The Cistercian Eberbach Monastery was founded by St. Bernhard, who sent a group of monks from his monastery in Clairvaux in Burgundy to this location in the Rheingau in 1136.
The lives of the monks rigorously followed the strict Rule of St. Benedict and were characterized by the most ascetic of living conditions and the unvarying daily routine of choir prayer and hard work.
Soon after its founding, the Eberbach Monastery developed a significant spiritual influence, and it became the "mother abbey" of four other monasteries during the first 100 years of its existence. Later, the Abbey served as a burial place of highly-placed representatives of the nobility and the clergy, including three archbishops of Mainz.
In addition, the Monastery was a gigantic business enterprise which owned much land extending far beyond the borders of the Rheingau. Although less than 5 % of this land were used for winegrowing, this activity was the most important source of income for the Monastery. The Eberbach monks made a valuable contribution to the science of winegrowing.
Both the spiritual influence of the Abbey as well as its commercial activities led to a wide-ranging building program.
The architecture of the almost fully preserved Monastery is dominated by Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque style buildings.
During your tour of the Monastery, let yourself be returned to a time long ago and experience a historical building complex, the walls of which preserve the traces of our Western civilization as if in an archive. |
