Pfäfers Monastery
The Pfäfers Monastery was a Benedictine abbey in the area of today's political municipality Pfäfers in the canton of St. Gallen . The monastery was founded in the 8th century and abolished in 1838 by a resolution of the Grand Council of the Canton of St. Gallen. The baroque monastery building from the 17th century has housed the cantonal psychiatric clinic St. Pirminsberg since 1845. The former abbey church of St. Maria serves the Catholic parish of Pfäfers as a parish church.
history
Pfäfers Monastery was founded in 731 as Monasterium Fabariense (Latin for "bean field") according to the chronicle of Hermann the Lame from Reichenau Monastery . The first monks came from the Reichenau monastery. The founding legend refers to the traveling bishop and later Saint Pirmin . The abbey was first mentioned in a document in 762. The monastery controlled the important traffic route over the Kunkelspass to the Bündnerpasses to Italy. In addition to the episcopal city of Chur , the monastery was the most important ecclesiastical center in Churrätien and the diocese of Chur . Numerous parishes in the region were founded by Pfäfers in the 9th and 10th centuries. The monastery’s considerable free float was concentrated in eastern Switzerland, especially between Weesen and Maienfeld , but extended into what is now Baden-Württemberg , Bergell , Vinschgau and South Tyrol .
In 840, Emperor Lothar assured Pfäfers monastery that it would be free to elect abbot. 861 received Pfäfers immunity and king protection. The East Frankish King Ludwig gave the child to Bishop Solomon III in 905 Pfäfers . von Konstanz , who was also abbot of St. Gallen . This probably transferred the Pfäfers monastery to St. Gallen in 909 on the condition that he and his nephew Waldo can use it as a usufruct for life. This gave rise to disputes between the Bishop of Chur and St. Gallen over the monastery. King Otto I finally confirmed the free election of abbot for Pfäfers again in 950, so that the monastery remained independent. During the investiture controversy, however, Pfäfers came under foreign control again. Heinrich IV lent the abbey in 1095 to the diocese of Basel , which in 1114 exchanged the castle Rappoltstein (Alsace) for Pfäfers with Heinrich V. Only the intervention of Pope Paschal II restored the freedom of the Pfäfers monastery in 1116. During the early Middle Ages , Pfäfers remained the most important monastery in the Diocese of Chur and the spiritual center of the region. The three most important manuscripts of Churrätien, Liber Aureus (most important source on the history of the abbey), Liber Viventium (memorial book of the abbey) and Vidimus Heider ( copy book of the abbey) were made in Pfäfers.
In 1208 King Otto IV gave the bailiwick over the possessions of the Pfäfers monastery to the barons of Sax , some of whom, however, pledged them again. In 1257 Abbot Rudolf von Bernang bought back the entire bailiwick for 300 silver marks and transferred it to the Lords of Wildenburg at Freudenberg Castle in 1261 . In the 14th century there were two separate bailiwicks: Freudenberg Castle and Ragaz as well as the monastery and the upper Tamina valley. The bailiffs later came to the Counts of Werdenberg-Sargans and Werdenberg-Heiligenberg. In 1397 the monastery bought back the bailiwick and in 1408 received the privilege from King Ruprecht to elect and dismiss the guardian bailiff himself.
After the acquisition of the county of Sargans by the Seven Old Places of the Confederation , they also took over the umbrella bailiwick over Pfäfers. The monastery got into financial and political distress in the turmoil of the Swabian War and the Reformation . Abbot Johann Heider (1586–1600) succeeded in restoring the position of the monastery for a short time, but under his successors the situation worsened to such an extent that the Swiss Benedictine Congregation took over the administration of the monastery.
In 1665 a fire destroyed the monastery and the church. Abbot Justus Zink laid the foundation stone in 1672 for the reconstruction in the Baroque style according to the plans of Giovanni Serro and Giuglio Barbieri . Due to the catastrophic financial situation of the abbey, Zink had to resign in 1676 under pressure from the Swiss Benedictine Congregation . His successor, Abbot Boniface I. Tschupp, completed the existing complex in 1694. Under Boniface I. the financial recovery succeeded. In the years 1693/1694 the still preserved organ was built by Johann Matthäus Abbrederis in the so-called Psallierchor.
An affair arose over the election of Ambrosius Müller as abbot in 1734, because Zurich refused to confirm Müller. Johannes Scheuchzer , the brother of Johann Jakob Scheuchzer , was therefore commissioned to investigate the imperial privileges of the abbey. Some of the imperial and papal documents about the monastery have now clearly turned out to be forgeries, probably originating in the 17th century. The negotiations at the Federal Diet of 1738 finally confirmed the abbey's legal rights over the communities of Pfäfers , Vättis , Valens and Ragaz .
In 1794 there was an uprising among the subjects of the monastery, which was put down by the federal governor of Sargans. When the county of Sargans was released into freedom by the Swiss Confederation on November 11, 1798, Abbot Benedikt Bochsler also had to join and declare his subjects free. After the French invaded, the monastery was lifted and partly destroyed. In 1801 the abbot returned with a few brothers and in 1803 the monastery was formally restored after the founding of the canton of St. Gallen. The poor financial condition of the monastery prompted the last abbot, Plazidus Pfister, to apply for the secularization of Pfäfers abbey in Rome in 1838. Even before Pope Gregory XVI. refused this request in a letter dated March 20, 1838, the Grand Council of the Canton of St. Gallen had declared the Pfäfers Monastery to be canceled on February 20, 1838 and confiscated the assets. The Catholic denomination tried in vain until November 1839 to claim the assets for themselves.
On November 14th, 1845, the «Cantonal Insane Asylum St. Pirminsberg», today's « Psychiatric Clinic St. Pirminsberg», was founded in the abbey buildings .
The abbey's valuable cultural assets were auctioned off and scattered in museums around the world. The well-known Wolfurt chalice , which was donated to the monastery in the 13th century, comes from the knight Konrad von Wolfurt . In 1853 the monastery archive was transferred to the St. Gallen Abbey Archive.
From 1619 to 1845 the remains of the Blessed Archpriest Nicolò Rusca were kept in the Pfäfers Monastery . Today they are in the collegiate church of Sondrio in Valtellina .
Abbots of the Pfäfers monastery
|
|
|
|
Bad Pfäfers
The healing spring in the Tamina Gorge was discovered in the Middle Ages. According to one legend, it was found by Karl von Hohenbalken in 1038 and, according to another, by two monastery servants in 1242. The first bathing facilities were set up in 1242 under Abbot Hugo II of Villingen. In the middle of the 14th century bathhouses were built, which were placed astride the Tamina . The first documentary mention took place in 1382. In the 16th century the bath became famous through the presence of Ulrich von Hutten and through the writing of Paracelsus about the bath from 1535. In 1543 Abbot Johann Jakob Russinger left a 250 foot long wooden staircase on the rock wall into the Tamina gorge create. In the 17th century, the Pfäfers spring was considered the "queen of all healing springs".
The original bathing facilities and the spring were destroyed by multiple fires and rockfalls until 1680, but restored by the monastery in 1704–1718. Parts of these buildings have been preserved to this day. In the heyday the bath accommodated up to 500 guests. After the abolition of the monastery, the source fell to the canton of St. Gallen , which in 1839/1840 laid a pipeline to Ragaz , which has since become a well-known health resort on the site of the old Bad Pfäfers in the Tamina gorge. Bad Pfäfers continued to operate until 1969. Part of the old bathroom, which was in a poor structural condition, was demolished in 1971, which was also intended for the rest of the buildings. Thanks to the commitment of the “Friends of Old Bad Pfäfers” association from 1975 and the “Old Bad Pfäfers Foundation”, supported by the association, the communities of Pfäfers and Ragaz, the canton and the thermal baths, the remaining buildings in the baths were restored in three stages from 1983 to 1985 .
coat of arms
The coat of arms of Pfäfers Abbey shows a white dove flying to the right on a red background. The pigeon carries a red stained wood chip in its beak. This creates a reference to the founding legend, which says that a pigeon used a bloody wood chip to assign the site of the monastery to Saint Pirmin .
The political community Pfäfers uses this coat of arms today as the community coat of arms. The coat of arms of the neighboring municipality of Bad Ragaz (white dove on a blue background) also goes back to the monastery coat of arms .
literature
- Collection of Swiss Legal Sources, XIV. Department: The Legal Sources of the Canton of St. Gallen, Part Three: The Landscapes and Country Cities, Volume 2: The Legal Sources of the Sarganserland by Sibylle Malamud and Pascale Sutter, Basel 2013 [1] .
- Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz , Vol. V. Neuchâtel 1929. S. 414f.
- Paul Diebolder: From the cultural life of the Benedictine Abbey Pfäfers in the Middle Ages and its relationship to Liechtenstein. 1931.
- The Pfävers monastery. Edited by the Historical Association in St. Gallen. St. Gallen 1883.
- Pfäfers Abbey. History and culture. Stiftsarchiv, St. Gallen 1983 a. 1985.
- Sebastian Grüninger: The eventful fate of the Pfäfers monastery in the 10th century. On the source value of descriptions by Ekkehart IV of St. Gallen. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 127th year 2009, pp. 25–46. ( Digitized version )
- Untervazer Burgenverein Untervaz: Texts on the village history of Untervaz - List of the abbots of the Pfäfers monastery 731-1838. ( pdf )
Web links
- Franz Xaver Bishop: Pfäfers (monastery). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Website of the Pfäfers community
- "Here is God's house and the gateway to heaven". Pfäfers Abbey 731–1838. Publication on psych.ch
Individual evidence
- ↑ RIplus Regg. B Augsburg 1, n.97 ( Memento from July 27, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Regesta Imperii
- ↑ Theodor Sickel (Ed.): Diplomata 12: The documents Konrad I., Heinrich I. and Otto I. (Conradi I., Heinrici I. et Ottonis I. Diplomata). Hanover 1879, pp. 202–203 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
- ↑ Portrait of the instrument on the Orgelbau Kuhn AG website , accessed on June 9, 2017.
- ↑ ADB 34 (1892), p. 710.
- ↑ Altes Bad Pfäfers Foundation (ed.): Altes Bad Pfäfers: Being here is wonderful. Pfäfers, undated
Coordinates: 46 ° 59 '26 " N , 9 ° 30' 7.5" E ; CH1903: seven hundred fifty-six thousand nine hundred and forty-nine / 206452