Kornelimünster Abbey

Imperial Abbey of Kornelimünster
Reichsabtei Kornelimünster
Imperial Abbey of the Holy Roman Empire
9th century – 1802
Coat of arms
Kornelimünster in 1789
Capital		Kornelimünster Abbey
Government		Elective principality
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	Abbey founded	814
•	Gained Reichsfreiheit	mid-9th century the 9th century
•	Acquired reliquary (head     of Pope Cornelius)	875
•	Joined Lower Rhenish–     Westphalian Circle	1500
•	Secularised by France	1802
•	Awarded to Prussia	June 9, 1815
Preceded by Succeeded by Frankish Empire Roer (department)

Buildings of the Imperial Abbey of Kornelimünster

Relics at the abbey

Kornelimünster Abbey (German: Kloster Kornelimünster) is a Benedictine monastery in Kornelimünster, since 1972 a part of Aachen (in the district of Kornelimünster/Walheim), in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

First foundation

The monastery was founded in 814 by Benedict of Aniane, adviser to Emperor Louis the Pious, successor to Charlemagne, on the little river Inde. The monastery was at first known as the "monastery of the Redeemer on the Inde".

In the mid-9th century the monastery became an Imperial abbey ("reichsunmittelbar") and received not only great endowments of land but also the so-called biblical or Saviour's relics: the loincloth, the sudarium and the shroud.

In 875, half of the shroud was exchanged for a relic of the head of the martyred Pope Cornelius (died in 253), after which the abbey was known as Sancti Cornelii ad Indam, and later as Kornelimünster. (The full official title of the present monastery is the Abbey of the Abbot Saint Benedict of Aniane and Pope Cornelius).

In the 12th century, a canon of Aachen composed the famous Tafelgüterverzeichnis, a registry of certain royal estates and what they owed the king's court. It is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for the extent of the German royal fisc.

In 1500, the Imperial abbey (Reichsabtei) of Kornelimünster became part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle.

In 1802, the territory of Kornelimünster came under French rule and the abbey was dissolved in the secularisation. The abbey church became the parish church, and the remaining abbey buildings state property, now belonging to the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia. Kornelimünster became a mairie in Kanton Burtscheid.

In 1815, Kornelimünster became part of the Kingdom of Prussia and of the district (Landkreis) of Aachen.

Second foundation

The monastery was re-founded by Benedictines in 1906 at a different location in the western part of Kornelimünster and is still in operation as a member of the Subiaco Congregation.

Further reading

• Paul Fabianek: Folgen der Säkularisierung für die Klöster im Rheinland - Am Beispiel der Klöster Schwarzenbroich und Kornelimünster, 2012, Verlag BoD, ISBN 978-3-8482-1795-3

External links

• (German) Kornelimünster Abbey official website
• (German) History of the Reichsabtei Kornelimünster with map, 1789
• (German) Monumente-Online:Aachen - Notes on the Benedictine Abbey of Kornelimünster