The “Kloster” of Ober-Altaich was first founded in the eighth century by a duke who brought Benedictines from Reichenau to people it, and it was built where a chapel had been erected earlier by “the Holy Parminius.” Here, still earlier, had stood a Druidical altar, and Parminius, having destroyed it and with his own hands cut down its sheltering oak, built the chapel which was succeeded by the first Kloster. That was destroyed by the Hungarians in 907, and a couple of centuries passed before it was rebuilt by the Count of Bogen and started on a long period of continuous prosperity. When the Thirty Years’ War was devastating so much of the Continent, Ober-Altaich was not spared, for in 1634 it was destroyed by the Swedes, only to rise, phœnix-like, more splendid than before, thanks to the wealth possessed by the monks. The fresco-paintings in the monastery church illustrate the old-time feeling against Lutheranism, for “monks are drawn exorcising Straubing, and Luther is seen running away in the shape of an unclean spirit, riding on a hog, with the Bible under his arm, a sausage in one hand, and a beer glass in the other.”
Beyond the railway bridge is seen the Bogenberg at the foot of which is the pleasant village of Bogen. On the top of the ’berg is an old pilgrimage church, erected in consequence of one of the various miracles that belong to the neighbourhood, and the ruins of a castle, at one time the seat of one of those robber-nobles who must have made travelling in these parts a terrible thing in the olden days. To Sossau we have seen—and with the particularity of a date not often attached to such happenings—a picture was brought by angels; to Bogen there floated, up-stream, on the waters of the Danube a hollow stone image of the Virgin. Here it grounded, and the hill-top chapel was duly built to house it, and in course of time became famous as a pilgrimage church. Sometimes, it is recorded, as many as eight thousand pilgrims at a time have journeyed to Our Lady of Bogen. Owing to its exposed position—the hill-top is nearly four hundred feet above the river—the church has often been damaged by storm, and once when it was crowded with pilgrims. This was on Whit Tuesday, 1618, when the tower was struck by lightning, and the congregation, in the panic that ensued, crushed several of their number to death. Æmilius Hemmauer, a prior of Ober-Altaich, who recorded the tragedy in verse, describes how—
“In one thousand six hundred and eighteen,
On the third day of Whitsun near midnight.”
when the church was closely crowded the tower was struck and fell in; two people were killed outright, and in the subsequent struggle—
“The great force crushed without sparing
Four men and ten women,
There lay ye in two graves, dead,
Three men, seven women; console ye, God.”
The account is not very explicit; presumably one of the men and three of the women recovered.