Description
Memleben Abbey was a Benedictine monastery, now ruined, on the Unstrut in Memleben, in the Burgenlandkreis near Nebra in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.HistoryThe royal villa of Memleben acquired considerable importance under the Ottonian Dynasty. Henry I of Germany (whose ancestral estates lay in this area, where he therefore spent much time) was born in Memleben and later greatly enlarged the Kaiserpfalz (villa regia or palace), which became his favourite residence next only to Quedlinburg. He died here of a stroke while hunting in 936. His son Otto I also often stayed in Memleben and issued a number of documents from here.Otto I died here on 7 May 973 and although his body was buried in Magdeburg, his heart, according to legend, was buried in Memleben. In his memory, and perhaps as an intended site of dynastic memorial, his son Otto II founded in 975 a Benedictine monastery, which within a short time had become one of the richest and most influential of the Imperial abbeys. Otto II endowed it with several estates and privileges in the present Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Hesse.
Tell your friends
Quiz
