Stavelot

(redirected from Abbacy of Stavelot)

Stavelot

(stävlō`), Du. Stablo, small town, Liège prov., E Belgium, in the Ardennes. It developed around a Benedictine abbey founded c.650. The abbots were later princes of the Holy Roman Empire until their land was secularized in the French Revolutionary Wars. Until 1815 the principality included the Malmédy region, which then passed to Prussia, while Stavelot passed to the Netherlands and later to Belgium. In World War II, the Germans captured Stavelot (Dec., 1944) in the Battle of the BulgeBattle of the Bulge,
popular name in World War II for the German counterattack in the Ardennes, Dec., 1944–Jan., 1945. More than a million men fought in what is also known as the Battle of the Ardennes. On Dec.
..... Click the link for more information. and massacred a number of U.S. prisoners of war held nearby.