Walbeck Collegiate Church

The collegiate church of Walbeck is the ruin of an Ottonian collegiate church in Walbeck, a district of Oebisfelde-Weferlingen in the district of Börde. The ruins, which are located on a limestone cliff 25 metres above the Aller Valley, which have been preserved in large parts of the rising stock, provide valuable insights into construction technology in the Ottonian period. Today, the ruins are a station on the Romanesque Road.
Walbeck Abbey was founded in 942 by Count Lothar II at his castle as a house monastery of the Walbeck counts. The reason for the foundation was that Lothar had participated in a conspiracy of the Bavarian Duke Henry against his brother King Otto I in 941, which was uncovered. Lothar, like most low-ranking conspirators, was initially sentenced to death, but obtained a pardon through the intercession of his friends. He lost all his property except for his allodial estates and was also obliged to build the church, which was placed in his castle in such a way that its military value was greatly reduced. The most famous person in the history of the monastery was the chronicler and bishop Thietmar von Merseburg, who, as the grandson of the founder Lothar, was provost of the canon monastery from 1002. In this capacity, he reconsecrated the church in 1015, which had been damaged by fire four years earlier. The Walbeck bell, one of the oldest church bells still preserved today, was probably created in this context, which is currently in the collection of the Bode Museum in Berlin. Thietmar also passed on the founding story of Walbeck. In 1219, the remains of the castle were razed after the extinction of the Walbeck counts, and the west tower of the church, which had been built after the fire, was also removed. The canonical monastery of St. Maria was subordinated to the Halberstadt cathedral chapter in 1229. In 1591, the monastery was reformed. In the following period, the church began to fall into disrepair. In 1731, no services had been held in the church for many years. In 1810, the monastery was finally abolished.

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