Public prosecutor
District Court
The state rooms of the residence are visiting as part of guided tours
MonasteryKempten
Kempten Abbey
Kempten Abbey was a Benedictine Monastery in Kempten in the Allgäu, Bavaria. For much of its life it was the Imperial Ducal Abbey of Kempten.
Around 747, the first missionary cell was founded by the monks Magnus and Theodore sent from the Abbey of St. Gall to evangelize the area. In the following years a monastery — Kempten Abbey — was built, the first in the Allgäu region. Audogar was the first abbot of the new Benedictine monastery. Through the financial and lobbyist support of Charlemagne’s wife Hildegard, an Allemanic princess, the monastery managed to become one of the most privileged monasteries of the Frankish Empire.
After several ravages by the Magyars, Ulrich of Augsburg, bishop of Augsburg and also abbot of Kempten, began the rebuilding of the monastery and the city in 941.
Imperial Free City+
In 1213, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II declared the abbots members of the Reichstag and granted the abbot the right to bear the title of Duke. However in 1289, King Rudolf of Habsburg also granted special privileges to the urban settlement in the river valley, making it an Imperial City. In 1525 the last property rights of the abbots in the Imperial City were sold in the so-called “Great Purchase”, marking the start of the co-existence of two independent cities bearing the same name next to each other.
Thirty years war+
More conflict arose after the Imperial City converted to Protestantism in direct opposition to the Catholic monastery in 1527. During the Thirty Years' War (1632–33), the abbey was destroyed by Swedish troops.
Only shortly after the war the Duke-Abbot Roman Giel of Gielsberg commissioned a new monastery church including a residence for the Abbots. This church is acknowledged as the first major church construction in Germany after the Thirty Years' War.
Secularisation+
During the Napoleonic Wars the Duke-Abbey came under Bavarian rule (1802–03) and the monastery was dissolved.
In 1819 the abbey territory was united with the Imperial City into a single communal entity.
The church was converted into a parish church and is now the St. Lorenz basilica (it was made a minor basilica in 1969). The residence is now used by the local court system. The art collection went to the Royal Collection of the King of Bavaria while the archives were stored away, although a lot of them decayed due to the poor storage conditions.
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Source: Wikipedia · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
This description draws on the facts documented in the linked Wikipedia article; Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wording and editing: Mobile History.
Location: 47.7279, 10.3135