Abbey Treasury

One of Germany's great church treasuries, famous for an audacious wartime theft

The treasury in the Collegiate Church holds objects accumulated over a thousand years of imperial patronage — reliquaries, gospel books, ivory carvings, and liturgical vessels that were presented by emperors and queens who regarded Quedlinburg as a sacred dynastic site. The collection is among the finest Ottonian and Romanesque church treasuries anywhere in Germany.

The wartime theft gives the collection an extra layer of significance. Many of the returned objects now carry a quiet notoriety: you are looking at things that spent 45 years in a Texas bank vault after being mailed across the Atlantic in army postal packages. The comb of St. Mathilde and the Samuhel Gospel are among the most celebrated pieces; the detail in the 10th-century ivory and goldwork is extraordinary. Do not skip this for the church alone.

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A story
In the final weeks of World War II, US Army Lieutenant Joe T. Meador systematically removed 91 objects from the treasury — reliquaries, manuscripts, and liturgical items dating back to the 10th century — and mailed them home to his family in Whitewright, Texas. They sat in a bank vault for decades. Meador died in 1980 without disclosing what he had done, and the full story only emerged in 1990 after his heirs tried to sell some pieces. Most objects were eventually recovered through a combination of legal action and negotiated purchase, though not all made it back.

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