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[105] Charitable women around St. Peter & Paul

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Charitable women around St. Peter and Paul

The larger, flood-proof monastery on the left bank of the Nagold River took in the influx of people. Wealthy nobles supported the abbey materially and politically. Tragically, the site was burned down due to a mistake and used as a quarry...

Judith and Uta, daughters of the Counts of Calw

Judith (c. 1045–91), daughter of Adalbert I of Calw, was married to Hermann I of Zähringen and presumably brought the area around Baden-Baden into the marriage. Her husband renounced worldly power in 1073 and became a monk in Cluny. When he died in 1074 and their son Hermann II became Margrave of Baden, she remained a widow and provided generous support to the newly established monastery of St. Peter and Paul in Hirsau. Construction began in 1082 because the monastery of Aurelius opposite had become too small due to an unchecked influx of visitors. The builder was Wilhelm von Regensburg, who was appointed to Calw in 1069 and who, out of respect and calculation, only accepted the abbot´s dignity after the death of his predecessor. He died in 1091, but lived to see the consecration of his basilica, which was one of the largest Romanesque churches of the 11th century in Germany. Judith was also still alive at the time of the consecration and had gone to Pope Urban II, who had fled from the imperial party in Rome to the Normans. Judith died on September 27, 1091, in Salerno.

Uta (c. 1115-97), heiress daughter of Gottfried von Calw, Count Palatine of the Rhine, was promised in marriage to Welf VI at the age of six. She thus became the dynastic aunt of the future Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion. She supported the monastery until old age. The Codex Hirsaugiensis lists her numerous foundations. Her statue in Lichtenthal Abbey commemorates her founding of Allerheiligen Abbey near Oppenau. As Duchess of Schauenburg, she spent her twilight years in the Ortenau region on her mother´s estate. 

Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard (1098-1179) was active around the same time as a monastery founder and went down in history as a healer and prophetess. Monks from Hirsau sought advice from the abbess when, for example, it came to reintegrating renegades. This led to the following written statement from her: "O flock, you who row in the
shipwrecked world, why do you sink into the infirmities of great dangers of stinking malice, which arise from the presumptuous stupidity of darkness?" She advised forgiving the monks and welcoming them back into the brotherly community.

Mechthild of Württemberg

After a period of decline, the monastery of Peter and Paul experienced an upswing in the mid-15th century, following its affiliation with the Bursfelde Reform Movement, with a renewed influx of visitors. With the exception of the monastery church, it was rebuilt in the late Gothic style, presumably by Hans Sprys von Zaberfeld (1420–1507). Countess Mechthild of Württemberg (1419–82), who was born in the Electoral Palatinate and became Archduchess of Austria in her second marriage, promoted literature, art, and education. She was also a generous benefactor. In 1468, she bequeathed the church and the patronage of Böblingen, along with all its income, to Hirsau. With the Reformation in 1517, the Peter & Paul Monastery was dissolved and a hunting lodge was built there from stones taken from the demolished Aurelius Monastery. Württemberg duchesses, such as Magdalena Sibylla, took spa treatments and bathed in specially brought thermal water and were generous with gifts. In 1692, the monastery was set on fire during the War of the Palatinate Succession, presumably by mistake because of the castle. Until 1989, the elm tree from Ludwig Uhland´s famous poem stood in the inner courtyard of the ruins.