SCHEYERN, ABBEY OF

Benedictine house in Bavaria, Germany. It was founded c. 1050 by hermits in Margaretenzell (today Bayrischzell) and after their death settled by monks from hirsau Abbey c. 1077 at the request of Haziga (d. 1103), widow of Count of the Palatinate Otto II yon Scheyern. It moved to Fischbachau before 1087, to Petersberg near Dachau before 1104, and c. 1119 to the family castle, Schyren, donated by Haziga's descendants who had built a castle at Wittelsbach, near Aichach. Scheyern continued as a burial place and family cloister for the Wittelsbachs until 1253. With the remains of Conrad III, last Count of Dachau (d. 1180 or 1183) and a Schyren descendant, there came to Scheyern a large relic of the Holy Cross, which the counts of Dachau had wrongfully obtained and brought home from the First Crusade and which numerous pilgrims still venerate. I. G. Herkomer of Augsburg made a famed monstrance for the cross (1738). Fischbachau, Petersberg, and Scheyern (which has been altered many times through the centuries) were all built in the style of Hirsau. The work of Scheyern's famous miniaturists (1200–1500), e.g., the codex matutinalis, went to the state library in Munich after the secularization of the abbey (1803). After the introduction of the melk reform in 1452 (Consuetudines Schyrenses ), Scheyern flourished in discipline, administration, and scholarship almost continuously until c. 1700, despite the thirty years' war. Simon Fürbass (d. 1641), the canonist Ägidius Ranbeck (1608–92), and Gregor Kimpfler (abbot 1658–93) taught in Salzburg University. Under Kimpfler, Scheyern became a noted monastery in the Bavarian congregation founded in 1684 and, despite afflictions within and without in the 1700s, was healthy when secularized in 1803. In 1838 the Wittelsbach Louis I King of Bavaria (1825–48) restored the family cloister with Benedictines from metten. Since then, Scheyern has resumed its tradition of pastoral care, education, and scholarship. Prior Peter Lechner, with Boniface wimmer of Metten, was active in the founding of st. vincent archabbey in Pennsylvania (1847–51). Abbot Rupert III Metzenleitner and Baron Theodore von Cramer-Klett restored the monasteries of Ettal (1900, abbey 1907) and Plankstetten (1904, abbey 1917). Scheyern cares for widespread parishes and maintains a liberal arts school

(Gymnasium), a seminary, and a Byzantine institute founded in 1939 for research in Eastern theology.

Bibliography: l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 2:2977–78. o. l. kapsner, A Benedictine Bibliography: An Author-Subject Union List, 2 v. (2d ed. Collegeville, MN 1962): v.1 author part; v.2, subject part; 2:277. s. kainz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. m. buchberger, 10 v. (Freiburg 1930–38)¹ 9:246–247. i. kreuzer, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 9.395; "Die Wiedererrichtung der Benediktinerabtei Scheyern," Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner-und Zisterzienserorden 71 (1960) 189–234; 72 (1961) 69–146.

[i. kreuzer]