Selz Abbey

Selz Abbey or Seltz Abbey is a former monastery and Imperial abbey in Seltz, formerly Selz,Selz is the German spelling, Seltz the French in Alsace, France.
The Benedictine monastery, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was founded in about 991 by Adelheid, the second wife of Otto I and dowager empress, who was buried there on 16 December 999.see Odilo of Cluny's Epitaph of Adelheid, chapter 20, in Sean Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity: The Lives of Mathilda and the Epitaph of Adelheid (Catholic University of America Press, 2004). In January 992 it was granted royal tuitio and immunity (the equivalent of the later Reichsunmittelbarkeit) by Otto III.Monumenta Germaniae Historica DD Otto III, no. 79.
The abbey suffered from severe floods in 1307. A new abbey was build between 1307 and 1315.
A abbey's daughter house at Mirmelberg was founded in 1197, and itself washed away by floods in 1469. The relics of Saint Adelheid, which apparently survived the floods, were translated to the church of Saint Stephen in Seltz.
The abbey was eventually secularized in 1481 and the monks formed a college of canons operating as the chapter of Saint Stephen's (a mile away the abbey), retaining some of the privileges of the former foundation, although not all the possessions.
The chapter became Protestant in 1575 and was mediatised by the Electoral PalatinateÜbersicht über die Reichsstände. Buildings of the abbey became a quarry at the beginning of the 17th century. The remaining building of the abbey became a reformed academy for young nobles in 1575. The academy was closed in 1577 because the new elector was Lutheran. The Protestant chapter reverted to a canonry in 1684 after Seltz was annexated by France (in 1680) and local population was converted to Roman Catholicism. It was dissolved by the bishop of Strasbourg (approved by the king of France) in 1692.
The Seltz parish was dissolved during the rule of the National Convention (1792–95) and the Saint Stephen church was burned by Austrians after the battle of Seltz, 23 October 1793. But the Saint Stephen church survived and the parish reborn during the French Consulate in 1801. The church was extensively rebuilt by the German Empire (which had annexated Alsace in 1870) for the occasion of the anniversary of the death of the Empress Adelaide in 1899.
The church was almost destroyed during World War II; restoration was completed in 1958.
==References==
==Sources==
* Seltz Parish website 
Category:1481 disestablishments
Category:States and territories established in 992
Category:991 establishments
Category:990s architecture
Category:Buildings and structures in Bas-Rhin
Category:Imperial abbeys
Category:Benedictine monasteries in France
Category:Christian monasteries established in the 10th century
de:Kloster Selz
nl:Proosdij Seltz