Heggbach Abbey
| Imperial Abbey of Heggbach | ||||||||||
| Reichsabtei Heggbach | ||||||||||
| Imperial Abbey of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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| Capital | Heggbach Abbey | |||||||||
| Languages | Alemannic | |||||||||
| Government | Theocracy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | Founded from Maselheim |
1231 |
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| • | Charter confirmed spiritual independence |
26 June 1248 |
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| • | Granted immediacy by King Sigismund |
1429 |
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| • | Joined Swabian Circle | 1500 | ||||||||
| • | Looted by Baltringer Haufen during German Peasants' War |
27 March 1525 |
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| • | Looted by Sweden and France during Thirty Years' War |
1632–47 |
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Secularised to von Bassenheim |
1803 | ||||||||
| • | To Württemberg | 1806 | ||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Germany
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Heggbach Abbey (German: Reichsabtei Heggbach) was a Cistercian nunnery in Heggbach, now part of the municipality of Maselheim in the district of Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
In 1231 Beguines from nearby Maselheim founded a convent at the Hecchibach, close to a church whose dedication to Saint Pancras suggests may have been a proprietary church of the Counts of Berg. This church was supervised by Salem Abbey. The following year, the small convent at Heggbach was also put under the supervision of Salem Abbey. Between 1233 and 1244 Hekebach was incorporated into the Cistercian order and received a charter, dated 26 June 1248, affirming its status as an independent abbey.
The abbesses and nuns of Heggbach Abbey were drawn predominantly from peasant and merchant families of the villages and cities in the vicinity. However, in later times, nuns also came from more distant areas and from local families of the lesser nobility.
Although major building works were completed under abbess Halwig Wachsgäb (1312-1322), the basic structure and layout of the nunnery, seems to have already been largely finished at around the time of its establishment, since during restoration in 1980 late Romanesque round-arched windows were discovered, as was the northern entry of the enclosure, similar in style, in the west wing. Similar openings, later bricked up, have been preserved above the vaults in the cloister.
The abbey's extensive property at the time of its foundation came from donations and acquisitions. The property was enlarged by the watermill in Maselheim in 1245 and soon afterwards a number of farms also came into the possession of Heggbach Abbey. In 1267 the abbey received the patronage of the church in Maselheim as part of an inheritance and in 1293 (temporarily) the village of Ringschnait.
The nuns, who at first had lived in a building next to the church of Saint Pancras, soon moved into the new convent buildings, performing their prayers in the small abbey church. This church was redesigned at the beginning of the 14th century and dedicated to Our Lady and Saint George. The lords of Freyberg seem to have been patrons of the abbey since they supported it financially and, in 1493, received the right to use the choir as a burial place for members of their family.
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Wikipedia