Editing Fulda (section)

===Middle Ages===
[[File:Fulda heertor.jpg|The army gate, built around 1150, on the city side of the city palace, from which you walked past the abbot's castle out of the city to get to the Via Regia|thumb]]
{{More citations needed section|date=December 2022}}
{{Main|Princely Abbey of Fulda}}
In 744 [[Saint Sturm]], a disciple of [[Saint Boniface]], founded the [[Benedictine]] [[monastery of Fulda]] as one of Boniface's outposts in the reorganization of the church in [[Carolingian Empire|Germany]].<ref>"The Monastery of Fulda". ''The Catholic World, A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science'', (1878). 28 (165). 301-309.</ref> The initial grant for the abbey was signed by [[Carloman (mayor of the palace)|Carloman]], [[Mayor of the Palace]] in [[Austrasia]] (in office 741–47), the son of [[Charles Martel]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=yW-GfElbafQC&pg=PA90 Frassetto, Michael. ''Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation'', ABC-CLIO, 2003]</ref> The support of the Mayors of the Palace, and later of the early Pippinid and [[Carolingian]] rulers, was important to Boniface's success. Fulda also received support from many of the leading families of the Carolingian world. Sturm, whose tenure as abbot lasted from 747 until 779, was most likely related to the [[Agilolfings|Agilolfing]] dukes of [[Bavaria]].

Fulda also received large and constant donations from the Etichonids, a leading family in [[Alsace]], and from the [[Conradines]], predecessors of the [[Salian]] [[Holy Roman Emperor]]s. Under Sturm, the donations Fulda received from these and other important families helped in the establishment of daughter-houses near Fulda. In 751, Boniface and his disciple and successor [[Lullus]] obtained an exemption for Fulda, having it placed directly under the [[Papal See]] and making it independent of interference by bishops or worldly princes. The monastery school became a renowned center of learning.<ref name="RM-13">Hraban Maur in ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica Poetaes Latini Aevi Carolingi''II, poem 13.</ref>
[[File:St Boniface - Baptising-Martyrdom - Sacramentary of Fulda - 11Century.jpg|thumb|St Boniface [[baptizing]] and undergoing [[martyr]]dom{{snd}}from the Sacramentary of Fulda]]

After his martyrdom by the [[Frisians|Frisian]]s in 754, the relics of Saint Boniface were brought back to Fulda. Because of the stature this afforded the monastery, the donations increased, and Fulda could establish daughter-houses further away, for example in [[Hamelin]]. Meanwhile, Saint [[Lullus]], successor of Boniface as [[archbishop of Mainz]], tried to absorb the abbey into his archbishopric, but failed.

Between 790 and 819 the community rebuilt the main abbey church to more fittingly house the [[relic]]s. They based their new [[basilica]] on the original 4th-century (since demolished) [[Old St. Peter's Basilica]] in Rome, using the [[transept]] and [[crypt]] plan of that great [[pilgrimage]] church to frame their own saint as the "[[Apostle of the Germans]]".

The crypt of the original abbey church still holds those relics, but the church itself has been subsumed into a [[Baroque]] renovation. A small, 9th-century chapel remains standing within walking distance of the church, as do the foundations of a later women's abbey. [[Rabanus Maurus]] served as abbot at Fulda from 822 to 842.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Hrabanus Maurus Magnentius|volume=13|page=842|inline=1}}</ref> Fulda Abbey owned such works as the ''Res Gestae'' by the fourth-century Roman historian [[Ammianus Marcellinus]] and the [[Codex Fuldensis]], as well as works by [[Cicero]], [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], [[Bede]] and [[Sulpicius Severus]].