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Origin and history

The Abbey of St. Bartholomew of Seltz, originally dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was founded in 991 by Empress Adelaide, widow of Emperor Otto I. In 968, she received land as a dowry and died there in 999, buried there. In 992, his son Otton III raised the abbey to the rank of imperial abbey, granting him tithes, woods, and seigneurial justice over neighbouring villages. Linked to the Ottoman and then franconian dynasties, she later joined the Clunisian congregation.

Between 1307 and 1315, a flood of the Rhine destroyed the second abbey, causing its reconstruction on the present site with the support of King Henry VII. The relics of Saint Adelaide, spared by the flood, were transferred to the church of Saint Stephen in Seltz. The abbey was secularized in 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV, becoming a collegiate of secular canons. The last abbot, Gautier de Gemmingen, died in 1501, marking the end of his religious influence.

In 1575, the Palatine voter Frédéric III briefly installed a Rittersakademie (Académie chivaleresque), dissolved in 1577. As early as the 17th century, the buildings served as a quarry. Rediscovered in 1981 and 1988 during archaeological excavations (led by C. Jeunesse and C. Peter), the remains reveal an abbey church 70 m long to triple nave, a cloister, and about 20 burials. The site, registered with historical monuments in 1995, is now owned by the municipality and private owners.

The architecture of the 13th–14th century featured a choir containing sloping chapels, unique in Alsace with the abbey of Saint-Georges de Sélestat. The excavations revealed convent rooms (sacristy, capitular hall, parlor), a cemetery in the northeast, and ceramic objects dated the fourteenth century. Despite its physical disappearance, the abbey bears witness to the Ottoman influence in Alsace and the medieval transformations linked to the floods of the Rhine.

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