Ilsenburg Abbey

Ilsenburg Abbey was a monastery of the Benedictine Order located at Ilsenburg near Wernigerode, in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. The former abbey is a stop on the Romanesque Road.HistoryThe monastery was built in the Saxon lands of Eastphalia at the site of a former Pfalz and hunting lodge, mentioned as Elysynaburg in a 995 deed issued by King Otto III. On 15 April 1003 King Henry II donated the estate for this purpose to the Bishop of Halberstadt, and the abbey had been founded by 1009. In 1018 the Halberstadt bishop vested the monastery with further possessions around Ilsenburg and Osterwieck. The first monks possibly descended from Fulda Abbey in Franconia.Fostered by Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt from about 1070, the convent experienced a flourishing period whereupon numerous filial monasteries were established, such as Huysburg, and the abbeys of Harsefeld, Hillersleben, and Wimmelburg. A larger Romanesque church was erected and dedicated to Sts Peter and Paul on 5 June 1087; including the oldest preserved three-aisled choir of all Benedictine sacral buildings in Germany. The adjacent cloister buildings were erected after a blaze in 1120 and finished in 1176. The monastic community included up to 25 monks, it joined the Benedictine Bursfelde Congregation in 1464/65.