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Quedlinburg Abbey ((ドイツ語:Stift Quedlinburg) or ドイツ語:''Reichsstift Quedlinburg'') was a house of secular canonesses ''(Frauenstift)'' in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 936 on the initiative of Saint Mathilda, the widow of Henry the Fowler, as his memorial.〔The "Later Life" of Queen Mathilda (Page 99 )〕 For many centuries it enjoyed great prestige and influence. Quedlinburg Abbey was an Imperial Estate and one of the approximately forty self-ruling Imperial Abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire. ==History== Quedlinburg Abbey was founded on the castle hill of Quedlinburg in the present Saxony-Anhalt in 936 by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, at the request of his mother Queen Matilda, later canonised as Saint Matilda, in honour of her late husband, Otto's father, King Henry the Fowler, and as his memorial.〔 Henry was buried here, as was Matilda herself.〔The "Later Life" of Queen Mathilda (Page 126 )〕 The "''Kaiserlich freie weltliche Reichsstift Quedlinburg''" ("Free secular Imperial abbey of Quedlinburg"), as its full style was until its dissolution in 1802, consisted of a proprietary church of the Imperial family to which was attached a college of secular canonesses (''Stiftsdamen''), a community of the unmarried daughters of the greater nobility and royalty leading a godly life.〔The term "secular" ("''weltlich''") refers to the fact that they took no formal religious vows and were bound to no monastic order. In the Middle Ages and the early modern period these ''Frauenstifte'' were important facilities for the care of unmarried and widowed noblewomen. The ''Stiftsdamen'' or "canonesses" were often learned, and skilled at artistic works〕 The greatest and most prominent foundations of this sort were Essen Abbey, Gandersheim Abbey, Gernrode Abbey, Cologne Abbey and Herford Abbey, in the last of which the young Queen Matilda had been brought up by her grandmother, the abbess.〔''Sanctity and Power: The Dual Pursuit of Early Medieval Women'', Suzanne F. Wemple, ''Becoming Visible: Women in European History'', ed. Renate Bridenthal, Claudia Koonz and Susan Stuard, (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987), 139.〕 Through the efforts of Queen Matilda, Quedlinburg Abbey became one of the scholastic centers of Western Europe.〔 Thanks to its Imperial connections the new foundation attracted rich endowments and was soon a wealthy and thriving community. Ecclesiastically, the abbess was exempt from the jurisdiction of her diocesan, the Bishop of Halberstadt, and subject to no superior except the Pope.〔''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 1911〕 The bishops of Halberstadt were constantly engaged in dispute with the abbesses, as they claimed to have spiritual jurisdiction over the abbey in virtue of subjection of women to men. The abbess, as head of an Imperial Abbey, has seat and voice at the Imperial Diet. She sat on the Bench of the Prelates of the Rhineland of the Ecclesiastical Bench of the College of Ruling Princes.〔G. Benecke, ''Society and Politics in Germany, 1500-1750'', Routledge & Kegan Paul and University of Toronto Press, London, Toronto and Buffalo, 1974, Appendix III.〕 During the Reformation the abbey became Protestant, under Abbess Anna II (Countess of Stolberg). In the course of the German Mediatisation of 1803 the Imperial Abbey was secularized and its territory, properties and subjects were absorbed by the Kingdom of Prussia as the Principality of Quedlinburg. Between 1807 and 1813 it belonged to the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Quedlinburg Abbey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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