DEUTSCHLAND | GERMANY |
Bundesland: Freistaat Bayern | Bavaria |
Regierungsbezirk: Schwaben | |
Landkreis: Donau-Ries |
Monheim is situated at an elevation of 518 m in the Fränkische Alb region of western Bavaria.
The village was presumably founded in the 8th or 9th century. From 870 until 1533 Monheim was home of a Beneditine nunnery. The oldest written reference to Monheim dates from AD 893 and is found in a document whereby the abbess of Monheim handed the nunnery to the bishop of Eichstätt. The relics of St. Walburga (d.779), abbess of the Benedictine nunnery of Heidenheim/Mittelfranken, made Monheim a popular site of pilgrimage at the time (In the 2nd half of the 9th century the relics were transfered to Eichstätt). Under the counts of Oettingen, Monheim was granted the privileges of a town. The oldest city seal dates from 1340. As a results of the Landshut war of succession, Monheim in 1505 came in possession of the princes of Pfalz-Neuburg. The Protestant faith was introduced in 1530/1533, but in 1614 Monheim became Catholic again. In 1742 Pfalz-Neuburg came to Pfalz-Sulzbach. When the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach family became extinct in 1777, the line Pfalz-Sulzbach inherited their countries and united Bavarai and the Palatinate. Monheim thus became part of Bavaria. The municipality of Monheim was formed in 1818. Between 1972 and 1978 the neighbouring communities of Flotzheim (with Kreut and Hagenbuch), Itzing, Kölburg, Rehau, Ried, Warching, Weilheim (witht Rothenberg) and Wittesheim (with Liederberg) were incorporated into the municipality of Monheim.
The parish church St. Walburga [far right] dates from the late Gothic period.
The north gate of the church bears an inscription dating from 1509.