Bad Iburg

Bad Iburg (German: [baːt ˈʔiːbʊʁk] ^ⓘ; Westphalian: Bad Ibig) is a spa town in the district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teutoburg Forest, 16 km south of Osnabrück, and the Hermannsweg long-distance hiking trail passes through it.

Bad Iburg is also the name of a municipality which includes the town and four outlying centres: Glane, Ostenfelde, Sentrup and Visbeck.

The most important building is Schloss Iburg above the town. It is a complex of a castle which was the residence of the bishops of Osnabrück for six hundred years and a former monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict.

Bad Iburg was first mentioned in 753 in a Frankish document. In 772 the Frankish King Charlemagne captured the “Royal castle Iburg”, from his chief antagonist, the Saxon leader Widukind. In a lasting period of struggles the ownership changed between Franks and Saxons. Frankish troops finally regained the castle in 783.

Bad Iburg became of more than local importance in the 11th century when Bishop Benno I (1052–1067) built a new castle on the ruins of the first fortification. This castle was also ruined so Benno I's successor Bishop Benno II of Osnabrück (1068–1088) built another castle. He also founded a Benedictine monastery, the first twelve monks came from Mainz. An interesting feature of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Clemens is the hagioscope, which allowed lepers to view the service from outside. Bishop Benno II was buried in St. Clemens, the monastery's church.

About 1100, after a large fire in Osnabrück, the castle became the residence of Osnabrück's bishops. This period ended when Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover & Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Protestant Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück built a baroque castle in Osnabrück to which he and his family moved in 1673. He added the small Protestant church Evangelisch-lutherische Schlosskirche to the Iburg castle, thus the complex of castle and monastery has had two churches, Protestant and Catholic, since the 17th century. In 1668 Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, the only daughter of Ernest Augustus and his wife Sophia of the Palatinate, was born in Schloss Iburg. She became the first Queen of Prussia. Of special importance is the castle's Rittersaal (hall of knights). The ceiling in pseudo-architecture was painted by Andrea Alovisii.

The monastery site has a baroque building designed by Johann Conrad Schlaun in Abbot Adolph Hane's (1706–1768) time. The monastery was active until 1803 when it was secularisated by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.

In 1534 Bad Iburg was involved in the Münster Rebellion when six Anabaptists were captured on their way from Münster to Osnabrück and imprisoned in the octagonal tower of the castle called the Bennoturm (Benno's Tower). Five of them died during torture or were executed; the sixth was set free after betraying the plans of John of Leiden, the leader of the Anabaptists.