Kremsmünster Abbey: A Benedictine Monastery in Austria
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Austria
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page21 sections
History
Kremsmünster Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster, Austria, founded in 777 by Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria. Its foundation supported the settlement and cultivation of the forested Traungau, where Bavarians and Slavs lived, and it received cleared land as well as more distant possessions. The abbey’s surviving complex reflects a long history of medieval rebuilding and Baroque expansion.
Foundation and early development
A foundation legend connects the monastery with the death of Tassilo’s son Gunther, who was fatally wounded by a wild boar while hunting in the forests near the Krems. The place associated with his death became linked with the abbey’s foundation, although this tradition is distinct from the historical circumstances of the monastery’s establishment.
Fater, formerly Tassilo’s chaplain, became the first abbot. The foundation ceremony took place on 9 November 777 in the presence of Virgil of Salzburg, Simpert of Regensburg, and Waldrich of Passau, together with abbots from Mondsee, Niederaltaich, Schlehdorf, and Chiemsee. Bavarian counts and nobles also attended, while Tassilo’s anointed son Theodo III approved the foundation charter.
Tassilo provided substantial endowments, and further gifts came from Charlemagne and his successors. In time, the abbots exercised episcopal jurisdiction when the bishop of Passau was absent. These possessions and responsibilities established Kremsmünster as an important religious and landholding institution in the region.
Destruction and medieval reform
A Hungarian raid destroyed the abbey in the tenth century. Its feudal possessions were then divided among the Duke of Bavaria, nobles, and bishops. Under Emperor Henry II, the monastery was rebuilt by Abbot Saint Gotthard, and its former possessions were recovered.
The community later entered a period of decline. Bishop Altmann of Passau responded by bringing monks from Gottesau and introducing the Cluniac observance, a medieval reform movement associated with stricter monastic discipline and liturgical practice. Kremsmünster subsequently became one of the most prosperous religious houses in the German lands, known for its disciplined community, piety, extensive lands, buildings, books, paintings, and learned members.
Its library attracted scholars, and histories of the bishops of Passau, the dukes of Bavaria, and the abbey itself were written there. Berchtold of Kremsmünster, active in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, produced the Historia Cremifanensis and the Narratio de ecclesia Cremsmunstrensi.
Reformation and early modern renewal
Abbots Ulrich Schoppenzaun and Johann Schreiner helped Kremsmünster survive the Reformation. In the mid-sixteenth century, Abbot Gregor Lechner transformed the previously private monastic school into a public school. He also supported Catholicism in a district where Protestant teaching had become widespread. His successor, Abbot Weiner, favored Protestant doctrines, and this caused internal dissension within the community.
Abbot Anton Wolfradt restored the abbey to a flourishing condition in the early seventeenth century and became known as its “third founder.” Under Abbot Placid Buchauer, Kremsmünster’s reputation as a centre of study and learning grew further. Since 1625, the monastery has belonged to the Austrian Benedictine Congregation, an organizational grouping of monasteries within the wider Benedictine Confederation.
The abbey church and wider complex were substantially enlarged from the middle of the seventeenth century. Older building components and materials were incorporated into the expanded monastery, which developed into one of Austria’s largest monastic complexes. Carlo Antonio Carlone worked on the church, Emperor’s Hall, library, and fishpond complex, while Jakob Prandtauer worked on the outer economic courtyards and the fishponds.
Science, education, and the eighteenth century
Abbot Alexander Fixlmillner, who led the abbey from 1731 to 1759, built the observatory, improved roads on the monastic estate, and became known for charity toward the poor. His nephew Placidus Fixlmillner later directed the observatory and was the first astronomer to calculate the orbit of Uranus.
Emperor Joseph II’s late-eighteenth-century policy toward religious houses threatened Kremsmünster with closure, but the abbey escaped dissolution. It nevertheless suffered heavily during the Napoleonic Wars and recovered only gradually.
Nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Under Abbot Thomas Mitterndorfer, who served from 1840 to 1860, the monastery regained material security, learning, discipline, and much of its former prestige. Abbot Cölestin Ganglbauer marked the foundation’s 1,100th anniversary in 1877. He became Archbishop of Vienna in 1881 and a cardinal in 1884. The entomologist Leander Czerny served as abbot from 1905 to 1929.
During the Second World War, a wartime assessment considered Kremsmünster suitable for the temporary storage of art treasures confiscated from Austrian abbeys. The assessment noted roughly 50 to 60 dry, spacious rooms and the monastery’s relatively remote valley setting. On 8 May 1945, the Slovak government in exile capitulated there to General Walton Walker, commander of the XX Corps of the U.S. Third Army.
The monastery school has existed since at least 1549 and became public in that year. The monks continue to work in education and pastoral care, and the school now provides humanistic and modern-language secondary education. From 1970 to 2010, members of the abbey also worked in the Diocese of Barreiras in Brazil, combining parish ministry with social projects that included old-age homes, kindergartens, medical clinics, an agricultural school, and projects for street children. Richard Weberberger became the first bishop of the newly established diocese and served until his death in 2010. Kremsmünster has retained a continuing connection with Barreiras.
The abbey has also confronted serious institutional abuses. Sexual, psychological, and physical abuse at the boarding school and grammar school led to police investigations between 2008 and 2010. August Mandorfer, also known as Father Alfons and a former boarding-school director, left the order in 2012, was laicized by Pope Benedict XVI, and received a twelve-year prison sentence in 2015 for the documented abuse of 24 former pupils. A 2015 study identified 16 violent and eight sexually abusive perpetrators active within the school between 1945 and 2000. A memorial plaque for affected former pupils was installed in 2014.
The abbey’s art collection suffered thefts from 2006 onward. A 2006 theft involved The Last Supper, the collection’s oldest painting, while a separate theft removed the loaned 1532 astronomical book Astronomicum Caesareum. An inventory check in 2020 identified 50 missing objects, including three seventeenth-century firearms and 47 paintings. Some objects were later returned, and former curator Klaudius Wintz was convicted of theft in 2021.
Since 2008, the abbey has hosted the monthly Treffpunkt Benedikt, which combines lectures with Christian spiritual activities. Since 2007, it has also housed the Goethe Centre and the seat of the Austrian Goethe Society. Their holdings include original Goethe drawings, literary autographs, a research library, and museum objects.
Remains
The surviving complex extends around a large monastic layout shaped by medieval foundations and extensive Baroque rebuilding. Its greatest extent is the approximately 290-metre-long south wing, which contains the refectory, library, and Emperor’s Hall and ends to the east in the 51-metre-high Mathematical Tower. The church, scientific collections, library, treasury, fishponds, and garden buildings together preserve the abbey’s religious, educational, scientific, and economic functions.
Abbey church and commemorative features
Church interior and Baroque transformation
The abbey church was originally dedicated to Christ the Saviour, while the patronage of Saint Agapitus of Praeneste was added later, possibly when a new building was consecrated in 1082. Several earlier churches were destroyed by fire before construction of the present building began in 1232. Abbot Friedrich of Aich consecrated the nave in 1277, the five-hundredth anniversary of the foundation. The towers and the rest of the Gothic church took approximately another two centuries to complete, producing a building that combines late Romanesque and early Gothic elements.
From the early seventeenth century, the church was altered through several Baroque phases. Under Abbot Anton Wolfradt, Marco Martino Spazzio mainly remodelled the choir. From the 1670s, Carlo Antonio Carlone, Giovanni Battista Colomba, and Giovanni Battista Barberini directed a more extensive transformation. The early-seventeenth-century choir domes were removed, and Colomba and Barberini covered the interior with stucco, with Girolamo Alfieri among the executors. Alfieri also created the west facade in 1681. Michael Christoph Grabenberger and his brother painted the interior frescoes, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, in a phase that lasted twelve years.
Under Abbot Alexander Strasser, who served from 1709 to 1731, the Baroque transformation was completed. The work included the high altarpiece and tabernacle, pulpit, broad staircase to the presbytery, and side altars. Marble Baroque angels by Johann Michael Zürn the Younger stand beside the numerous side altars. The church measures approximately 63 metres in length and 21 metres in width. Its main nave is 18 metres high, while the side aisles reach 12 metres.
Andreas Wolff completed the high-altarpiece painting in 1712 after twelve years of work. The canvas, measuring 6.15 by 3.73 metres, depicts the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, when Christ appears in radiant form before Peter, James, and John, with Moses, Elijah, angels, and God the Father. A heavy gilded copper frame surrounds the painting, and angels made by Josef Anton Pfaffinger in 1714 flank it.
Wrought-iron grilles separate the choir from the nave. Valentin Hofmann made the central grille in 1718, while Hans Walz made the side grilles between 1616 and 1618. The tabernacle, completed in 1715 and possibly based on a design by Jakob Prandtauer, forms the base of the high altarpiece. Its door bears an Immaculate Conception by Johann Urban Remele, presenting Mary as the “Golden House,” a title from the Litany of Loreto, a Catholic prayer invoking titles of the Virgin Mary.
Urban Remele’s pulpit dates from 1713 and includes Karl von Reslfeld’s oil painting Paul as Preacher. Flemish tapestries woven by the Reydams workshop in Brussels near the end of the seventeenth century cover the piers and depict episodes from the story of Joseph in Genesis. Daniel Seiter painted the two side-choir altarpieces. The left shows the martyrdom of Saint Candida, whose relics have been kept at Kremsmünster since 1677, while the right depicts Saint Agapitus, whose remains were given to the abbey by King Arnulf in the late ninth century.
Gunther Tomb
The so-called Gunther Tomb in the southern tower chapel is a white Nagelfluh-stone cenotaph, a memorial monument that does not contain the person’s body. Its cover, made before 1304, shows the dead Gunther in a Romanesque tubular garment, with a boar pierced by a lance and Gunther’s hunting dog at his feet. The monument retains notably strong and well-preserved polychromy.
Church organ
The church organ was built in 2005 by the Kögler organ-building company of Sankt Florian. It has 45 stops, three manuals, and a pedalboard.
Mathematical Tower and scientific collections
Mathematical Tower and observatory
The Mathematical Tower was built between 1749 and 1758. It rises about 51 metres and contains six load-bearing intermediate floors. The tower was regarded as one of Europe’s earliest high-rise buildings and houses the Kremsmünster Observatory, one of the world’s oldest observatories designed for astronomical observation.
Astronomical observations moved around 1930 from the observatory dome on the seventh floor to a large meridian house in the garden. A meridian house is designed for precise observations of the meridian and the passage of celestial bodies. The deep basement contains a gravimetric fundamental station operated by the University of Vienna.
Science museum and meteorological station
Four upper floors contain a science museum modernized for the abbey’s 1,200th anniversary in 1977. Its collections cover physics, astronomy, geology, biology, and ethnology, tracing the development of natural-scientific research over nearly 250 years.
Meteorological observations have been made in the “Wetterkammerl” since 1763, and continuous temperature records have been kept since 1767. The uninterrupted series extends for more than 240 years without a change of location.
Library and treasury
Main library
Carlo Antonio Carlone built the main library hall between 1680 and 1689. It is 65 metres long and holds about 160,000 volumes, approximately 1,700 handwritten manuscripts, and nearly 2,000 incunabula, books printed in Europe before about 1501 during the earliest period of movable-type printing.
The best-known manuscript is the Codex Millenarius maior, a Gospel book dating from around 800 and produced at Mondsee Abbey. The library also contains more than 30 manuscripts donated by Johannes Seld de Leubs in 1440 and 1441, including a copy of the linguistically important Abstractum glossary.
Treasury objects
The treasury preserves the Tassilo Chalice, a copper and silver-gilt vessel approximately 25.5 centimetres high. It weighs about three kilograms and holds 1.75 litres. It was made sometime between 768/769 and 788, possibly at Mondsee or Salzburg, and was donated by Tassilo III and Liutberga, probably in connection with the abbey’s foundation.
The Tassilo Chalice, the Tassilo Candlesticks, and the Codex Millenarius are used in religious services on special occasions. The candlesticks were once thought to have been made from Tassilo’s sceptre, but they are now dated to the middle of the tenth century.
Fishponds and garden buildings
Fishpond complex
The fishpond complex contains five ornamental water basins used for fish breeding. Carlone built the complex between 1690 and 1692, and Prandtauer altered or completed it in 1717. Its arcades are supported by 78 Roman-Tuscan columns.
Statues by Andreas Götzinger and Johann Baptist Spaz serve as water outlets. They represent Samson, David, Neptune, Triton, the Apostle Peter, and Tobias.
“Mosque” garden house
The Baroque garden house known as the “Mosque” was built in an Oriental style in 1642 under Abbot Bonifaz Negele. A crescent moon crowns its central cupola, and the south gallery provides a view over the Krems valley.
Fig house
The surviving fig house was built between 1638 and 1640 and originally had a detachable roof structure. It is described as Austria’s oldest preserved orangery greenhouse. In 2017, the building was converted from residential use back to its original horticultural function.
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