Michelfeld Monastery

Renovated monastery with beautiful outdoor facilities. The lookout tower on the nearby hill has been ruined and closed for many years!

Saint Francis with a wolf in front of the monastery gate is particularly beautiful. The artist Sabine Mädl worked on the sculptures for five months. They were set up in 2011.

The St. Michael and St. John Evangelist consecrated monastery was founded on 6 May 1119 by Bishop Otto I of Bamberg. Bishop Otto wanted to oppose possible claims of Count Palatine Otto, who could take after the extinction of the Lords of Pettendorf- Lengenfeld Hopfenohe as the son-in-law of the last Pettendorfers large parts of this heritage in possession. The first Benedictine monks came from the monastery Michelsberg near Bamberg. At the beginning Michelfeld was a double monastery, because even nuns had a few hundred meters away in Pferrach a small monastery building. The parish rose to the parish in 1121, when Bishop Otto the Leonhard Church in Michelfeld, now the cemetery church, donated to the monastery. As bishop, the bishop claimed monastic property management and the right to appoint the abbot, which was also confirmed by Pope Calixtus II by a document dated April 3, 1123. In 1134 Otto appointed himself in personal union to the abbot of Michelfeld. In 1145 the abbots were given the right to wear gloves and pontifical shoes as a token of their dignity. Pope Innocent IV also granted them the right of the Inful in 1247. The market of Michelfeld was moved in 1144 in the neighboring Auerbach, over which the monastery exercised the lower jurisdiction. The result was a considerable economic boom, in 1332 the monastery was in a position to lend the bishopric of Bamberg 600 pounds Heller. By King Wenzel the monastery 1385 all privileges were confirmed.