Monastic Island of Reicheneau - UNESCO: World Heritage

3. Description
a Description of Property
The object of conservation is the island of Reichenau, including
its causeway to the mainland built 1838/39 and on
the mainland side of the causeway the Kindlebildkapelle
(chapel) with its precincts, an area where in monastic times
children were buried who had died on the island of Reichenau
before baptism.
1. Description of the island
The island of Reichenau is an area extending 5 km from the
Southeast to the Northwest and a width of up to 1.7 km,
with a narrow ridge. It is characterized by three church buildings:
the Marienmünster (St. Mary’s Minster) with its abbey
buildings at Mittelzell, St. Georg at Oberzell and St. Peter
and Paul at Niederzell. The original merovingian building
in Mittelzell was built on the sheltered north side of
the ridge and thus presented itself as an outpost of christianization
in the alamanic world. Its characteristic appearance
today however was shaped by later building projects (see
construction history). The Carolingian church foundations
in Ober- and Niederzell were placed on top of the ridge as
landmarks visible for miles around. By their position alone
they tell of times when the monks of the Reichenau had
risen to become powerful clerics of prosperous economic
background and great political influence.
Right from the start, island and Benedictine abbey formed
a unit. It was only in the late Middle Ages that a wall
was built around Mittelzell to separate it from a growing
settlement of wine-growers, fishermen and administrative
officials belonging to the monastery.
The development of the island shows a village-like agglomeration
around the monastery at Mittelzell. The walled
abbey with the street off its western precincts (Burgstraße)
lined by the houses built for the administration of the
monastery’s possessions and its administrative officials (steward,
bailiff, officers) was the first sight visitors coming by
ship would see of the island of Reichenau. The district “Im
Weiler” northwest of it, characterized today by wine-grower’s
houses, a large oil-mill and a half-timbered house with grand
interior furnishings, belonged to the monastic economy.
The Ergat, a huge meadow kept undeveloped and the place
of the court-limetree and the late medieval Ammanhaus,
the seat of the judge (so-called ancient town hall), forms
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