MARIA LAACH. - A Benedictine abbey situated near Coblenz on the Rhine in Germany, founded in 1093 by Count Palatine Henry II (d. 1095), Count of Laach, and his wife Adelaide of Orlamünde (d. 1100). The founding monks came from the abbey of St. Maximin in Trier. The primitive community was augmented by a group of monks from the abbey of Afflighem in Brabant, to which the priory of M. L. was subjected by Count Palatine Siffred (d. 1113), the adopted son of the founder, in 1112.
From the first abbot, Gilbert (1127-52), the series of abbots continued until 1802, when the monastery was suppressed by Napoleonic secularization. From 1474 until its suppression, the monastery belonged to the Bursfelde Union, of which two abbots of M. L. were elected presidents. Around 1500, M. L. became the center of humanism in the monasteries of the Rhineland through the initiatives of the prior John Butzbach (d. 1516) and James Siberti, well-known humanists. In 1892, the monks of Beuron took possession of the ancient Benedictine claim of M. L. The first abbot of the new foundation, Willibrord Benzler, was elevated to the episcopal see of Metz in 1901; his successor, Fidelis von Stotingen, was elected Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation in 1913. Under the regime of the third abbot, Dom Ildefonso Herwegen, well known as a promoter of liturgical apostolate, the abbey became a center of liturgical and monastic studies. The principal scholarly initiatives of the monks of M. L. in recent times include: the collection *Ecclesia Orans*, which deals with important points of the Church’s worship; the *Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen*, publications of unpublished liturgical texts and related documents such as calendars, ascetical writings of antiquity and the Middle Ages relating to worship; the *Liturgiegeschichtliche Forschungen*, treatises on liturgy from a historical perspective; the *Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft* (1921-41), followed by the *Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft* (1st vol. in 1950); and the *Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des Benediktinerordens*, edited by Abbot I. Herwegen.