Rüegsau Monastery
The Rüegsau Monastery is a former Benedictine convent in Rüegsau , Canton of Bern , Switzerland .
history
Rüegsau, like the Trub monastery , was probably founded by Thuringia von Lützelflüh in the first half of the 12th century. The first documented references to the monastery date from 1256 and 1274. It was subordinate to the Abbot von Trub and over the years gained a widespread estate, including a farm in Walterswil and a vineyard in Le Landeron , and around 1500 around a hundred farms and pieces of land grew. In 1495 the monastery building burned down, but was able to be rebuilt thanks to a donation campaign approved by the Bernese authorities. At that time, a small bell was donated that hangs in the Rüegsau church.
Three years before the Bernese Reformation of 1528, a nun married the noble Thuringian von Wintersei. The remaining five nuns left the monastery in 1528 after receiving financial compensation. From now on the pastors of Rüegsau and Lützelflüh were paid out of the former monastery property and a parsonage was built from part of the monastery buildings. The remaining buildings were gradually demolished, the last remains of the wall were removed between 1825 and 1831. The St. Johann monastery church was renovated into a village church from 1789 to 1790 and an extension was added in 1874. Further renovations were carried out in 1947, 1990 and 1999. The glass windows in the church by the contemporary artist Walter Loosli are worth seeing .
There is a small exhibition on the history of the monastery in the Rüegsauschachen parish hall, where finds from excavations in 1964, 1965 to 1968 and 1978 to 1979 are shown (glazed stove tiles, ceramic shards, tools and fragments of a reliquary box). During the excavations, a statue of the Madonna from the time of the monastery was also uncovered, a copy of which is placed in the funeral hall next to the church.
The still existing chapel of St. Blasius in the neighboring village of Rüegsbach, which has the oldest church bells in Switzerland (from the 12th and 13th centuries) , belonged to the monastery .
literature
- Anne-Marie Dubler : Rüegsau. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Hans Würgler: Local history of Rüegsau , 1965.
- Hans Würgler: The Benedictine monastery in Rüegsau . In: Bern journal for history and local history . tape 24 , 1962, pp. 14-22 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-244206 .
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 1 '28.9 " N , 7 ° 40' 28.4" E ; CH1903: 617,934 / two hundred and eight thousand two hundred eleven