Selz Abbey or Seltz Abbey (german: Kloster Selz; french: Abbaye de Seltz) is a former monastery and
Imperial abbey in
Seltz, formerly Selz, in
Alsace,
France.
History
The
Benedictine monastery, dedicated to Saints
Peter and
Paul, was founded in about 991 by
Adelheid, the second wife of
Otto I and dowager empress, later Saint Adelheid, who was buried there on 16 December 999. In January 992 it was granted royal ''tuitio'' and immunity (roughly the equivalent of the later
Imperial immediacy
Imperial immediacy (german: Reichsfreiheit or ') was a privileged constitutional and political status rooted in German feudal law under which the Imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire such as Imperial cities, prince-bishoprics and secular prin ...
) by
Otto III
Otto III (June/July 980 – 23 January 1002) was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu.
Otto III was crowned as King of ...
.
The abbey suffered from severe floods in 1307, and was rebuilt between 1307 and 1315. The relics of Saint Adelheid, which apparently survived the floods, were moved to the church of Saint Stephen in Seltz. A daughter house of the abbey, founded at Mirmelberg in 1197, was washed away by floods in 1469.
The abbey was eventually secularized in 1481 and the monks formed a college of
canons operating as the
chapter of the nearby St. Stephen's church (a mile away from the abbey), retaining some of the privileges of the former foundation, although not all the possessions.
The chapter became
Protestant in 1575 and was
mediatised by the
Electorate of the Palatinate.
Übersicht über die Reichsstände
/ref> Most of the monastic buildings were quarried from the beginning of the 17th century, except for one which had been used as a reformed academy for young nobles in 1575 but was closed in 1577 because the new Elector was Lutheran.
The Protestant chapter reverted to a canonry in 1684 after Seltz was annexed by France (in 1680) and the local population re-converted to Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
. It was dissolved by the bishop of Strasbourg (with the approval of the king of France) in 1692.
The parish of Seltz was dissolved during the rule of the National Convention (1792–95) and the church of St. Stephen was set on fire by Austrian troops after the Battle of Seltz on 23 October 1793. The church survived however and the parish was re-created in 1801 in the time of the French Consulate. The church was extensively rebuilt under the rule of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
(which had annexed Alsace in 1870) for the occasion of the anniversary of the death of the Empress Adelaide in 1899.
The church was almost destroyed during World War II. Restoration was completed in 1958.
References
Sources
Seltz Parish website
{{Authority control
Christian monasteries established in the 10th century
1481 disestablishments
States and territories established in the 990s
992 establishments
Electoral Palatinate
Christian monasteries in Bas-Rhin
Churches in Bas-Rhin
Imperial abbeys
Benedictine monasteries in France
Burial sites of the Elder House of Welf
fr:Seltz#L'abbaye (disparue) de Seltz