Nestling in green countryside, Murbach Abbey, founded in 727, has preserved a beautiful Romanesque abbey church built with pink sandstone from the Vosges.
| Address | 1 Rue de l'Église, Murbach |
|---|---|
| Telephone | +33 3 88 57 86 55 |
The Abbey of Murbach freely visit every day of the year.
Guided tours are organized by the Guebwiller-Soultz Tourist Office and Pays du Florival every Thursday morning at 10am in July and August (pay visits, go to the door of the abbey).
If you go to Murbach do not forget to take a walk by the Notre-Dame de Lorette, small baroque building that overlooks the Abbey and the medieval garden which is at the village entrance.
Benedictine abbey founded in 727 by St. Pirmin, missionary bishop in the Upper Rhine Valley, the Abbey of Murbach won over the centuries many privileges that allowed him to grow in Alsace and beyond. The Romanesque abbey, which he left the bedside and transept, was built in the twelfth century with a Lombard and Byzantine influence decor. In the early eighteenth century, religious undertook to rebuild the church. The credits missing, religious took the opportunity to request the transfer of the abbey at Guebwiller. They obtained their secularization in 1759 and the abbey ruins were turned into parish church. Today, only the choir and transept remain, but the facade of this building nestled in a valley is very impressive.
The generosity of Count Eberhard, brother of the Duke of Alsace, the abbey was the richest of Alsace. Possessing one of the finest libraries in the region during the Carolingian period, Murbach was an important cultural and spiritual home.
The abbot was a prince of the Empire from the early thirteenth century. He led a small feudal state, centered on the valleys of Guebwiller and Saint-Amarin. In the fourteenth century the monks were recruited from the nobility exclusively: you had to prove 16 quarters of nobility to be admitted into the abbey. From that time, the monks are only a dozen, from the best families in the region. Protected by the Habsburgs, the abbey remains in the sixteenth century a Catholic stronghold and expels his Protestant subjects.
In 1680, Murbach was annexed by the Kingdom of France, against the advice of religious who wished to remain subjects of the Empire. In the early eighteenth century, the monks are rebuilding the cloister and want to complete this rebuilding campaign for the renovation of the church in Baroque style. But the work started in 1738 with the demolition of the nave, is interrupted the following year. Finally the abbey gets transfer to Guebwiller in 1759, when the religious are building the Church of Our Lady and a beautiful residential community around it. The abandoned site was partly demolished to recover building materials. Only remain the choir and transept of the old abbey, and the gatehouse of the monastery.
The former abbey Saint-Léger is one of the masterpieces of Romanesque art in Alsace, built in the course of the twelfth century. With its flat bed and two tall towers, it remains the symbol of the power of the abbey. The anonymous architect has certainly inspired by the great Rhenish cathedrals as Worms or Speyer. To see the amazing scenery of the apse, with its false gallery dissimilar to 17 columns. Inside, we find the tomb of the seven monks murdered by the Hungarians in 926 and the tomb of Count Eberhard.
The Chapel of Our Lady of Loreto, built in 1693, has retained its original decor. It offers an exceptional panorama of the old abbey.
Church and chapel of Catholic worship, managed by the parish, are open to visitors every day.
