Schwarzach - Saints Peter and Paul

Saint Pirmin, whom we met as the founder of monasteries already in Murbach, Wissembourg and Marmoutier worked here as well, according to his "Vita", written within the 9th century. It is proven, that a monastery existed in "Suarzaha" (= Schwarzach) in 826 near a Roman road running parallel to the Rhine.

Secularisation ended the long and colourful history of the Benedictian monastery in 1802/1803. At that time the condition of the buildings was bad. Most were not that old, as the monastery was rebuilt in baroque style after it ruined during the Nine Years' War. They were used as a quarry and only a few can still be found today. One is the course the church, constructed around 1220/1225, now the parish church of the village. Due to restauration, the church is in a mint condition, but a lot of parts are new - so here the original romanesque church got "reconstructed" in a neo-romanesque way. Excavations and research undertaken in the 1960s proved, that the first church here was built within the first half of the 8th century.

During the excavations in 1966 a small piece of glass was found, that meanwhile is a highlight in the Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe. Here is a copy of the "Schwarzacher Koepfchen" (“little head” of Schwarzach), that may have been produced on Reichenau island or in Strassburg before 1000, making it to the oldest part of figurative stained glass in the West.

Here is what the museum says about it:

German - www.landesmuseum.de/website/bildgalerie.php

English - www.landesmuseum.de/website/English/index.print?print=tru...