Kloster Hirsau

For a few decades in the eleventh century Hirsau set the standard for monastic life in the German lands. Abbot Wilhelm, from 1069, brought the Cluniac observance north, and the reform that took his abbey's name spread through southern Germany together with a distinctive school of building. Ss Peter and Paul, begun in 1082 and consecrated in 1091, was then the largest monastic church in German-speaking Europe. French troops under Mélac burnt monastery and ducal palace on 29 September 1692, and what survives above Calw is ruin: the Romanesque Eulenturm, the Gothic Marienkapelle, foundation courses traced in mown grass. Since 2008 the Calwer Klostersommer has held its season in the cloister, opera included — Carmen and La Traviata among the titles staged among the walls.