Harsefeld Abbey

Harsefeld Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey in Harsefeld, Lower Saxony, and the former Archbishopric of Bremen.

The abbey was born from a collegiate church for priests, which Henry II of Harsefeld, Count of Stade, gave between 1007 and 1010 to atone for a political assassination. Count Luder-Udo's sons, Udo and Heinrich von Katlenburg, were implicated in the murder of Margrave Ekkehard of Misnia in Pöhlde on 30 April 1002. After the death of the young German king and Roman emperor Otto III, who died young, the margrave claimed the throne in the royal election of 1002. The then elected king and later Emperor Henry II spared Udo and Heinrich, but they had to hand over their inheritance from Harsefeld and the surrounding area as a sign of penance for the church. With the support of Count Henry II, called the Good, the abbey was founded in Harsefeld. The Archbishop of Bremen, Libentius, consecrated the abbey for 99 years.

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