An extraordinary ensemble in an idyllic setting
Bebenhausen Monastery and Palace
Crossing tower of Bebenhausen Monastery

In memory of an important event“The Last Count Palatine"

Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862), citizen of Württemberg as well as poet, lawyer, professor, and member of the National Assembly of Frankfurt, like Eduard Mörike, was among the most important representatives of the Romantic in Swabia. He made Bebenhausen a literary monument.

Ludwig Uhland with Justinus Kerner and Gustav Schwab, lithography by Breitschwert circa 1850

Uhland reported on the sale of the monastery.

The historical background

Ludwig Uhland of Tübingen spent much time in Bebenhausen. His poem "Der letzte Pfalzgraf", or "The Last Count Palatine", was published in 1847. Uhland described how both the city of Tübingen and Bebenhausen Monastery were both sold to the counts of Württemberg in 1342. It was only the right to hunt in Schönbuch and the expensive housing and maintenance of the hunting falcons and dogs in Bebenhausen Monastery that the count palatine from Tübingen, Gottfried II ("Götz"), secured for himself in the process.

Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862) as a member of parliament, lithography of the writer circa 1850

Uhland wrote poems about the history of Württemberg.

State history in verse

As translated by Benjamin F. Meyers in his 1901 work, "A Drama of Ambition", the first lines of Uhland's poem read:

 

"I, Palsgrave Götz of Tübingen
Sell town and castled hill
With subjects, debts, and fields and woods;
Of debts I have my fill.

 

Two holdings, though, I will not vend,
Two rights both good and old;
The cloister one, with tower ornate,
The other the green wold.

 

Poor through religious gifts and crushed
By convents to the ground;
The abbot in return for this
Shall feed my hawk and hound."

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