dukes, the race from which the Emperor Conrad II. sprang, who ascended the throne in 1024. It is said that the first born son of this emperor lost his life here by a fall from the rock, and that Conrad was moved by his wife, the pious Gisela, to consecrate the scene of the accident by changing the family castle into a religious house. It appears, at any rate, to be an historic fact that Conrad II., early in the morning of the 12th July, 1030, laid the foundation-stone of this abbey, and then rode immediately to Speyer and laid the first stone of the Cathedral at noon of the same day. Conrad did not live to see the work accomplished: it was finished and finally dedicated under his son and successor, Henry III., A.D. 1042.
Limburg Abbey, looking West.
The Byzantine style was carried in this superb building to its utmost perfection; of the church, which was conspicuous in the midst, the Benedictine Abbot Trittheim declaimed that he had never seen a grander church among those belonging to his order. There were three towers in the facade, the middle one of which was the highest, crowning the chief entrance, richly adorned with carvings. The interior was built after the simple but imposing model of the Roman Basilica; it was 250 feet long, and in the naves 140 feet wide. Twenty pillars, the shafts of which consisted each of a single mass, supported the painted roof, and separated the principal nave from the lateral spaces, whilst the coloured windows created a solemn twilight within. Among the twenty altars which the church contained, the High Altar, built of agate and marble, was richly adorned with precious stones and the royal crown. Behind the high altar was the choir of the convent, and a vault where many ancestors of the Salic imperial house were buried. Under the transepts were two vaults—to the right containing graves of the Counts of Leiningen, and to the left those of Abbots of Limburg. To the north-west of the church were the conventual buildings, connected with the abbey by a cloister, the circumference of the whole amounting to 5000 feet. Twenty counts, knights, and nobles of the country were tributary to the abbey, when in the beginning of the 13th century the Counts of Leiningen settled themselves in the neighbouring Castle of Hartenburg without the leave of the abbots and became a thorn in their sides. In the year 1470 Count Emich the Seventh plundered the monastery, sparing only the library and the sanctuaries. A worse fate befell the abbey in the year 1504. The Abbot Machar, a man distinguished by learning and intelligence, fearing the sinister designs of Count Emich VIII., procured a garrison from the Elector Palatine, under whose protection the abbey had been placed since 1471. When the Elector, being hard pressed, was forced to withdraw his troops, the inhabitants of Limburg had no choice but in flight. At midnight, sixteen in number, they went to the choir, said mass, received the sacrament, and with tears quitted their beloved convent and retired to Speyer, whither their valuables had previously been conveyed. No sooner were they gone than the people of Count Emich took possession, and set all the buildings on fire. The fire lasted for twelve days and nights, till all the glories of this beautiful building were consumed. The Abbot Machar made complaints to the Emperor at the Diet at Cologne, 1605, but without success. His successor
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