Olsberg Abbey

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Olsberg Abbey
medal Cistercians
founding year 1236
Cancellation / year 1803
location
country Switzerland
region Aargau
place Olsberg
Geographical location 47 ° 31 '  N , 7 ° 46'  E Coordinates: 47 ° 31 '26 "  N , 7 ° 46' 26"  E ; CH1903:  625 251  /  263,739
Olsberg Abbey (Switzerland)
Red pog.svg
Situation in Switzerland

The pin Olsberg is a former Cistercian convent in the town of Olsberg , in the Swiss canton of Aargau . The monastery with the name Hortus Dei («God's Garden») was founded in 1236 and closed in 1803. In addition to the collegiate church, it includes the convent building, the monastery barn, the rectory and other ancillary buildings. Today the convent building serves as a school home for children with learning difficulties. The monastery complex is classified as a cultural asset of national importance .

history

Hand-colored title page by Anton Dominik Brysner for his manuscript "Historical and Diplomatic Description of the Noble Church of Ohlsperg" 1763

In February 1234 Pope Gregory IV issued a letter of protection to the Garden of God convent. The following year the convent was accepted into the order of the Cistercians . The monastery community initially lived in the hamlet of Kleinrot in what is now the municipality of Obersteckholz (Canton Bern). She then moved to Olsberg in 1236, bought the village and built a monastery complex with a church there. Since Olsberg was a women's monastery, pastoral responsibility and external representation lay with the Lützel Monastery . From 1442, the Habsburgs provided the castvögte .

Until the beginning of the 15th century, the property could be skillfully expanded. It comprised the area west of Möhlin , part of the Basel area , free float in Alsace as far as Strasbourg and part of southern Baden. In 1427 the monastery burned down completely, after which a slow decline began. In 1452 there were only five nuns left and the continued existence of the monastery was endangered. During the Peasants' War in 1525, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages looted the monastery. In 1535 the abbess and most of the nuns converted to the Reformed denomination. The monastery remained orphaned until 1558.

In 1632, during the Thirty Years War , the monastery was looted and badly damaged twice by Swedish troops. The nuns fled briefly into exile, first to Wettingen and later to Balsthal . After their return a new beginning followed and the facility was expanded in several stages. The renewed decline began to emerge when in 1751 the paternity changed from the monastery Lützel to the imperial abbey Salem and finally in 1753 to the monastery Tennenbach . In 1790, Emperor Leopold II converted the Olsberg monastery into a secular, aristocratic women's monastery, and in 1803 the newly established canton of Aargau completed its secularization by taking over the monastery property .

In 1805 one of the first high schools for young women was built in the monastery building, which was considered very progressive at the time. This interdenominational subsidiary with a teacher training facility was under cantonal supervision. In 1835, however, the Great Council decided to close the school. From 1839 to 1841 it was operated on a private basis. In 1846 the “Pestalozzi Foundation of German Switzerland”, named after Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , took over the premises and set up an institution for poor and neglected children. When the foundation got into financial difficulties, the canton took over the institution in 1860. Over the decades, this turned into a school home with a weekly boarding school. Today she specializes in children with learning difficulties who cannot go to regular school. There is an organic farm on the monastery grounds.

Since 2006, the Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta has organized the SOLsberg chamber music festival in the monastery church every year.

List of Abbesses

  • 1370, 1371: Romana von Tegerfelden
  • 1535-1558: vacancy
  • 1558–1588: Katharina von Hersberg, Überlingen
  • 1588–1645: Ursula Schmotzer, Ritzol in Tyrol
  • 1670–1707: Maria Franziska von Eptingen-Blochmont
  • 1707–1732: Bernarda von Freiburg
  • 1732–1757: Maria Johanna von Roll
  • –1785: Victoria von Schönau († 1785)
Oberinnen (after secularization)
  • 1791 Josepha von Freyental (previously prioress)

building

Collegiate church

Collegiate church
Interior of the collegiate church

Various remains of the foundations have been preserved from the founding church (Building I), the construction of which probably began around 1236. These came to light in 1972 during extensive archaeological investigations. The church was a square hall. The church burned down completely in 1427 and had to be completely demolished. A much larger new building (Building II), which was inaugurated on December 13, 1434, was built in its place. In 1562 the altar house was given large wall paintings, and in 1593 a rood screen . The church suffered great damage during the Thirty Years' War. The destroyed high altar could only be renewed in 1672/73, ten years earlier a marbled wooden ceiling had been installed.

Far-reaching architectural changes were made in 1715 (Building III). The rearmost quarter of the building, the Konversen district , was demolished and a new baroque façade with a bell tower was erected in front of the shortened nave . In addition, the partition wall to the altar house was removed and the rood screen was replaced by a west-facing choir gallery. In 1737/38 an altar for the bones of the catacomb saint Viktor was built on the south wall . In the middle of the 18th century, various adjustments to the furnishings were made. An exterior renovation took place in 1901/02, a comprehensive restoration from 1972 to 1981.

The tower facade of the collegiate church is baroque . The front tower appears as a two-edged risalit up to the height of the top of the gable and tapers to an octagonal bell-shaped storey on which a dome with an onion-shaped lantern sits. The main entrance is shaped like a pillar arch with composite - pilasters and Kröpfgebälk . In Fries hides a timing diagram , it contains the coat of arms of the Cistercian order and the abbess of Bernarda Freiburg. A niche in the tower shaft contains a statue of the order saint Bernhard von Clairvaux . The nave and the choir were built in the Gothic style, with the two long sides being designed differently due to different structural measures. The rear part of the southern flank was once connected to the convent building, but this wing was demolished in 1864.

In the western third of the church there is a three-aisled, three- bay- deep pillar hall on which the organ stage rests. The pillar hall opens in three arches to the ship, which in turn goes directly into the choir of the same width. A spatial structure is essentially created by two raised pedestals and the altars. The high altar , created by Johannes Scharpf in 1673, forms a mighty, black and gray marbled display wall with four winding columns. The main sheet, a representation of the Mount of Olives , is a 1634 copy of the altarpiece by Giovanni Lanfranco in the Lucerne Court Church . The altar figures (Baptist and foster father) are attributed to Johann Isaak Freitag . The tabernacle with column and dome is also from Friday . The free-standing side altars with Regency superstructures were made after the 1,732th The grisaille frescoes made in the 1660s were whitewashed in 1828 and exposed again in 1977.

Convent building

The convent building, which has existed since the 14th century and which adjoined the church to the south, was adapted to the slope in the second half of the 16th century so that the floors, which had been staggered up to that point, were given a uniform level. After the Swedish raids in the Thirty Years' War, the building fell into disrepair and was largely uninhabitable. In the 1680s there was extensive renovation, combined with additions. The building was essentially given its present shape. In 1715 the demolition of the Konversen district of the collegiate church resulted in a vacant lot in the northwest of the cloister. In 1864 the north wing and part of the east wing were demolished; since then the convent building is no longer connected to the church. In the course of the 20th century, the rooms were adapted to modern school operations, in 1966 the cloister garden gave way to a sports field.

Various elements have been preserved from the original interior. The refectory in the east wing has a white field ceiling with several coats of arms; in the north-west corner there is a tiled stove from 1751, which is painted with rural scenes. Adjacent to the refectory is a room that is now used as a library; it has a carved wooden ceiling from the late 16th century. The cloister is divided into 15 connected late Gothic vaulted yokes. A double-leaf walnut door with fittings leads to the abbess's workroom at the west end of the south wing.

More buildings

Rectory

Separated by a small street, to the north-west of the collegiate church is the former collegiate shop, built in 1742. After the abolition of the monastery, the administrator appointed by the canton lived there; today it serves as the parsonage of the Christian Catholic parish. The cloister barn, around 80 meters from the church, was built in 1777 on the site of a previous building that had been demolished. The most striking feature of the building, which is still used for agriculture today, is the three-storey roof structure.

literature

  • Edith Hunziker, Peter Hoegger: The art monuments of the canton of Aargau . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History . Volume IX, Rheinfelden district, 2011, ISBN 978-3-906131-94-8 .
  • Joseph Echle: The village of Olsberg and its monastery . Festschrift in memory of the long history that connects the village and the monastery. Ed .: Education Department of the Canton of Aargau. Max Muff AG, Pratteln 1985.
  • Diemuth Königs: Cistercian Sisters in Olsberg . The history of the Hortus Dei monastery. Schwabe, Basel 2010, ISBN 978-3-7965-2656-5 .
  • Peter Hoegger: Former Olsberg Monastery. (Swiss Art Guide, No. 345). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1994, ISBN 978-3-85782-345-9 .
  • Georg Boner : On the older history of the Olsberg monastery. In: Argovia , annual journal of the Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau, Volume 91 (1979), pp. 45–99 doi : 10.5169 / seals-73921
  • Gottlieb Wyss: Franziska von Eptingen, Abbess of Olsberg. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Volume 30 (1931) doi : 10.5169 / seals-114366
  • K. Biedermann: Olsberg Monastery. Cultural and historical images. In: From the Jura to the Black Forest: history, legend, land and people. 9th Volume (1892), pp. 179-232 and 259-315

Web links

Commons : Stift Olsberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The Olsberg Monastery Hortus Dei - An earthly paradise? Koenigs-Media, November 23, 2008, accessed January 30, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Subsidiary Institute. Retrieved December 23, 2015 .
  3. ^ Pestalozzi Foundation of German Switzerland. Retrieved December 23, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Background. SOLsberg, accessed December 23, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Julius Kindler von Knobloch: Upper Baden Gender Book, Volume IS 206
  6. ↑ Echle: The village of Olsberg and its monastery. P. 11.
  7. ↑ a b Echle: The village of Olsberg and its monastery. P. 12.
  8. ↑ Urban Fink: Eptingen, Maria Franziska von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  9. ↑ a b c Echle: The village of Olsberg and its monastery. P. 15.
  10. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 384-385.
  11. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 387-388.
  12. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. P. 388.
  13. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. P. 391.
  14. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 391-394.
  15. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 389-390.
  16. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 399-400.
  17. ↑ Hunziker, Hoegger: The monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Pp. 402-403.