Andlau Abbey: A Former Imperial Women’s Collegiate Foundation in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page13 sections
History
Andlau Abbey is a former religious foundation in Andlau, France, founded around 880 by Richardis, the Frankish empress and wife of Charles the Fat. Established on Richardis’s ancestral lands, it gave rise to the town of Andlau and developed into an institution with extensive property and close ties to both the papacy and the emperor.
Foundation under Richardis
Andlau’s foundation legend says that a she-bear scratching the soil showed Richardis where to establish the monastery. Historical tradition places the foundation several years before Charles the Fat repudiated Richardis after accusing her of adultery in 887. Having survived an ordeal by fire, Richardis withdrew to Andlau, where the monastery became associated with her personal history.
Richardis drafted the abbey’s statutes, which Pope John VIII approved, and endowed the institution with substantial possessions. These included Wagenbourg and Marlenheim in Alsace, as well as Etival Abbey in France. Numerous papal bulls concerning Andlau are preserved in the Departmental Archives of Bas-Rhin in Strasbourg. Richardis died around 895–900 and was buried in the abbey church.
From Benedictine monastery to collegiate foundation
The abbey originally followed the Rule of Saint Benedict, a set of monastic regulations, and was dedicated to the Holy Savior. It later became a women’s collegiate foundation for secular canonesses. These were women who lived in a religious community without generally taking permanent monastic vows. Most were of noble birth and could leave the community to marry, while only the abbess took lifelong vows.
Andlau stood under the emperor’s direct authority in secular matters and the pope’s direct authority in spiritual matters. Between 1178 and 1212, administrative guardianship over the abbey passed from the Counts of Egisheim-Dagsburg to the emperor, making Andlau directly subject to the Empire. From 1288, the abbess held a seat and vote in the Imperial Diet, the assembly of the empire’s political estates. Although the abbey no longer appears in the imperial registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its abbesses held the rank of imperial princesses from the time of Emperor Charles V and maintained a court of officers and employees.
Reform, French rule, and dissolution
On 19 April 1499, Andlau was formally converted into a secular women’s collegiate foundation. During the Reformation, the Lords of Andlau attempted to secularize it, but the community resisted. The Peace of Münster in 1648 reaffirmed the abbey’s independence, and the foundation survived the religious upheavals of the period. An abbess from the Rebstock family is commemorated in the present church.
Andlau came under French rule in 1680 through Louis XIV’s policy of reunions, which brought various territories under the French crown. A treaty of July 1686 confirmed the abbey’s right to elect its own abbess instead of having one appointed by the king. The institution also remained a place where Catholic noble families could place their daughters without requiring them to take vows before marriage.
A pilgrimage to Notre Dame was established early in the church’s crypt, where the canonesses gathered each day to invoke the Virgin Mary. The abbey’s long institutional history ended in 1789 during the French Revolution, when it was dissolved and its property secularized and confiscated. The former abbey church continued in religious use as Andlau’s parish church.
Richardis’s veneration
Pope Leo IX exposed Richardis’s body for public veneration at Andlau in November 1049 after returning from a synod at Mainz. This act was regarded as equivalent to solemn canonization, and Richardis came to be honored as Saint Richardis. In the Diocese of Strasbourg, she is also honored with the title of Virgin.
Remains
The surviving complex combines the former abbey church with buildings associated with the later foundation. Its principal artistic character comes from Romanesque architecture, the medieval style known for rounded arches, massive forms, and robust masonry. Later rebuilding introduced Gothic and Baroque elements, while the surviving buildings preserve the changing functions of the abbey after its foundation and dissolution.
Abbey church
Romanesque church
The former abbey church is now the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul. Its earlier dedication was to the Holy Savior. The abbey was entirely rebuilt during the first half of the eleventh century, and Pope Leo IX consecrated the new church in November 1049. Richardis’s remains were then transferred from the earlier church into the Romanesque building.
Around 1130, Abbess Hadewitz commissioned a sculptors’ workshop to create the western portal and the frieze on the west front. These works belong to the Romanesque art of the twelfth century. After a major fire during the night between Easter Sunday and Easter Monday in 1160, the church was rebuilt again. Two vaults were added over the sanctuary toward the end of the twelfth century, and the building was enlarged and altered several times afterward.
Later rebuilding and Saint Richardis’s tomb
Further major rebuilding took place in the fifteenth century, while the nave was completely rebuilt in the late seventeenth century. A Baroque chapel, dating from 1707, contains the present tomb of Saint Richardis, made in 1350. The church’s rich Romanesque sculpture is attributed to the Master of Andlau and is regarded as among the finest in Alsace. The church forms part of the Route Romane d’Alsace.
Crypt and sacred objects
Notre Dame pilgrimage area
The eleventh-century crypt is a vaulted space beneath the church and contains the pilgrimage area dedicated to Notre Dame. It was the place where the canonesses gathered daily to invoke the Virgin Mary. A hole in the crypt floor is traditionally said to have been made by the she-bear of Andlau’s foundation legend.
Relics of Saint Richardis
The church preserves a reliquary casket, a container for sacred remains, associated with Saint Richardis and dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. It also contains a reliquary holding her head, made in 1841.
Former abbey buildings
The surviving abbey complex includes the former abbesses’ palace, now used as the Stoltz-Grimm Hospital. The gateway to the inner courtyard and the hospital’s principal staircase both date from the first half of the eighteenth century. The former abbey church has been protected as a historic monument since the nineteenth century. The church was classified in 1862, and the courtyard gateway and principal hospital staircase were classified in 1935.
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