Theophanu, Abbess of Essen

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Theophanu, Abbess of Essen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2015)

Theophanu was the abbess of the convents of Essen and Gerresheim from 1039 until her death in 1058. She was the daughter of Matilda of Germany and a granddaughter of the Byzantine princess Theophanu and the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II.

During her abbacy, Theophanu was responsible for a number of artistic and architectural commissions, including the renovation of the west end of Münster church to reflect the design of the famous octagonal Aachen Chapel. She donated several lavish illuminated manuscripts, including the Theophanu Gospels (now in the Essen Cathedral Treasury) and the Cross of Theophanu.^[1]

Media related to Theophanu, Abbess of Essen at Wikimedia Commons

• Rheinische Geschichte: Theophanu (um 997–1058), Äbtissin von Essen und Gerresheim (1039–1056)
• Webpage of the Essen cathedral treasury for the cross nail reliquary

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (October 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Theophanu (Essen)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Theophanu (Essen)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.