HERSFELD, ABBEY OF

A former Benedictine abbey (Hirshfeld, Herocampia, Hirsfeldia, Hersfeldense) in the Diocese of Mainz. Sturmius, a pupil of St. Boniface, established a cell there in 736. Lullus, a monk of Malmesbury, the best known of Boniface's companions and later his successor as bishop of Mainz, founded the abbey in 769–770. It was first dedicated to SS. Simon and Thaddeus, but soon after it was renamed to honor the relics of St. Wigbert of Fritzlar. A new church was erected in 850.

When Hersfeld became an imperial abbey under Charlemagne it was already rich in estates in Hesse and Thuringia, and took an active role in the mission to the Saxons. It had one of the great medieval libraries, containing the important annals of the period of Otto II. During the 10th and 11th centuries it was an important spiritual center, particularly under the reforming abbots, Godehard and Arnold. However, as an imperial abbey, Hersfeld opposed the Cluniac reform.

The more important dependencies of Hersfeld were Herrenbreitstein, Göllingen, Memleben, Kreuzberg, and Frauensee. Hersfeld's abbots ranked with the princes of the empire until the mid-12th century, and after the 13th, the abbot received investiture from the emperor. Wealth and worldly living seem to have weakened monastic discipline. Its Vogt (suzerain), the Landgrave of Thuringia and Hesse, greatly reduced its territories in the 14th and 15th centuries. There was, moreover, a bitter quarrel between the abbey and the town. The Bursfeld reform was introduced in 1510, but Abbot Crato brought in the Protestant reform. There were attempts to restore the abbey in the 17th century, but it was given to Hesse as a principality in 1648. Important ruins of the church and frescoes of the Ottonian period remain. (See illustration below.)

Bibliography: h. bÜttner, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 10v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:281. l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés 1:1410–11. p. schmitz, Histoire de l'Ordre de Saint-Benoît, 7 v. (Maredsous, Bel. 1942–56).

[p. beckman]