PETERSHAUSEN, ABBEY OF

Former benedictine monastery on the Rhine River, near Constance, Germany (Latin, Petridomus ). It was founded by Bp. gebhard ii of Constance (983), who built the abbey church facing west in imitation of St. Peter's, Rome, and decorated it with magnificent frescoes and wood, silver and gold ornamentation. The bishop enshrined there the head of Pope Gregory I the Great, which he had brought from Rome (hence Gregory was first patron, Gebhard second). The original monks were from einsiedeln. The hirsau Reform was introduced by Bp. gebhard iii. Under Abbot Theoderic (1086–1116), Petershausen monks went to Andelsbuch, mehrerau, kastl, neresheim, Wagenhausen, and Fischingen, at the request of those houses. After the fire of 1159 the Constance architect Wezilo (1162–80) built the new cruciform basilica. The first provincial chapter of the Mainz-Bamberg province of Benedictines was held there in 1417, with all Benedictines at the Council of constance in attendance. The abbey was in a poor financial and domestic state in the mid-15th and early 16th century, but after 1519, under Abbot J. Merk, there was improvement. The Reformation in Constance forced the monks to leave their monastery from 1529 to 1549, and its buildings were a "quarry" for the bridge being built across the Rhine. In 1583, Pope Gregory XIII incorporated the Benedictine monastery of stein am rhein and the Kingenzell provostry into the revived Petershausen. Abbot Wunibald Saur (1671–85), the "second founder" of the abbey, was a good administrator, and he undertook much building activity in the parishes dependent on the abbey and in the monastery itself. In 1769 Petershausen gained the status of an independent imperial abbey. It was suppressed in 1802, and its goods were assigned to the state of Baden. The church was demolished in 1832; its columned, Romanesque portal is preserved in the Landes-museum, Karlsruhe. The abbey archives are in Karlsruhe Generallandesarchiv; the library is in Heidelberg University Library. The monastic buildings are presently a barracks.

Bibliography: Life of Gebhard and the Petershausen Chronicle, written c. 1156 by an unnamed monk, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (Berlin 1826–) 10:582–594. p. lindner, Professbuch von Wessobrunn (Kempten 1909). p. motz, "Die Neubauten der ehemaligen Benediktinerund Reichsabtei Petershausen bei Konstanz im 18. Jahrhundert," Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees 79 (1961). j. n. hauntinger, Reise dutch Schwaben und Bayern im Jahre 1784 (Weissenhorn 1964), with illustrations and bibliography.

[g. spahr]