Berchtesgaden Provostry

Berengar's first monastery foundation, the Berchtesgaden Provostry, was commissioned by his mother Irmgard of Rott. According to legend, it was founded in fulfillment of a vow of thanksgiving for the salvation of his father, Gebhard II of Sulzbach, after a hunting accident at the rock on which the Berchtesgaden Collegiate Church stands today. His mother Irmgard owned Berchtesgaden from her first marriage with Count Engelbert V of Chiemgau, and as his widow had made a vow to have a house built for use by an "assembly of clergy of communal life" ("congregatio clericorum communis vite"). Due to various worldly affairs Irmgard did not have the time to found the congregation, so shortly before her death she commissioned Berengar with the task, to promote his and her salvation.^[16]

In the year of his mother's death, 1101, Berengar appointed the canon Eberwin as the first provost. Under his guidance, he sent three Augustinian canons and four lay brothers to Berchtesgaden from Rottenbuch Abbey, the mother abbey of the Augustinians in Altbayern and a center of the canonical reform movement. Berengar and his half-brother Kuno von Horburg-Lechsgemünd then requested papal confirmation for the founding of the monastery. Probably in 1102 and no later than 1105 Kuno von Horburg and Eberwin traveled to Rome on behalf of Berengar.^[17] Pope Paschal II had very likely on 7 April 1102 placed the Count's monastery under his protection.^[18][15] He confirmed this privilege in writing to Berengar and Kuno von Horburg.^{[lower-alpha 2][19]}

According to the Fundatio monasterii Berchtesgadensis the Augustinians at first found the lonely wilderness of Berchtesgaden, with its terrifying mountain forests, and permanent ice and snow a very inhospitable place, and sought somewhere more suitable.^[20][21]

Kastl Abbey

After the Lateran council of March/April 1102, on 12 May 1102 Berengar was granted the privilege of founding the St Peter monastery in Kastl according to the Hirsauer reform.^[22] Berengar co-founded the abbey with Count Friedrich of Kastl-Habsberg and his son Otto.^[9] Diepold III of Cham-Vohburg also assisted with the foundation.^[23]

Baumburg Abbey

In 1102 Paschal gave Berengar the privilege of founding Baumburg Abbey.^[24] In 1104–06 Berengar was deeply involved in the struggles of Henry V against his father Emperor Henry IV, and was unable to implement the wishes of his wife Adelheid von Lechsgemünd to spend the inheritance from her first two marriages to establish a Reform congregation. Adelheid therefore felt compelled before her death (1104/1105) to place her husband and a dozen selected ministers under oath to establish a regular canons monastery to the north of lake Chiemsee and to annex the existing church of St. Margaret in Baumburg. But to found two monasteries within three or four years and to participate in the reform of the Kastl Abbey at the same time gave him great difficulty. He therefore followed the urging of his church officials and expanded Baumburg with goods from Berchtesgaden so he would have at least one well-equipped monastery, and would meet the wishes of his mother and first wife.^[25]

In 1107, or at the latest in 1109, Eberwin and his monks from Berchtesgaden founded Baumburg Abbey in the north of the present Traunstein district.^[26] Later, probably around 1116, Eberwin returned to Berchtesgaden where the first major land clearing was undertaken and the Augustinians settled permanently.^[27] The independence of Berchtesgaden was not secure, since Gottschalk (ca. 1120–1163), provost of Baumburg, was not willing to accept the loss of the Berchtesgaden assets. After Berengar died in 1125, Gottschalk challenged the legality of the separation and asked Archbishop Conrad I of Salzburg for an injunction to re-merge the properties.^[28] Conrad finally confirmed the independence of both monasteries in 1136, which was confirmed by Pope Innocent II in 1142.^[29]