
Kastl Abbey () is a former
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 ...
monastery in
Kastl in the
Upper Palatinate
The Upper Palatinate (; , , ) is an administrative district in the east of Bavaria, Germany. It consists of seven districts and 226 municipalities, including three cities.
Geography
The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and nume ...
,
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 ...
.
History
The monastery, dedicated to
Saint Peter
Saint Peter (born Shimon Bar Yonah; 1 BC – AD 64/68), also known as Peter the Apostle, Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, or Cephas, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the first leaders of the Jewish Christian#Jerusalem ekklēsia, e ...
, was founded in 1103, or shortly before, by Count
Berengar II of Sulzbach together with Frederick and Otto, Counts of Kastl-Habsberg.
It was dissolved in 1563 in the course of the
Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
, but re-established as a
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
monastery in 1625. From 1636 the building was used by the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
, from 1773 by the
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...
s. Dissolved again in 1803, it was the seat of the Provincial Court until 1862.
From 1958 to 2006 the buildings housed a
Hungarian secondary boarding school, now closed.
Princess Anna

Anna, daughter of Emperor
Louis IV, died here on 29 January 1319 aged 18 months. Her body was not taken to
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
but was entombed in the monastery. In 1715 the body was removed from its tomb and kept in an oak cupboard. Later, preserved as a mummy, it lay in a shrine in the entrance hall to the monastery church, where it could be viewed. The body of the princess was recently returned to its tomb to protect it from light damage and a large photo is on display instead.
See also
*
List of Jesuit sites
This list includes past and present buildings, facilities and institutions associated with the Society of Jesus. In each country, sites are listed in chronological order of start of Jesuit association.
Nearly all these sites have be ...
References
Further reading
* Georg Dehio: ''Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. Bayern V: Regensburg und die Oberpfalz'' (ed. Jolanda Drexler, Achim Hubel, Astrid Debold-Kritter et al.), München/Berlin 1991, pp. 238–246
* Stephan Haering: ''Kastl, Kloster''(article). In: ''Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche'', 3rd edn., vol. 5 (1996), col. 1287
* Josef Hemmerle: ''Die Benediktinerklöster in Bayern (Germania Benedictina 2)'', Augsburg 1970, pp. 125–129
* Rudolf Wiesneth: ''Pfalzgräfliche Wirkungsstätten''. In: Hans Fischer, Manfred Kindler, Theo Männer, Peter Pauly, Otto Reimer, Rudolf Wisneth (eds.): ''Festschrift zum Pfalzgraf-Johann-Jahr 1983''. Neunburg vorm Wald: Schmiedl 1983, pp. 60–68
External links
Klöster in Bayern
Kastl Hungarian School Alumni Association
Benedictine monasteries in Germany
Society of Jesus
Knights Hospitaller
Monasteries in Bavaria
Buildings and structures in Amberg-Sulzbach
1103 establishments in Europe
1100s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire
Christian monasteries established in the 1100s
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