Gurk Abbey

In 898 the Carolingian emperor Arnulf granted the Gurk valley to his son Zwentibold, one of Saint Hemma's ancestors.

A widow since the killing of her husband William, margrave on the Sann in 1036, she founded a convent of noble ladies on the Gurk manor, apparently without implying a strict order rule.

Her endowment comprised extended estates in the Duchy of Carinthia and its Styrian and Carniolan marches.

She also ceded large properties in the Enns valley to the Salzburg archbishop, the basis for the foundation of Admont Abbey in 1074.

Hemma's mortal remains were transferred to the newly erected cathedral in 1174; the former abbey church decayed and was finally demolished in the 19th century.