SANKT EMMERAM, ABBEY OF

Former benedictine monastery in Regensburg, Germany. Having been founded in the early 8th century, over the tomb of St. emmeram, the abbey was a great religious and cultural center, especially after the German carolingians had made Regensburg their main residence. Bishop wolfgang of regensburg separated the office of abbot from his own and summoned Ramwold of Saint-Maximin in Trier to reform the abbey. Abbot Ramwold (975–1000) introduced the customs of gorze and helped to spread them throughout Bavaria. The reinvigorated abbey emerged as an outstanding school of book illumination, e.g., the "Gospel Book of Uta." The abbey was never greater than in the 11th century when it produced such authors as Hartwich, Arnold, and othlo, or such religious leaders as Gerard, later cardinal bishop of Ostia, ulric of zell, and william of hirsau. Sankt Emmeram was made a free imperial abbey soon after 1295 and an exempt abbey (see exemption) in 1326. In 1451–52, it joined the reform congregation of kastl. Its abbot became a prince-abbot in 1732. The late 17th and 18th centuries saw a great flowering of scholarship in the abbey. In 1802 Prince-Primate K. T. dalberg was granted Sankt Emmeram together with the imperial city of Regensberg; in 1810 the abbey was transferred to Bavaria, which dissolved it in 1812. Its manuscripts went to Munich; the abbey church, medieval in structure, with baroque decorations, became a parish church; the other buildings went to the princes of Thurn und Taxis.

Bibliography: b. bischoff, Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, v.1 (Leipzig 1940) 171–183. w. wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Deutsche Kaiserzeit, ed. r. holtzmann, v.1.1–4 (3d ed. Tübingen 1948; repr. of 2d ed. 1938–43) 2:26–30, 268. r. bauerreiss, Kirchengeschichte Bayerns, v.1 (2d ed. St. Ottilien 1958). m. piendl, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 9:141–142.

[a. a. schacher]