Altenburg

Altenburg a Benedictine abbey, in Lower Austria, was founded by Hildeburg, countess of Buige. In 1144 a number of monks settled there from St. Lambrecht, in Styria. Till 1878 this abbey had forty-five abbots, the first of whom was Gottfried. Altenburg was several times destroyed by fire, twice by the Hussites, and suffered greatly from the peasants' war, and from the Swedes, Russians, and French. The famous abbot was the thirty-eighth, Maurus Boxler, who greatly promoted the spiritual as well as material interests of the abbey. His clergy were educated at the universities of Vienna and Salzburg. Under the forty-fifth abbot, Honorius Burger, who died in 1878, the seventh centenary of this institution was celebrated in 1844. Burger also wrote the history of his abbey, and published the documents concerning the same in Fontes Rerum Austriacrum, Diplom. et Acta, 25 (Vindob. 1865). Besides Marian, Gesch. der osterr. Klerisei (Vienna, 1787), see Burger's History (ibid. 1862); Wolfsgruber, in Wetzer u. Welte's Kirchenlexikon, s.v. (B.P.)