Burtscheid Abbey (German: Abtei Burtscheid) was a house of the Benedictine Order, after 1220 a Cistercian nunnery, located at Burtscheid, near Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany.
The abbey was founded in 997 under Emperor Otto III. The first abbot, Gregor, who came to Burtscheid from Calabria, is sometimes said to have been the brother of Theophanu, Byzantine mother of the Emperor. He was buried beneath the altar after his death in 999, and his date of death, 4 November, was kept as a feast day until the dissolution of the abbey.
In 1018 the Emperor Henry II endowed it with the surrounding territory. Also at about this time the monastery was raised to the status of an abbey, and the dedication was changed from Saints Nicholas and Apollinaris to Saints John the Baptist and Nicholas.
In 1138, the abbey was made reichsfrei by Conrad III, being granted Imperial immediacy, the privilege of being subject only to the Holy Roman Emperor, rather than to an intermediate lord. The abbey was under the Vogtei (loosely "protectorship") of the Barony of Mérode until the abbey purchased its Vogtei from them, in 1649.
Burtscheid (Latin language: Porcetum) is a town in western Germany, near Aachen. It was inhabited since ancient times by Celts and Romans, who were attracted by the presence of hot springs.
Burtscheid Abbey was founded here in 997 by emperor Otto III, with Gregor von Burtscheid as its first abbot. It was finished in 1016-1018.
From 1816 Burtscheid was the administrative capital of the district of Aachen. In 1897 Burtscheid became part of the city of Aachen. It is part of the Aachen-Mitte Stadtbezirk.
Burtscheid is today a health resort.
Coordinates: 50°45′56″N 6°06′44″E / 50.76556°N 6.11222°E / 50.76556; 6.11222
Burtscheid is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
The municipality lies in the Hunsrück and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Thalfang am Erbeskopf, whose seat is in the municipality of Thalfang.
The name Burtscheid is a Germanized form of the Celtic Bor(uo)cetum, with the components Borvo, meaning “warm spring”, and also a god’s name (see also Worms, Wormerich and the French Bourbon), and caito-, ceto-, meaning “forest” (Breton koat, koet; Welsh coed – “forest”).
In the Middle Ages, Burtscheid belonged to the Mark Thalfang whose seat was at Schloss Dhronecken (castle). After the French Revolution, the Rhine’s left bank, and thereby Burtscheid too, were ceded to France in 1794 and 1795. Through a law from 26 March 1798, the French abolished feudal rights in their zone of occupation. After French rule ended, the village passed in 1814 to the Kingdom of Prussia. Since 1947, it has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate.