Gernrode Abbey

Gernrode Abbey was a house of secular canonesses in Gernrode in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Gernrode was founded in 959 and was disestablished in the seventeenth century. In the Middle Ages the abbey was an Imperial abbey had the status of imperial immediacy and an Imperial State. In the early modern period, the abbey was part of the Upper Saxon Circle.

In 959 Gero, margrave of the Saxon Eastern March, founded the abbey of Gernrode, at his castle of Geronisroth, in what is now the city of Gernrode, which is located on the north-eastern edge of the Harz mountains. Since Gero's sons, Siegfried and Gero, had died without heirs, he donated all of his personal property to the abbey after his death. The first abbess of Gernrode was Hathui, the widow of Gero's son. Hathui was a member of the Billung dynasty and was a niece of Queen Matilda. The abbey was intended as a burial place and memorial site for Gero.

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