METTEN (Latin Metemn). — Benedictine abbey of the diocese of Regensburg (Bavaria), dedicated to St. Michael, founded in the years 765–70 on the possessions of Blessed Gamelbert, between the Danube and the first hills of the Bavarian Forest. Blessed Utto, its first abbot, and his monks probably came from the famous monastery of Reichenau. Initially under the protection of Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, M. was recognized by Charlemagne as a royal abbey (that M. was founded by the Emperor is instead a legend of the thirteenth century) and endowed with extensive forests, later cleared along the Danube as far as the Tullnerfeld in Austria.
At the beginning of the tenth century (Hungarian invasions), canonical life was introduced at M., but in 1157 the monks of the Hirsau reform were brought in. Under Abbot Peter I (1389–1427), the art of illumination flourished in the monastery. Most of the present buildings date from the rule of Abbots John III Nablus (1595–1628) and Roman Märkl (1706–29).
Suppressed during the Napoleonic secularization (1803), M. was restored by King Ludwig I as the first Benedictine monastery in Germany (5 June 1830); it contributed to the restoration of the Benedictine monasteries of Scheyern, Weltenburg, Andechs, St. Boniface in Munich, Niederaltaich, and of the Bavarian Benedictine Congregation (1858). A professed monk of M., Boniface Wimmer, founded in 1846 in the United States the monastery of St. Vincent (Latrobe, Pa.), which became the cradle of the flourishing American-Cassinese Benedictine Congregation. The monks of M. now oversee a renowned secondary school and classical lycée (with 400 students, almost all boarders) and six parishes. The richly decorated library contains approximately 100,000 volumes.