Saint Emmeram's Abbey

Saint Emmeram's Abbey is one of the oldest monastic sites in Germany, founded around 739 over the grave of the Frankish bishop who gives it its name. For over a thousand years it was a Benedictine monastery and a major centre of scholarship — the scriptorium produced illuminated manuscripts of great beauty, and the library rivalled any in the German-speaking world. Napoleon dissolved the monastery in 1803 and handed the buildings to the Thurn und Taxis dynasty, the family who built their fortune running Europe's first postal system.

Today the complex functions partly as a museum and partly as the private residence of the Thurn und Taxis family. The Schloss Thurn und Taxis tour takes you through the abbey church (with its extraordinary crypt containing the relics of saints), the Carolingian cloisters, and the princely apartments — a sequence of rooms decorated in various historical styles that give a vivid picture of 19th-century aristocratic life. The family still holds an annual festival in the courtyard in summer that draws considerable crowds.

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A story
In the 11th century, a monk at St Emmeram named Arnold attempted to forge imperial documents, was discovered, and had his eyes put out. He then wrote a book about it. The abbey library — one of the greatest in medieval Germany — was dispersed by Napoleon in 1803, and the buildings given to the Thurn und Taxis family, whose descendants still live in part of them today.

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