Benediktbeuern

 

 

The history of the village of Benediktbeuern starts with the foundation of the monastery Benediktbeuern by the ‘Huosifamilie’ in 739 A.D. Next to the monastery a worldly settlement arose, in which the serfs of the cloister and those of the founders lived. They were dependent on the monastery and worked on the related estates. For centuries the worldly settlement developed further, but in austere dependence on the respective economic and cultural strength of the monastery. The cloister was almost the only employer for farmers and craftsmen whose children in turn received elementary lessons in the monastery already in the 15th century. Further studies were also allowed to the gifted ones among them. The worldly settlement is mentioned for the first time 1160 A.D. in documents using the name 'Laingreb'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later the village name 'Laingruben' was formed from the former 'Laingreb'. In 1803, in the course of the secularization, the management of the village which was held until then by the cloister went over to worldly or royal officials. In 1816, a mayor of the village is mentioned for the first time. Since 1865 the village carries the name 'Benediktbeuern'. Until now the village has kept a lot of its historical appearance. Along the so-called ‘Dorfstrasse’ you can see ‘jewels’ of traditional architecture. Farms line up which search her equals in the matter of beauty and testify from the architecture and Bavarian tradition of the region. About 3400 inhabitants of the municipality live predominantly on agriculture, trade and craftsmanship. In addition, the tourism forms an important economic factor.

 

 

 

 

Monastery of Benediktbeuern

 

 

 

The monastery Benediktbeuern, founded in 739 AD, is the oldest and one of the most beautiful one in Upper Bavaria. The first three abbots Landfried, Waldram and Eliland are also descended from the nobility clan of the ‘Huosifamilie’. One of the main religious relics, the right arm of the holy Saint Benedikt, was handed over to the buron before the year 800 A.D. by ‘Karl the Great’. As a result the buron up to then called cloister was renamed as Benedicto-Burum. Already after completion of the cloister construction the first school was founded. Already in Carolingian time the cloister owned a famous scriptorium. After the decay of the empire in the10th century and the Hungary storm in the year 955 in which the cloister was destroyed and almost all monks died, the monastic life was also no longer existent. Saint Ulrich of Augsburg restored the church and established a ‘Kanonikerstift’. In 1031 provoste Reginbert handed over the rebuilt ‘Kanonikerstift’ to reform abbot Ellinger of Tegernsee who introduced the observance of the Benedictinian regulates again and who founded the convent school anew. After emperor Heinrich III had returned again its worldly possessions to the cloister, it reached his cultural climax under abbot Walther (1138 - 1168). Goldsmith's art and painting blossomed also in the cloister, the linguistic monument of the ‘Carmina Burana’ originated here and the valley of the ‘Jachenau’ and the ‘Walchenseeufer’ were opened for the settlement. In 1248 a part of the cloister was destroyed by a big blaze. Valuable donations of the duke of Meran and counts of Tyrol allowed the reconstruction. Abbot Ortolf II received by Rudolf of Habsburg 1275 the dignity of a prince of the holy Roman empire and from the pope the ‘Pontificalrecht’. Also in the modern times the abbey was spiritually leading.  In 1332 emperor Ludwig IV lent own jurisdiction to the cloister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another large fire destroyed almost the whole cloister and the church which was rebuilt and initiated four years later. Also the Thirty Years' War did not pass Benediktbeuern without a trace. 1632 the Swedes penetrated marauding into the cloister and tortured the only one who did not flee, father Simon Speer, to death. His commemorative cross can still be seen in the village. Then after these years a new blooming period began. In the years 1681 to 1686 today's cloister church was entirely rebuilt in the Baroque epoch with the typical Italian early baroque accents. The church boasts a fresco cycle of the life of Christ by Hans Georg Asam (father of the famous architect-interior decorator brothers), but is rather overshadowed by the Anastasia chapel, a separate chapel to the north, which is a miniature masterpiece by Johann Michael Fischer.

After centuries of beneficial work the 63rd abbot Karl Klocker had to experience in 1803 the abolition of the cloister by the Napoleonic secularization. Archive and library were torn apart and the valuable picture gallery was completely squandered. The Bavarian state library took over 40,000 volumes of the cloister library and valuable parts of the archive, among them also manuscripts from the 8th and 14th century, such as the famous ‘Carmina Burana’. After the parish church was totally dismantled the abbey church served as a replacement. Baron Josef Utzschneider acquired the cloister buildings and preserved them from decay and demolition. He offered Joseph von Fraunhofer to install his mathematical-optical institute in the cloister rooms. In 1818 to 1929 the cloister served state purposes as an invalid's house, convalescent home, foal's court, barracks and prison. In 1930 a congregation of Salensian monks acquired the cloister buildings and took over with it the inheritance of the Benedictinian forefathers. In 1973 the former abbey church and current parish church was raised by the pope to a papal basilica. As a theological educational site for the German-speaking younger generation of the congregation today's cloister tries to protect the tradition of the oldest place of Christian education in the Bavarian highlands. The Salensian order is especially engaged in the education and support of underprivileged children.

Today the cloister has different other functions. Besides the clerical life there is the possibility to use the cloister buildings for conferences, concerts and events.

Since several years the social-educational advanced technical college is accommodated in the cloister beside the theological college.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Carmina Burana - Medieval Songs and Plays

 

 

 

 

The Carmina Burana (in German, ‘Lieder aus Beuern’) is a collection of plays and songs found in a medieval German manuscript.

The songs and plays were written down sometime in the 13th century, though many of them are probably much older in origin. The manuscript has been separated into two different parts: the songs (the Carmina Burana proper) mainly written by wandering poets known as ‘goliards’, and the six religious plays known as the Benediktbeuern manuscript written by itinerant scholars and monks.

The manuscript was discovered in 1803 at Monastery of Benediktbeuern from which the term "burana" is derived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Songs: 

The songs, which number more than 1,000, vary widely in style and subject matter and include religious poems, political satires, drinking songs, and both serious and bawdy love songs. They are composed of rhymed lyrics, primarily in Latin with a few in German. Some musical notation was included in the manuscript, but it has been difficult to decipher, and only about 40 melodies have been reconstructed.

 

The Plays: 

The six plays are all in Latin and include the only two complete texts of medieval Passion dramas known to exist today -- one with music and one without. The other plays are an Easter play, a Christmas play, a play depicting Christ's first two appearances to the disciples, and a play of the king of Egypt.

 

Altogether the manuscript contains essentially secular lyrics by various authors, of varying degrees of literary merit, and covering a range of themes. As the largest surviving anthology of Medieval Latin poetry, the contents of the manuscript represents the last outpourings of poets who still used that lingua franca of Christendom as fluently as their individual native tongues.

 

The Modern Version:  Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Outside a specialised readership the ‘Carmina Burana’ is probably best known as the title of a popular work for chorus and orchestra by Carl Orff. Composing in 1936, Orff necessarily based his setting on a rescension of the text made in 1847 by Johann Andreas Schmeller of the Munich Central Library. The hour-long cantata, much performed and recorded, is an exuberant setting of some twenty poems in Medieval Latin and Middle High German from the 13^th century was based on the medieval poems but did not use the original melodies.

 

 

* Pictures courtesy of “Zentrum für Umwelt und Kultur Benediktbeuern” and “Salensianer Don Boscos Monastery Benediktbeuern”