Altenberg Abbey

The monastery's origins date back to 1167, when the priest Gottfried von Beselich founded a chapel dedicated to Saint Michael on the 'old mountain'. Around 1170, this developed into the Premonstratensian nunnery when Abbot Engelbert von Rommersdorf sent twelve virgins from Wülfersberg to transform the Nikolauskapelle into a monastery. Rommersdorf Abbey served as the mother monastery. Numerous members of noble families from the region, including the houses of Nassau and Solms, joined the order. Under the third mistress Gertrud, daughter of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, who held the office for 49 years, the monastery experienced a boom from 1248 onwards. The monastery church was built between 1260 and 1270. Emperor Barbarossa granted the monastery imperial immediacy before 1192. Despite the Reformation in the surrounding area, Altenberg remained a Catholic exclave.