MARIENBERG, ABBEY OF

Benedictine abbey in the Tirol, Diocese of Bressa-none, north central Italy. After being founded in 1090 near Schuls, Switzerland, by Eberhard and Ulrich of Tarasp, it moved to St. Stephen in the Upper Vintschgau (1146) and to its present location near Burgisio (1150), where it was settled from ottobeuren. Never wealthy, the abbey had as advocati the barons of Matsch and (from 1421) Austria. From 1440 the abbots were mitered. The abbey was reduced to one monk in 1598, but Mathias Lang (1615–40) proved a second founder. In the suppression by Bavaria (1807) many precious art objects and properties were alienated and could not be recovered after the abbey's restoration by Emperor Francis I of Austria (1816). Marienberg joined the Benedictine congregations of Swabia (1834), Austria (1889), and Switzerland (1931). In 1960 the abbey had 31 monks, a college in Merano, and four incorporated parishes. The Romanesque church (made baroque) has 12th-century paintings in the crypt.

The former Cistercian Abbey of Marienberg in Burgenland, Austria, was founded by the Hungarian Ban Dominic of the Miskolc family and settled from heili genkreuz. Destroyed by Turks (1532), it was given to lilienfeld (1680), which still maintains pastoral care there.

Bibliography: t. wieser, "Abt Matthias Lang von Marienberg," Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige, 34 (1913) 315–342, 424–450, 700–722. j. weingartner, Die Kunstdenkmäler Südtirols: Vintschgau (Augsburg 1930; 2d ed. Innsbruck 1957). l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 2:1750–51. s. pamer, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:57–58.

[n. backmund]