Fulda

Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the Fulda river and capital of the Fulda district.

History

Early Middle Ages

The Benedictine monastery of Fulda (in what is now Hesse, Germany, but was then part of Thuringia), was founded in 744 by Saint Sturm[?], a disciple of Saint Boniface as one of Boniface's outposts in the reorganization of the church in Germany.

The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, the son of Charles Martel. The support of the Mayors of the Palace and later, the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's success. Fulda also received support from many of the leading families of the Carolingian world. Sturm, whose tenure as abbot lasted from 747 until 779, was most likely related to Agilofing dukes of Bavaria. Fulda also received large and constant donations from the Etichonids, a leading family in Alsace, and the Conradines, ancestors of the later Salian Holy Roman Emperors.

Under Sturm and his successor, Lul, the donations Fulda received from these and other important families helped in the establishment of daughter houses such as Fritzlar (built by Boniface, but re-invigorated with Fulda's rise) and Hersfeld. Under Lul, Fulda also became more closely tied to the archbishopric of Mainz, where several of the Fulda abbots were (either before or after they served as abbot) archbishop.

After his martyrdom by the Frisians, the relics of Saint Boniface were brought back to Fulda. Between 790 and 819 the community rebuilt the main monastery church to more fittingly house the relics. They based their new basilica on the basilica (since demolished) of Saint Peter's in Rome, using the transept and crypt plan of that great pilgrimage church to frame their own saint as the "Apostle to the Germans". The crypt of the original abbey church still holds those relics, but the church itself has been subsumed into a Baroque renovation. A small, ninth century chapel remains standing within walking distance of the church, as do the foundations of a later women's abbey.

The great scholar Rabanus Maurus[?] was abbot from 822 to 842.

Need a bit on CounterRef and Fulda -- the Baroque stuff has to do with the elevation of Fulda to an ecclesiastical principality...