Eberndorf Abbey, Augustinian abbey in Eberndorf, Austria.
Eberndorf Abbey is an Augustinian monastery in Carinthia featuring a spacious Baroque complex with four wings arranged around a central courtyard. A two-storey medieval gatehouse stands nearby, marking the entrance side of the compound.
Around 1100 the childless Friulian Count Kazelin and his wife endowed a small Church of Our Lady and their lands for a monastery at Eberndorf, asking to be buried there; Patriarch Ulrich I of Aquileia confirmed the gift in 1106 and had a larger church built. By the mid-12th century it had become an Augustinian house. The canons were dissolved in 1604 and replaced by Jesuits; since 1809 the site has belonged to the endowment of St. Paul's Abbey in Lavanttal.
The abbey is no longer a religious community: the canons were dissolved in 1604 and replaced by Jesuits, and since 1995 the market town's administration has occupied the buildings, which also house a kindergarten. The name Eberndorf comes from the Carinthian Slovene name for the settlement, and the town remains bilingual.
The monastery sits about 30 minutes east of Klagenfurt on a gentle slope with views toward the west and south. Visitors should know that pathways across the grounds vary in surface and the terrain slopes upward in places.
The gatehouse was only slightly modified in the 17th century; its defensive character comes from the late medieval fortifications it belonged to. Above the banded portal frame and broken gable, an inscription gives the year 1634, and a medallion with the Christ monogram sits above that. Visitors still pass between battlemented walls, though the outer gate no longer stands.
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