Monastic Island of Reicheneau - UNESCO: World Heritage

Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler / Reichenau - English Summary Add. 3
Towards the end of the 9th century the
monastery enjoyed the patronage of Emperor
Charles III who visited the island on more
than one occasion, and who was buried in the
abbey upon his death in 888. In that year
Heito III (888-913) became abbot; from 892
he was also Arch-Chancellor of the empire
and abbot of Mainz. From a visit to Rome,
undertaken in 896 for the purpose of
attending Arnulf of Kärnten’s coronation, he
brought back the relics of St. George, given
to him by Pope Formosus; they became the
most valuable property of Heito’s new church
at Oberzell. On becoming the guardian of
Arnulf’s son, Ludwig III, Heito rose to be the
most powerful man of the empire, and used
his influence to ensure the election of
Konrad, the first king of the German empire.
Minster of Our Lady and St. Mark.
History. The first stone-built monastery and
church on the island’s Northern shore
replaced a wooden structure which
dendrochronology dates around 722. The
modest hall church with its rectangular
chancel and the adjoining monastery to the
north was extended towards the west as early
as the mid-8th century. An antechurch was
added, and plaster fragments discovered
among the material re-used in later structures
have shown that this early stone church was
decorated with murals. Of the cruciform
basilica built by Abbot Heito I in its place and
consecrated in 816 large parts of the eastern
structure (the transepts and crossing) have
survived. The chancel and transepts, squares
all, are as wide and as high as the nave itself.
Towards the east the chancel is closed by two
apses originally housing the altars of St. Peter
and St. Paul. The short three-aisle nave is
characterized by its squat proportions. The
exact appearance of the Western end of
Heito’s church cannot be reconstructed.
The illuminated manuscripts created by the
monastery’s scriptorium during the Ottonic
era have European status, and the quality
attained by other arts is testified to by the
Oberzell wall paintings and the church erected
by Abbot Berno (1008-48) at Mittelzell.
Hermann the Lame, a contemporary of Berno
and an eminent scholar, poet and musician,
was considered a marvel even by his
contemporaries.
The new collegiate church at Niederzell,
started by Abbot Ekkehard von Nellenburg
(1071-88), was the last of the major structures
completed during the early Middle Ages. The
abbey went to the bishops of Konstanz in
1542. It was secularized in 1803.
However, with the addition of the so-called
Basilica of St. Mark, a second chancel at the
nave’s western end, the church had become a
two-chancel structure. (The relics of St.
Valens that had been on the island since 830
were reidentified as those of the Evangelist in
873/75.) There are documents proving that
building had been going on since the days of
Abbot Ruodho (871-888). A pre-947 rotunda
added to Heito’s cruciform basilica in the east
was probably intended to house the Holy
Blood relics acquired in 923 as it is clearly
modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
at Jerusalem. The nave was given its presentday
appearance in the days of Abbot
Witigowo (985-997), who sacrificed the
western transepts in order to extend the aisles
up to the western towers. The towers
themselves were added to, and the western
chancel acquired an upper storey too which
housed the chapels of St. Michael and St.
Otmar. Abbot Berno (1008-48) completed the
western chancel and transepts as we see them
today. Berno had the western towers pulled
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