Göss Abbey

Göss Abbey (Stift Göss) is a former Benedictine nunnery in Göss, now a part of Leoben in Styria, Austria.

History

The nunnery was founded in 1004 by Adula or Adela of Leoben, wife of Count Aribo I, and her son, also called Aribo, the future Archbishop of Mainz, on the family's ancestral lands, and was settled from Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg. The first abbess was Kunigunde, sister of Archbishop Aribo. It was made an Imperial abbey by Henry IV in 1020. The Benedictine Rule was introduced in the 12th century.

The nunnery, the last remaining Imperial abbey on Habsburg lands, was dissolved in 1782 in the course of the rationalist reforms of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, and from 1783 served for a short time as the seat of the newly-founded Bishopric of Leoben. In 1827 it was auctioned off and used for industrial purposes. In 1860 the premises were acquired by a brewer from Graz (the nunnery had had its own brewer since 1459) and have since then been used as a brewery.

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