Imperial Abbey of Kempten
| Princely Abbey of Kempten | ||||||||||
| Fürststift Kempten | ||||||||||
| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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 Coat of arms
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 Imperial City and Imperial Abbey of Kempten, c. 1800
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| Capital | Kempten | |||||||||
| Government | Imperial abbey | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | Abbey founded | 752 | ||||||||
| • | Imperial immediacy confirmed | 1062 | ||||||||
| • | Prince–Abbacy | 1213 | ||||||||
| • | Joined Swabian Circle | 1500 | ||||||||
| • | Joined Catholic League | 1609 | ||||||||
| • | Abbey property purchased by the City of Kempten | 1525 | ||||||||
| • | Mediatised to Bavaria | 1803 | ||||||||
| • | Cities united | 1819 | ||||||||
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| Coordinates: 47°43′40″N 10°18′48″E / 47.7277°N 10.3132°E | ||||||||||
The Imperial Abbey of Kempten or Princely Abbey of Kempten (German: Fürststift Kempten or Fürstabtei Kempten) was an ecclesiastical state of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries until it was annexed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German mediatization in 1803.
Located within the former Duchy of Swabia, the Princely Abbey was the second largest ecclesiastical Imperial State of the Swabian Circle by area, after the Prince-Bishopric of Augsburg. It stretched along the Iller River in the Allgäu region, from Waltenhofen (Martinszell) in the south to Legau and Grönenbach in the northwest, and up to Ronsberg and Unterthingau in the east.
The Imperial city of Kempten itself formed an Imperial State in its own right and an enclave within the abbey's territory. The Princely Abbey of Kempten covered approximately 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles) and included some 85 villages and hundreds of hamlets and farms, making it one of the largest Imperial abbeys. At the time of its annexation to Bavaria in 1802, it had some 42,000 subjects.
According to the 11th-century chronicles by Hermann of Reichenau, the monastery of Kempten dedicated to Virgin Mary and Gordianus and Epimachus was established around 752 under its first abbot Audogar. According to other sources, it was however erected by two Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Saint Gall, Magnus of Füssen and Theodor, who also founded the St Mang's Monastery in Füssen.
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