An Irish Jerusalem in Franconia: the Abbey of the Holy Cross and Holy Sepulchre at Eichstätt

Abstract

A combination of the crusades and the related upsurge in pilgrimages to the Holy Land led to western European interest in the city of Jerusalem reaching a high point during the twelfth century. This increased awareness of Jerusalem and its sacred sites found one expression in the foundation of a Benedictine monastery at Eichstätt in southern Germany, which was dedicated to the Holy Cross and Holy Sepulchre and whose church was modelled on the most famous of all the Holy City's monuments. Adding to the singularity of the Eichstätt establishment was the fact that the monks who peopled it were Irish, this being one of the so-called Schottenklöster, a group of Irish Benedictine monasteries founded in Germany and Austria between the late eleventh and early thirteenth centuries. This paper examines the circumstances surrounding the Irish monastery's foundation, gives a detailed account of its extraordinary architecture and considers the place of the latter within the wider context of the medieval architectural copy.