Arnoldstein Abbey (Stift Arnoldstein) was a Benedictine abbey in Arnoldstein in Carinthia, Austria. Its church was dedicated to St George and first mentioned in historical records in 1316 - its choir, tower, west door and a few buttresses can still be seen. The monastery buildings from the Gothic and 17th century eras were arranged around the church in an oval.
Arnoldstein is named after its founder Arnold, probably a ministerialis of the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg but not evidenced elsewhere. He first built it between 1085 and 1090. The Bishopric had only been founded in 1007 and to mark his coronation on 10 February 1014 Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor had granted it various possessions in Carinthia, including in the area of what is now the market town of Arnoldstein. [1] Under the Bishop of Bamberg Adalbero of Eppenstein (1053–1057) the Eppsteiner family were the bishopric's vassals. However, they did not give the property back to Adalbert's successor but instead founded a castle in what is now Arnoldstein to fortify the 'Kanaltal' region. Only under bishop Otto of Bamberg soon after the turn of the century did the bishopric regain these lands.
To keep Arnoldstein in church hands, Otto founded a Benedictine monastery there in 1106. He had the castle demolished and converted into the monastery complex as well as leaving the abbey 155 'Huben' or farmsteads to finance its continued existence. [1] The abbey's first recorded abbot was Ingram, appointed in 1126 - prior to that it seems to have only been a priory. In 1126 its cemetery was opened. It also had early troubles with the governors - among others the lords of Ras misused their role as the abbey's protectors and so in 1176 it was made a direct bailiwick of the Carinthian dukes.
A poor harvest, a plague of locusts and finally a massive landslide on the Dobratsch caused by the 1348 Friuli earthquake led the abbey into economic problems - it lost buildings, its church and the village of St. Johann to the landslide. Documents show it began to recover until 1391, although the local population continued to decline, probably also due to the Black Death. In 1391 the Patriarch of Aquileia handed the abbey the parish of Hermagor to try to stem its financial problems, but this and further privileges, donations and foundations were not enough to pay off its debts. In the 15th century it even found it difficult to look after the parish of Hermagor and this led it into a dispute which involved the first witch trial in Carinthia, which occurred in the Grünburg Landgericht court in Hermagor in 1465.
Abbot Christoph allowed Jakob Fugger and his brothers to build a metal-separating works and a fortress on abbey lands in 1495, which became the foundation for the Fuggerau complex. [2] Abbot Friedrich complained in 1507 that the abbey had fallen into dilapidation and poverty and during the Reformation it was on the verge of dissolution, with its reputation weakened by the taxes on the princes to fund the war against the Ottoman Empire, its quarrels with nobles and subjects and its neglect of its pastoral duties. Despite the bishopric's edicts to the contrary, Lutheran preachers occupied the abbey and Thörl as well as the neighbouring fortresses. In 1570 abbot Petrus entered into a bond for 2500 guilders in installments to buy back the Fuggerau with all its lands and rights, since it had declined as a mining operation but still needed to be kept out of the hands of the neighbouring nobles, who might well go over to Protestantism at any moment. [3]
In 1580 the abbey was without an abbot for a short period - the Franconian Johannes Pünlein was appointed that year but according to the archpriest's visitation report in 1594 he led a completely secular life, only holding one mass a year with a single monk, maintaining an entourage that was entirely Protestant, using neither vestments nor candles in church and no adornments on the altar. His successor was another Franconian, Emerich Molitor, who could not fulfil the bishopric's hopes of re-catholicising the abbey. Embezzlement led to a loss of 60,000 guilders.
In a bull by Ferdinand II of Tyrol of 12 April 1600 the abbey was finally connected to a Jesuit college set up at St. Veit, but the bishop of Bamberg was finally able to avert this by instead promising a contribution to the college's costs. After the free election of abbot Daniel in 1630 the abbey began to flourish once again until a major fire in October 1642, in the wake of which its funds were invested in buildings and equipment.
When the Patriarchate of Aquileia was dissolved and Bamberg's lands sold off to Austria in 1759 the abbey came under the princes' direct control. IN 1782 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor decided to abolish all monasteries in Austria that did not make a direct contribution to education or nursing. He originally wanted to save Saint Paul's Abbey, Lavanttal but his advisors convinced him that abolishing Arnoldstein Abbey would do less damage. A court decree thus abolished it on 24 November 1783, with abbot Otto von Größing and 18 priests there allowed to choose becoming parish clergy or to switch to another monastery. The abbey's buildings and lands were transferred to the state and its library was transferred to the Klagenfurter Studienbibliothek, now known as the library of the University of Klagenfurt. Part of the abbey archives went to the Geschichtsverein für Kärnten and is now in the Carinthian National Archives (Kärntner Landesarchiv) in Klagenfurt. The abbey's rooms were used as government offices, rented and even (until 1854) used to house elementary school teachers.
The 1848 administrative reforms turned them into offices for the forestry administration, the district courts, the tax offices, the land registry, the notaries and the town council. Another fire on 16 August 1883 destroyed the buildings' wooden roofs and ceilings but the administration was unwilling to raise funds to repair them and so they were left to fall into ruin. The grounds were acquired by the Revitalisierungsverein Klosterruine Arnoldstein association on 16 August 1883 [4]
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee is the capital and largest city of the Austrian state of Carinthia, as well as of the historical region of Carinthia including Slovene Carinthia. With a population of 104.862, it is the sixth-largest city in Austria after Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, and Innsbruck. The city is the bishop's seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt and home to the University of Klagenfurt, the Carinthian University of Applied Sciences and the Gustav Mahler Private University for Music. Klagenfurt is regarded the cultural centre of the Carinthian Slovenes, one of Austria's indigenous minorities.
Villach is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia. It is an important traffic junction for southern Austria and the whole Alpe-Adria region. As of January 2018, the population is 61,887.
Carinthia is the southernmost and least densely populated Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carinthian Slovene dialects, forms of a South Slavic language that predominated in the southeastern part of the region up to the first half of the 20th century, are now spoken by a small minority in the area.
Saint Paul's Abbey in Lavanttal is a Benedictine monastery established in 1091 near the present-day market town of Sankt Paul im Lavanttal in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The premises centered on the Romanesque monastery church were largely rebuilt in a Baroque style in the 17th century.
Viktring Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Stift Viktring is now the name of the Roman Catholic parish in Viktring, since 1973 a district of the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt.
Feldkirchen in Kärnten is a town in the Austrian state of Carinthia and the capital of the district of the same name. It consists of the Katastralgemeinden Fasching, Feldkirchen, Glanhofen, Gradisch, Hoefling, Klein Sankt Veit, Pernegg, Rabensdorf, Sankt Ulrich, Sittich, Tschwarzen and Waiern. The name Feldkirchen means the church in the fields.
Arnoldstein is a market town in the district of Villach-Land in the Austrian state of Carinthia.
Bad Bleiberg is a market town in the district of Villach-Land, in Carinthia, Austria. Originally a mining area, especially for lead, Bad Bleiberg today due to its hot springs is a spa town.
Griffen is a market town in the district of Völkermarkt in the Austrian state of Carinthia.
The Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire. It goes back to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bamberg established at the 1007 synod in Frankfurt, at the behest of King Henry II to further expand the spread of Christianity in the Franconian lands. The bishops obtained the status of Imperial immediacy about 1245 and ruled their estates as Prince-bishops until they were subsumed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German Mediatisation in 1802.
Bernhard von Spanheim, a member of the noble House of Sponheim, was Duke of Carinthia for 54 years from 1202 until his death. A patron of chivalry and minnesang, Bernhard's reign marked the emergence of the Carinthian duchy as an effective territorial principality.
The Counts of Ortenburg were a comital family in the mediaeval Duchy of Carinthia. Though they had roots in Bavarian nobility, an affiliation with the Imperial Counts of Ortenburg, a branch line of the Rhenish Franconian House of Sponheim, is not established.
The Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church covering the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is part of the ecclesiastical province of Salzburg. Though named after Gurk Cathedral, the bishop's see since 1787 has been in Klagenfurt.
Burgruine Federaun is a castle in Carinthia, Austria.
Finkenstein Castle is a ruined medieval castle in the market town of Finkenstein, in the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is situated on a steep cliff at the southern foot of the Karawanks mountain range, high above Lake Faak, at a height of 788 metres (2,585 ft). Today the castle ruin is the backdrop of the Burgarena, an amphitheatre with 1150 seats mainly used for concerts and festivals.
Burgruine Straßfried is a castle in Carinthia, Austria. It is located next to the Austrian–Italian border by Arnoldstein in Carinthia.
Count Ulrich V of Pfannberg was Count of Pfannberg. From 1322 to 1337, he was governor of Gornji Grad and from 1330 Marshal of the Duchy of Austria. From 1330 to 1335, he was also governor of Carinthia.
Ulrich I, of the House of Sponheim, was the Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona from 1135 until his death. He was the eldest son of Duke Engelbert and Uta, daughter of Burggrave Ulrich of Passau, his namesake. His father abdicated in 1135 and Ulrich was appointed his successor by the Emperor Lothair II at an imperial diet being held in Bamberg.
Wolfsberg Castle, today also Henckel-Donnersmarck Castle, stands on a knoll in the north of the town of Wolfsberg in the Austrian state of Carinthia.
The Fuggerau was a mining and ore-smelting facility near Arnoldstein in Carinthia, Austria. It was probably set up by the Fugger family, though the name 'Fugger' was already in evidence in the area before 1495 without any links to that family.
