Klingenmünster Abbey
| Imperial Provostry of Klingenmünster | ||||||||||
| Reichskloster Klingenmünster | ||||||||||
| Imperial Abbey of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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| Capital | Klingenmünster Abbey | |||||||||
| Government | Theocracy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | Founded | before 780 (perhaps 626?) | ||||||||
| • | Gained immediacy from Adalbert, Abp Mainz |
1115 | ||||||||
| • | Placed under papal protection by Pope Honorius III |
1223 |
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| • | Converted to secular priory by Innocent VIII |
18 November 1490 |
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| • | Landshut War | 1503–05 | ||||||||
| • | German Peasants' War | 1524–26 | ||||||||
| • | Secularised to the Electorate of the Palatinate | 1567 | ||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Germany
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Klingenmünster Abbey (German: Reichskloster Klingenmünster) was a Benedictine monastery in the village of Klingenmünster in Bad Bergzabern, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
All the abbey's documents were destroyed in the fire of 840, leaving its foundation and earlier history obscure. It seems likely that it began as a foundation of Dagobert I for monks under the Rule of Saint Columbanus. It was certainly in existence by 780 under Fleido as abbot, later Bishop of Speyer. In 840 the monastery burnt down and the request of the monks for funds for its re-building, addressed to Otkar, Archbishop of Mainz, previously abbot of Klingenmünster, constitutes the first direct documentary evidence.
It was an Imperial abbey by the time of Hatto I, in the 9th century.
In the 11th century a monk of Klingenmünster, Gottschalk, brought the abbey to prominence by his appointment as notary to Emperor Henry IV in the Imperial chancery between 1071 and 1084.
In the 12th century Abbot Stephan (in office from 1094 to 1114), originally from Ebersheim Abbey and also abbot of Weissenburg, Selz and Limburg Abbeys before in addition becoming abbot of Klingenmünster, significantly increased the abbey's possessions by attracting donations and grants of land and by advantageous land purchases, which in turn increased the abbey's standing and influence.
In 1115 Adalbert, Count of Saarbrücken and Archbishop of Mainz, freed the abbey of all royal, episcopal and advocatial services and impositions. This seems however to have been with a view to removing obstacles to the easy advancement of Adalbert's own kindred within the abbey. By the beginning of the 13th century most of its territories and possessions had been transferred into the hands of his relatives, the Counts of Leiningen and Zweibrücken.
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