ABDINGHOF. – Benedictine abbey at Paderborn in Westphalia, founded in 1015 by Bishop Meinwerk, who summoned Cluniac monks there, and consecrated in 1031. It was an important cultural centre, and the Carmina Abdinhofensia (late 11th century) emerged from its school; manuscripts from the scriptorium of A. are preserved at Paderborn and Kassel. The monumental church, which, following a fire, was partially rebuilt around 1080, is basilical in type. Of the ancient furnishings, the celebrated portable altar, recently attributed to Rogherus of Helmwardshausen, still survives. The abbey, which had been in decline since the 13th century, found a courageous reformer in the abbot H. de Peine (1479–91); it was secularized in 1803.
BIBL.: L. Schmitz-Kallenberg, Monasticca Westfaliae, Münster 1909, pp. 63–66; U. Berlière, s. V. in DHG, I, cols. 64–65; P. Frankl, Die Baukunst des Mittelalters, Potsdam 1918, pp. 72 and 94; I. Baum, Die Malerei u. Plastik des Mittelalters, II, there 1930. Kurt Rathe