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Trip ideas  /  7 days in the Black Forest  /  Allerheiligen Abbey ruins
Allerheiligen Abbey ruins, Black Forest, Baden-Wuerttemberg
Historic site · Black Forest, Baden-Wuerttemberg

Allerheiligen Abbey ruins

A donkey and a bag of gold.A fire in 1470.Lightning in 1804.

Photo: Kerish, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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The donkey

A donkey with a bag of gold is said to have chosen the site

According to the foundation legend, around 1192 Duchess Uta of Schauenburg wished to build a monastery in memory of her husband, Welf VI. She tied a bag of gold to a donkey and set it to roam, and built where it threw the bag off.

Growth

The monastery grew into a major centre, then a fire hit it in 1470

The foundation charter was issued in 1196, and Pope Innocent III confirmed it in 1204. The first abbot was Gerung. The monastery grew rapidly, but a large fire destroyed it in 1470.

Lightning

Dissolved in 1802, it was struck by lightning in 1804

Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden dissolved the abbey in the course of secularisation by November 1802. In 1804 a bolt of lightning struck the church tower, which started a last fire that caused irreversible destruction.

A quarry

The ruins were sold in 1816 and used as a quarry

The ruins were used as a quarry for stone for churches in the valleys of the Rench and the Acher. Altars and saints' figures are found in local churches, and three statues stand above a gateway at Lichtenthal Abbey.

The ruins now

Steps to secure the ruins came only at the end of the 19th century

Not until tourism reached the Lierbach valley and its waterfalls were steps taken to secure what was left. The All Saints' Waterfalls lie below the ruins, and a café and a small museum stand on the site.

Day 7, afternoon

It comes after Hornisgrinde.

More stories from this trip idea

The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article All Saints' Abbey (Baden-Württemberg), and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.

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