Lang, Andreas
LANG, ANDREAS
Benedictine abbot of Michelsberg (Bamberg, Germany); b. Staffelstein (Upper Franconia) c. 1450; d. Oct. 23, 1502. He became the third in a series of reform abbots of his monastery (1483), restoring the discipline of the Bursfeld reform and initiating the abbey's second period of flourishing. He also improved the material situation of his abbey, reorganizing its economic management and restoring the buildings of church and cloister. Interested in learning himself, he took special care to assist the monastery's school and library. His local reform activity made him influential in the general chapters of the Bursfeld Congregation. He collected materials on the history of the bishopric of Bamberg, on the history of the Michelsberg abbey, and on the saints of the Benedictine order. He wrote a number of works on these topics, notably his Catalogus sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedicti. Manuscripts of his writings survive in the Staatsbibliothek and the Staatsarchiv at Bamberg.
Bibliography: f. dressler, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 6:782. Der Catalogus sanctorum O.S.B. des Abtes Andreas von Michelsberg, ed. j. fassbinder (Bonn 1910).
[c. g. nauert, jr.]