Reichersberg

REICHERSBERG. - Abbey of Canons Regular of St. Augustine, in the diocese first of Passau, now of Linz (Upper Austria), on the plain of the Inn.

Its renown is due to the celebrated provost (abbot) Gerhoh (v.), who, at the time of the Investiture Controversy, played a considerable part also as a publicist. The noble Werner of R., on the death of his wife and son, erected in 1084 near his castle a monastery for the Canons Regular, where he himself entered, dying there on 5 October 1086. But the true flourishing of the abbey begins with the intervention of Conrad I, Archbishop of Salzburg, venerated as second founder, who in 1122 rebuilt the convent and in 1126 dedicated the new church; he brought the canons from the great abbeys of Saxony, where the canonical life was much in vogue. In 1624 a fire almost totally destroyed church and monastery; but it was immediately rebuilt, in 1625-44, in simple Baroque forms, then in 1663-1704 with all the splendor of full Baroque. The work is due to local masters who achieved, especially in the church and in the refectory, library and imperial halls, great artistic effects; the whole forms a jewel with a landscape setting. Notable are the canvases of the church's altars and the many sepulchral slabs in the cloister. The abbey has a number of incorporated parishes and carries out an extensive work of ministry and of agricultural and forestry reclamation.

Giuseppe Löw