Blaubeuren Abbey was a house of the Benedictine Order founded in 1085 by the Counts of Rück and Tübingen, against the background of the Investiture Controversy and the Hirsau Reforms. The first abbot, Adzelinus, and monks were from Hirsau Abbey. Abbot Fabri was closely involved with the foundation of the University of Tübingen in 1477. In 1493 the high altar was created. The choir stalls by Jörg Syrlin the younger are of a similar date.
The Reformation saw the end of the Roman Catholic monastery, from which the monks were expelled in 1535, returning for a short time between 1549 and 1562. In 1563 the first Protestant abbot was appointed, and in 1565 a choir school was opened in the premises. During the Thirty Years' War the monks returned again in 1630 and yet again in 1648, but were expelled; the choir school closed in 1630 and reopened in 1650. It was finally shut down in 1807.
A few years later in 1817 Blaubeuren became a Protestant seminary with an attached boarding school, which has remained to the present, except for a closure during World War II. The school now operates in co-operation with the similar establishment at Maulbronn Abbey: see Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren.
References:Château de Niort is a medieval castle in the French town of Niort. It consists of two square towers, linked by a 15th-century building and dominates the Sèvre Niortaise valley.
The two donjons are the only remaining part of the castle. The castle was started by Henry II Plantagenet in the 12th century and completed by Richard the Lionheart. It was defended by a rectangular curtain wall and was damaged during the Wars of Religion. In the 18th century, the castle served as a prison.
The present keeps were the central point of a massive fortress. The southern keep is 28m tall, reinforced with turrets. The northern tower is slightly shorter at 23m. Both are flanked with circular turrets at the corners as well as semicircular buttresses. Each of the towers has a spiral staircase serving the upper floors. The Romanesque architecture is of a high quality with the dressed stones closely jointed.