The island Frauenchiemsee, often called Fraueninsel (), is the second largest of the three islands in

Chiemsee Chiemsee () is a freshwater lake in Bavaria, Germany, near Rosenheim. It is often called "the Bavarian Sea". The rivers Tiroler Achen and Prien (river), Prien flow into the lake from the south, and the river Alz flows out towards the north. The ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It belongs to the municipality of Chiemsee in the

Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (, ; ) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat of the district gove ...

n district of Rosenheim, which is the smallest municipality in all of

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. The large and car-free Fraueninsel houses a

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

nuns, which is usually called , as well as 300 permanent residents.

History

The monastery was founded in 782 by

Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria Tassilo – also spelled Thassilo – is a male name of West Germanic origin. It is the diminutive form of the name Tasso/Tazzo. Tasso/Tazzo itself is the diminutive form of Taginbert, which is of West Germanic origin and means "glittering as the ...

, making Frauenwörth the eldest German speaking convent beyond the alps. It was called ''Schönau'' in the '' Notitia de servitio monasteriorum''. In 850, Blessed Irmengard was the first known

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

. The minster is dedicated to the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the destruction of the Hungarian incursions, the monastery's heyday was between the 11th and 15th centuries. In 1254 the Bavarian dukes finally obtained the rights to Frauenwörth. As the remainder of the old

imperial immediacy In the Holy Roman Empire, imperial immediacy ( or ) was the status of an individual or a territory which was defined as 'immediate' () to Emperor and Empire () and not to any other intermediate authorities, while one that did not possess that stat ...

, the abbey retained the designation ("Royal Monastery") until the

secularization In sociology, secularization () is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism or irreligion, nor are they automatica ...

of 1803 and was reserved for the daughters of the nobility. The monastery buildings were rebuilt between 1728 and 1732. In the course of the

German Mediatisation German mediatisation (; ) was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and Secularization (church property), secularisation of a large number of ...

the monastery was secularized between 1803 and 1835; only five nuns were allowed to stay due to their age. In 1837 King

Ludwig I of Bavaria Ludwig I or Louis I (; 25 August 1786 – 29 February 1868) was King of Bavaria from 1825 until the German revolutions of 1848–49, 1848 revolutions in the German states. When he was crown prince, he was involved in the Napoleonic Wars. As ki ...

rebuilt the monastery for the Benedictine nuns and allowed them to receive new candidates on the condition that the nuns created their livelihood by opening schools. Henceforth, a grammar school, called Irmengard Gymnasium, existed on the site until 1995. Furthermore, the Benedictines ran a vocational school for nursery teachers, housekeepers et cetera. In 1901 the convent was declared an abbey again. the monastery has 21 sisters, the abbess is Johanna Mayer OSB.

Tourism

Frauenchiemsee along with its sister island Herreninsel is one of the main tourist attractions on the Chiemsee, and is famous for the monastery's liquor spirit, which is produced by the nuns. The island is accessible by ship year round, usually from Gstadt, Prien, and

Seebruck Seeon-Seebruck is a municipality in the district of Traunstein in southern Bavaria in Germany. Municipal districts * ''Seeon'' 6 km north of Lake Chiemsee within the Seeon Lakes. * ''Seebruck'' is a popular local tourist spot in the north e ...

. There are also several boats that can take passengers from Frauenchiemsee to Herreninsel and back. As part of a family grave, a

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

Alfred Jodl Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl (; born Alfred Josef Baumgärtler; 10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German Wehrmacht Heer, Army ''Generaloberst'' (the rank was equal to a four-star full general) and War crime, war criminal, who served as th ...

, army general and executed war criminal, was located on the island, but was removed in 2018 after a decision of the local council. His brother Ferdinand Jodl is buried in the family grave.See: Jodl family grave, Frauenchiemsee.

References

{{Authority control Lake islands of Germany Islands of Bavaria Imperial abbeys disestablished in 1802–03 782 establishments 8th-century establishments in Germany Rosenheim (district) Car-free islands of Europe