Abbey of Echternach

Tens of thousands of tourists, day-trippers, pilgrims, and clergy visit Echternach to witness or participate in the traditional ceremony.

The work of the monks at the abbey was heavily influenced by Willibrord's roots in Northumbria and Ireland, where a great emphasis was put on codices, and Echternach developed one of the most important scriptoria in the Frankish Empire.

As Echternach was so prolific, and enjoyed the patronage of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, it played a crucial role in the development of the early Carolingian Renaissance.

Seeing the work of the abbey at Echternach at taming the native German script, and eager to further the reform, Charlemagne sent for Alcuin, to establish a scriptorium at the court in Aachen.

[3] The so-called Emperor's Bible and the Golden Gospels of Henry III were also produced in Echternach at this time, when production of books at the scriptorium peaked.

In recognition of its importance as a national centre of pilgrimage to St. Willibrord, Pope Pius XII granted the abbey the status of minor basilica in 1939.

Part of the basilica was blasted by retreating German Wehrmacht troops on December 26th 1944,[5] necessitating another reconstruction - its sixth in 14 centuries - in the original Roman style.

The event draws to Echternach tens of thousands of visitors a year, be they pilgrims or tourists, who either participate or observe the quaint and distinctive procession.

On 9 February 2010 Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, published a two-volume catalogue of the manuscripts in the library on behalf of the Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg.