Hermetschwil Monastery

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Hermetschwil Monastery

The monastery Hermetschwil is the St. Martin. Consecrated Benedictine - Abbey in the former rural community Hermetschwil-Staffeln in Canton Aargau , which today Bremgarten belongs. It is located on a hill in the Hermetschwil district, above the western bank of the Reuss . The monastery was founded at the end of the 12th century, closed in 1876 and rebuilt in 1985. The abbey belongs to the Swiss Benedictine Federation.

history

The monastery high above the Reuss

The monastery Muri received in 1083 as part of the Hirsau reform an additional wife Convention and thus turned into a double monastery. Towards the end of the 12th century the nuns moved to Hermetschwil. The new monastery received property from Muri and various rights of rule in the Reuss valley. The administration passed to the master around 1300. The spiritual and secular leadership remained with the abbot von Muri, who also represented the Hermetschwil convent externally.

Most of the nuns came from the ranks of the country nobility or from middle-class families in the towns in the Central Plateau. There was no cloister and the nuns had benefices and private assets. When the Reformation entered the Free Offices for a short time from 1529 to 1531 , there were numerous resignations and the importance of the abbey declined sharply. The introduction of stricter rules was a turning point. The late 16th and especially the 17th centuries were the heyday of the monastery; the facility was expanded in three stages. Maria Anna Brunner is considered the most important abbess of this era .

In 1712 the nuns fled temporarily to Lucerne during the Second Villmerger War . Under the Helvetic Republic , the monastery had to forego the use of gradients and the exercise of lower jurisdiction . In the course of the Aargau monastery dispute, the canton of Aargau abolished the monastery in January 1841, but reversed this step in 1843 after a resolution by the daily statute. During the Kulturkampf , the monastery was closed again in 1876 and converted into a children's home, and the monastery property was auctioned a year later.

In 1878 the nuns bought back part of the complex. Since the admission of new novices was forbidden, the convent was relocated to Habsthal Abbey in Württemberg in 1892 and Hermetschwil Abbey was downgraded to a priory . An abbess has been running the monastery again since 1985, and the Hermetschwil and Habsthal abbeys have been legally separate since 1986. In 2003, 15 nuns lived in the monastery, who are mainly engaged in social tasks. Today a few nuns still live in the monastery and ensure the continued existence of the monastery.

building

Monastery church

A trapezoidal ring wall encloses the monastery complex, which is composed of several buildings. On its north side, towards the steeply sloping valley, it is bordered by the elongated monastery church. Together with the adjacent convent building, it forms the eastern flank. On the opposite side of the winding monastery courtyard are the former monastery barn and the former bakery. Other buildings within the monastery courtyard are the tenant house, the former guest house, the archive tower and the tithe store. Somewhat separated from the other buildings, the hermit chapel and two utility buildings are located in the southeast corner of the complex.

The monastery church connected to the north wing of the cloister is in an unadorned late Gothic style. It was built in 1603/1605 and replaced the previous building that had existed since the Middle Ages. The 21 meter long and eight meter wide nave is adjoined by a 12 meter long and 6.5 meter wide choir , both of which are united under a common gable roof . On the choir ridge there is a hexagonal roof turret with an onion cap .

The convent building dates from 1624/1625. It forms a simple, three-storey building quarter with a rafter roof , which surrounds an inner courtyard divided into a cross shape. The upper floors have a half-timbered structure . The archive tower was added to the west wing in 1673 and is covered by a polygonal helmet . The various economic buildings were built over a period of one and a half centuries: 1569 Zehntenspeicher, 1581 bakery (rebuilt in 1713/1714 after a fire), monastery barn 1691/1692 and tenant house in 1727 (the same year the hermit chapel).

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermetschwil Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 20 '3.3 "  N , 8 ° 20' 46.1"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-one  /  242996