Founding The abbey was founded in 764 by the Frankish Count
Cancor and his widowed mother, Williswinda, as a
proprietary church (
Eigenkirche) and monastery on their estate, Laurissa. It was dedicated to
Saint Peter and
Saint Paul. The founders entrusted its government to Cancor's cousin,
Chrodegang (
Archbishop of Metz), who became its first abbot. On 11 July 765, the sacred relics arrived and with great solemnity were deposited in the basilica of the monastery. In 766 Chrodegang resigned from the office of abbot, in favour of his other duties as Archbishop of Metz. He then sent his brother Gundeland to Lorsch as his successor, with fourteen
Benedictine monks. That same year, there was a dispute about property rights between Gundeland and Cancor's son, and the abbey was moved to an Ice Age
dune, a few hundred metres from its original location on a small island in the
Weschnitz. In 772, Gundeland applied to the highest authority,
Charlemagne, who found in his favour. Gundeland gave the abbey with all his properties to the king, turning it into a Royal abbey.
Influence Many miracles were said to be wrought through the intercession of Saint Nazarius at Lorsch, and from all parts of Europe pilgrims in large numbers came to visit the shrine. In the course of the 9th century the
library and
scriptorium of Lorsch made it one of the cultural centres of Germany; its four surviving 9th-century catalogues show that it was rich in both Classical and Christian texts. Few Carolingian manuscripts are better known than the Lorsch gospels, the
Codex Aureus of Lorsch, now divided between the
Vatican Library and the
Batthyaneum Library in
Alba Iulia,
Romania; the carved ivory
consular diptychs of
Anastasius (consul 517) that were reused for its bindings are urbane classicising works of art in themselves, and embodiments of the classical tradition of Byzantium as it was transmitted to Lorsch in the time of
Charlemagne. The monastery was also where the
Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, a famous medical book, was written around the year 800. In 876, shortly after the death of
Ludwig der Deutsche (Louis the German), the abbey became the burial place for the first "German" king. His son,
Ludwig der Jüngere (Louis the Younger, died 882), and his grandson Hugo (died 879) were also buried at Lorsch.
Leo Allatius was sent to superintend its removal to Rome, where it was incorporated into the
Vatican Library as the "Biblioteca Palatina". In 2014, the
University of Heidelberg created a website, Bibliotheca Laureshamensis reuniting the surviving Lorsch documents in a digital environment. The digitization project was envisioned in 2005 and launched in 2010 but at this point, many libraries and institutions had not yet photographed their manuscripts. Throughout the project, “…an immense change in the attitude towards the publication of digital facsimiles of medieval manuscripts could be noted. More and more cooperating libraries had set up their digitization studios or found commercial partners, the acceptance of international licenses and terms of use for digital images had increased and above all granting free access to digital data had become more common.” More than half of the 309 manuscripts were digitally reproduced by the holding libraries themselves. As of 2015, the Vatican holds over a third of the surviving Lorsch manuscripts, while the rest are spread out over seventy two institutions in twelve countries.
Destruction of the abbey During the
Thirty Years' War Lorsch and its neighbourhood suffered greatly. In 1621, Spanish troops pillaged the abbey and most of the buildings at Lorsch were pulled down. After the Archbishopric of Mainz regained possession of it in 1623, the region was returned to the
Catholic faith. However, the abbey remained a ruin and served as a source of building materials for the whole region. is the oldest largely intact monument of
Carolingian architecture. == Historic names ==