Viktring, Abbey of

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VIKTRING, ABBEY OF

Former cistercian abbey in Carinthia, Austria, Diocese of Gurk. Viktring (Victoria) was founded by Count Bernhard of Sponheim in 1142 and was colonized from Villers-Betnach in Lotharingia. In 1202 the three-naved, Romanesque, pillared basilica with barrel vaults was consecrated. The three tracery windows of the early-14th-century rib-vaulted apse contain what is probably Austria's most famous Gothic stained glass (138090). The abbey's high altar (dating from 1447) is in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna today. Viktring's fame was enhanced by its abbot John of Viktring (131245?), a notable historian. Emperor Joseph II of Austria suppressed the abbey in 1786. In 1847 half of the nave of the abbey church was torn down, and the remaining church was used as a parish church. The extensive late-baroque monastic buildings (front, 427 feet long) with two courtyards still exist (now used as a factory).

Bibliography: k. haid, "Zur Kenntnis Johanns von Viktring," Cistercienser-Chronik 18 (1906) 161167. m. roscher, Geschichte der Cist. Abtei V. (unpub. diss. Vienna 1954). johann von viktring, Cronica Romanorum, ed. a. lhotsky (Klagenfurt 1960). k. ginhart, Viktring (Salzburg 1962).

[a. schneider]