St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Wissembourg

About

The Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul Abbey of Wissembourg was founded around 660 by Austrasian nobles on an island of Lauter. An apocryphal charter attributes this foundation to King Dagobert. The abbey of Wissembourg was richly provided and was therefore considered one of the richest abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire.

For contemporary historiography, the Wissembourg Abbey would be a creation of the bishop of Spire Dragobod (de), as evidenced by a manuscript of 661. Thanks to donations from the nobility and the owners of the place, the abbey gradually benefited from land throughout Alsace, the Rhine Palatinate and the Ufgau on the right bank of the Rhine. It created seigneuries and farms to systematically clear arable land and develop agriculture. Thus Wissembourg emerged as one of the richest abbeys, culturally and economically, from the Kingdom of the Franks and then from the Carolingian Empire. From 682, she was able to redeem for the considerable sum of 500 solidus shares in Vic-sur-Seille's salines; In 760, she even acquired the Mundat forest. The "Mundat" enjoyed royal immunity...