Murbach Abbey

Murbach Abbey (French: Abbaye de Murbach) was a famous Benedictine monastery in Murbach, southern Alsace, in a valley at the foot of the Grand Ballon in the Vosges. The monastery was founded in 727 by Eberhard, Count of Alsace, and established as a Benedictine house by Saint Pirmin. Its territory once comprised three towns and thirty villages. The buildings, including the abbey church, one of the earliest vaulted Romanesque structures, were laid waste in 1789 during the Revolution by the peasantry and the abbey was dissolved shortly afterwards. Of the 12th-century Romanesque abbey church, dedicated to Saint Leodegar (St. Léger), only the transept remains with its two steeples, and the east end with the quire. The site of the nave now serves as a burial ground. The building is located on the Route Romane d'Alsace.