Essen Abbey

Essen Abbey (German: Stift Essen) was a community of secular canonesses for women of high nobility that formed the nucleus of modern-day Essen, Germany.

A chapter of male priests were also attached to the abbey, under a dean. In the medieval period, the abbess exercised the functions of a bishop, except for the sacramental ones, and those of a ruler, over the very extensive estates of the abbey, and had no clerical superior except the pope.