Abbey of Honcourt

History

the Abbey of Honcourt (German Hugshofen and Hugonis Curia in Latin) was founded in the year 1000 by the count Werner d' Ortenbourg, going down from the family of the Etichonides and the family of the Eberhard under the reign of the emperor Othon III (983 - 1002) and under the episcopate of Alewic as a diploma of Frederic Barberousse attests it. It has a son who is called Volmar whose history will not retain large thing. This abbey was beside the village of Saint Martin's day (the Low-Rhine) with orée of Klosterwald. According to the rare texts, the monastery was built on the site of an old castle of hunting of small scale. The chronicler Jean de Ruyr pays: " Hugon, above-named the large one or the large one because of its excessive stature, had a small manor house, who was called also this name Hugshoffen, to which place and with the contour of known as Val one set up a monastery about Saint-Benoît. The abbey had goods a little everywhere in the Val of City, particular to Dieffenthal. Theoger, abbot (1088 - 1120) of Saint-Georges in Black Forest, introduced there the reform of Hirsau. This revival led the monastery to a certain flowering. The abbey was plundered and burned in May 1525. The community of the monks dispersed shortly after. The last abbot, Paul Voltz, passed to the Protestantisme and took part in the reform of Strasbourg. In 1599 the remainders of the abbey are sold by the archdukes of Austria with the Abbaye of Andlau.

Hugon, the confondator of the monastery

According to certain historians, Hugon the second wire of Albrecht would thus have been the confondator of the monastery of Honcourt set up on its old property of hunting. As his/her brother it had a stature herculéenne and was buried with him in the abbey. Being of passage in Alsace in 1516, the emperor Maximilien Ier wanted to have of it the heart Net of this fame of Titan. it made open the tomb. One withdrew like incriminating evidence an impressive femur, to determine in all proportiopn, the size of the buried bodies. The draft that one enfit was a long time preserved at the priory of Sainte Foy with Sélestat. one concludes with a stature from eight feet, that is to say about 8 X 0,3248 = 2m59! What is already impressive! But curious thing, one had as the surprise to note as the bones of Wernher and Hugon were mixed.

The construction of the abbey church

It is in 1186 that one started to build the abbey church which was completed one century later by the abbot Conrad III, in 1286. Unfortunately, this remarkable construction does not exist any more. It resisted the attacks of time and the wars, but succumbed pitifully to the pickaxe of the demolition contracters, on order of the nuns of Andlau in 1782. By its circular form, the religious building, extremely rare, strongly resembled the church of Ottmarsheim close to Kembs, one of the jewels of the primitive Romanesque architecture, faithful counterpart but in smaller of the Palatine vault of Aachen.

Sources

Whole or part of this article is drawn from the directory 1976 with authorization of the Company of history of the Valley of City. The article could be modified since.

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