Eibingen Abbey, Benedictine monastery in Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany.
Eibingen Abbey is a Benedictine monastery for women built in Romanesque Revival style with pale stone facades and two slender towers on a hillside above Rüdesheim am Rhein. The complex includes a large abbey church, working farm buildings, and vineyards stretching down the slopes toward the Rhine Valley.
The current complex was built between 1900 and 1904 as a revival of the medieval women's monastery that Hildegard of Bingen founded in 1165. The original abbey was dissolved following secularization in the early 19th century.
The abbey church holds the relics of Saint Hildegard of Bingen in a gilded shrine visited daily by pilgrims from around the world. In the pharmacy, the sisters sell herbal teas and natural remedies based on recipes drawn from medieval writings.
The abbey shop is open from Monday to Saturday and sells wines from the estate vineyards as well as handcrafted products made by the sisters. The church is open during the day for quiet visits, though some parts of the monastery remain closed to visitors.
The nuns continue the tradition of medieval manuscript illumination today, creating documents with gold leaf and traditional calligraphy. The scriptorium uses tools and techniques that have changed little over centuries.
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