St. Peter Monastery (Bludenz)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dominican convent of St. Peter in Bludenz

The St. Peter Monastery is a Dominican convent in Bludenz , in the Austrian Vorarlberg . The monastery is located on the eastern outskirts of Bludenz, at the entrance to the Montafon and Klostertal . It is the oldest still in existence in Vorarlberg today.

history

Count Hugo I von Werdenberg-Heiligenberg († 1280), who had granted the city of Bludenz its town charter in 1274, bequeathed the right of patronage to the Augustinian nuns of Ottenbach near Zurich to the church of St. Peter east of Bludenz, which was subordinate to him. On July 26th of the same year, the Bishop of Chur , Count Friedrich von Montfort († 1290), a cousin of the Werdenberger, presented the Augustinian rule to the clergy women at St. Peter, who had not yet followed a specific rule . It cannot be said whether these women were a community of beguines or already a branch of the Ottenbach monastery. A short time later, the Bishop of Chur also confirmed the donation from the church and the right of patronage. Little is known about the prehistory of this church in "valle Trusiana apud Bludina". However, as the church patron, Peter suggests a very old tradition.

The monastic community, whose care was entrusted to the Dominicans , soon acquired a Dominican character itself. A letter of indulgence from 1295, through which visitors to the church and benefactors were granted the estate of temporal penalties for sin, named the feast of St. Dominic, meanwhile St. Augustine was not mentioned. From this it can be concluded that the “Sisters of St. Peter” had meanwhile become Dominicans . The monastery is expressly referred to as belonging to the order of the preachers for the first time around 1340.

First monastery building around 1286

The construction of the monastery began in 1286 and this was expanded until 1354. For a long time, the monastery served as a supply institute for the daughters of the Walgau-Rhine Valley aristocracy and later for the bourgeois and rural upper classes in the region.

In 1560 the plague raged in Bludenz. All but one of the sisters die. The monastery remained deserted for 16 years.

The original building, inhabited by Augustinians , was taken over by Dominican women from the Hirschthal Monastery ( Kennelbach ) after fires in 1552 and 1576 . The buildings were restored in 1613-1616. In 1622 during the Prättigau War , all the sisters except the three eldest fled and in 1656 the building was increased by another storey. An original church complex was expanded by Hans Schueler between 1640 and 1644 .

Construction of the current facility (1707–1709)

The current complex was built between 1707 and 1709, expanded between 1721 and 1723 and in 1730 the monastery church of St. Peter was consecrated. On the altar wall is a crucifix from 1735 by the late baroque sculptor Johann Ladner (1707–1779) from Tyrol.

A military hospital was run in the monastery from 1805 to 1814.

A part of the city fortifications was located near the monastery - the city gate in the east of the city ("Montafonertor" or "Kapuzinertor") was demolished in 1846 along with other parts of the former city fortifications. From here the road led over the Arlberg and into the Montafon .

In 1920 the farm building and the stable of the homestead near the monastery were destroyed by fire.

Schools in St. Peter's Monastery (1939–1941)

In 1939 the “State High School for Boys” was housed in the south wing of the monastery (until 1961), which later became the grammar school .

The entire property of the Dominican convent was confiscated on December 9, 1941 in favor of the German Reich and the convent was closed until 1945.

In the war year 1944/45 a military hospital was set up in the school and in May 1945 French occupation troops moved into the monastery. In 1948 the monastery church was restored.

Schools in St. Peter's Monastery (1950–1961)

In September 1950, school lessons could begin again in the monastery premises in the form of an Austrian State Real High School and in 1948 the first students passed their Matura (matriculation examination). The smallest classroom in the school was colloquially called "the hole" - it was on the ground floor and only had a barred window to the school yard. The lack of space in the inadequate premises of the monastery became more and more serious and could be alleviated in the short term by the construction of a school barrack in 1952 in the monastery meadow in front of the main entrance opposite the school building.
In 1961, after the school was rebuilt in the Bludenzer Unterfeld, the students left the monastery and they moved into the new premises. In 1964 the monastery church was restored.

In 1997/1998 the interior of the monastery church was restored and in 2006/07 the entire monastery of St. Peter was extensively renovated and inaugurated in September 2007.

literature

Web links

Commons : Kloster Sankt Peter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the "Dominicanization" and incorporation of existing female communities and on the background to the rapid expansion of the still young Dominican order from the 13th century cf. Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner: The education of the Dominican women in southern Germany from the 13th to the 15th century. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-07838-X , pp. 1-14.
  2. ↑ The Chronicle of Johann von Winterthur (Chronica Iohannis Vitodurani). In: Friedrich Baethgen and Carl Brun (eds.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Nova series 3 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica ). Berlin 1924, p. 138.
  3. ↑ a b Manfred Tschaikner: Bludenz Reading Book , ISBN 978-3-901325-46-5
  4. ↑ cf. Manfred Tschaikner: The farewell speech of the Kapuzinertor to the city of Bludenz (1845) , in: Bludenzer Geschichtsblätter , Volume 75 (2005), pp. 106–118 (PDF; 397 kB)

Coordinates: 47 ° 8 ′ 46.1 ″  N , 9 ° 49 ′ 48.9 ″  E