24–27. e. ritter, "Neue Forschungsergebnisse zur Bau-und Kunstgeschichte des Stiftes Göttweig," Mitteilungen des Kremser Stadtarchivs (Krems 1961) 57–104. m. schmid, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 4:1145–46. l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 1:1307–08.

[m. h. schmid]