Everything about Echternach Luxembourg totally explained
Echternach is a
commune with
city status in the canton of
Echternach, which is part of the district of
Grevenmacher, in eastern
Luxembourg. Echternach lies near the border with
Germany, and is the oldest town (current population 4,610) in Luxembourg.
It grew around the walls of the
Abbey of Echternach, which was founded in 698 by
St. Willibrord, an English monk of Ripon, who became the first bishop of
Utrecht and worked to Christianize the
Frisians. As bishop, he directed the monastery as abbot until his death in 739. It is in his honour that the
dancing procession takes place annually on
Whit Tuesday. This is the last traditional dancing procession in Europe; there was formerly also one at the
Mont St. Jean in
Dudelange.
The River
Sauer that flows past the town now forms the border between Luxembourg and Germany, but in the later Roman Empire and under the Merovingians this wasn't a
marcher land at all. The Roman villa at Echternach (traces of it were rediscovered in 1975) which was part of the
see of Trier (now in Germany) was presented to
Willibrord by
Irmina (Irmine), daughter of
Dagobert II, king of the Franks. Other parts of the Merovingian's Roman inheritance were presented to the Abbey by
Pepin.
Echternach continued to have royal patronage from the house of
Charlemagne. Though the monks were displaced by secular canons of the
bishop of Trier, 859 - 971, and though Willibrord's buildings burned down in 1017, the Romanesque
basilica with symmetrical towers (
illustration, above right) still houses his tomb in its crypt. As the abbey, with a famous library and scriptorium flourished, the town of Echternach formed around the abbey's outer walls and was granted a city charter in 1236. The abbey was rebuilt in a handsome
Baroque range in 1737. The monks were dispersed in 1797, and the abbey's contents and its famous library were auctioned off. Some of the library's early manuscripts are at the
Bibliothèque Nationale,
Paris. A porcelain factory was established in the abbey, and the town declined, until the railroad brought tourists.
There are two churches at Echternach. The larger is the Abbey's basilica of
St Willibrord, now surrounded by the eighteenth-century abbey (now a school) in the town's historical and cultural centre. The other is the parish church of St Peter and Paul.
The picturesque town, still surrounded by its medieval walls with towers, was badly damaged in World War II and has been thoroughly restored; it has been the site of a May and June International Music Festival since 1975.
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