Klosterneuburg, Heurige

Friday 6.8.10

Friday – Klosterneuburg

This was an amazing day. We went to Klosterneuburg, a canonry outside Vienna. It turns out a canon is like a monk who is also a priest. Being not a Catholic, I’m not super concerned with going into a detailed description here, but feel free to do your own research. For the layman, know that the religious men of Klosterneuburg wear black and white habits and address one another as Dom Daniel, Dom Gabriel, etc. They are of the order of St. Augustine. They are less strict than Benedictines (who inhabit the other famous Austrian monastery of Melk) and allow themselves alcohol consumption and use of electronics. Both Klosterneuburg and Melk were founded by St. Leopold III, Babenberg duke of Austria. The story of the founding of Klosterneuburg varies according to the teller, but essentially Leopold’s wife Agnes’s favorite shawl, which she wore every day, blew away, and she was crushed. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men searched and searched for the shawl, but alas, Humpty Dumpty could not be put together again, and the shawl remained lost. Eight years later, Leopold found the shawl, glowing supernaturally, while hunting in the forest, and vowed to found a monastery on the spot. As Dom Ambros (our tour guide and my favorite canon, more on him in a couple paragraphs) explained, the monastery happened to be in an easily-defendable location with plentiful water, so the validity of the shawl story can be questioned by the not-so-blindly-devout.

Outside the Kloster.

          We met all of the American canons (I guess they all wanted to meet the group of American tourists). There are nine Americans committed to canonic life; this is because there are no canonries in the United States, so they must go elsewhere to find such a life. They gave us some of the Sekt that is produced by the canons at Klosterneuburg. Sekt is sparkling white wine. It is what most people think of as champagne, though in fact a bottle can only be legally labeled champagne if the grapes were grown in a particular region of France. In any case the Sekt was good, and then we got a very personal, in-depth tour. It seems Professor Stuart, who has been doing this program for some five years, knows the canons pretty well and they really outdid themselves for us. After a long “meaty” (as Kathy described it) tour, including the famous Altar of Verdun, we went to a Heurige, or wine tavern. The wine is grown locally and is new (this year’s harvest) and the Heurigen tend to be family-run businesses. There are many on the outskirts of Vienna and near the Vienna Woods.

          More about the Altar of Verdun: it’s old and gold. Pretty large and ornate. It tells lots of Biblical stories. When it was commissioned, very few people could read, much less afford to have a Bible in their house (Gutenberg had not yet revolutionized the distribution of literature). So the altar tells Biblical stories. It is the most treasured possession of the canonry.

The Altar of Verdun, and the kindly American canon who told us about it.

          So we went to this Heurige and ate food and drank wine and talked with the canons. I spoke with Dom Ambros the whole time. The canons were very friendly and awesome and that was the most interesting conversation of my life. I was very very eager to hear Ambros’s opinions of religion, Catholicism, and such things. His insights were awesome, fresh, and good to hear. He didn’t convert me, but I think I’ve never enjoyed a conversation so much as the one I had that night. We got in touch via e-mail and I plan to keep Dom Ambros as a pen pal until one us dies. I’m going to try to see him again before I go back to the States.

A Heurige takes a lot out of a man.