St. Klara Monastery (Bremgarten)

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St. Clare Monastery
St. Clara's Chapel from the front

The former St. Klara monastery is located in Bremgarten in the Swiss canton of Aargau . The Tertian convent was founded in 1377 and closed on August 23, 1798 by the Helvetic Council. It is located in the lower town of Bremgarten opposite the city ​​church and is part of the Bremgarten church district .

history

The monastery emerged from a beguinage . Under the spiritual direction of Friars Minor, pious virgins and widows formed a religious community in 1377. As beguines, the sisters received a donation from Heinrich Landmann von Bremgarten in 1390, which enabled them to build their own monastery complex. The wording of the donation is; "Hvs und hof, spicher vnd boungarten ze Bremgarten located in the stat against the Kilchhof vber", so the house with farm building with garden opposite the church on Kirchhofplatz in Bremgarten.

Inspired by Marquard von Randegg, Bishop of Constance , the sisters decided in 1406 to live according to the third rule of St. Francis . The Guardian of Lucerne took over the spiritual supervision , while a nurse appointed by the Bremgarten city council carried out the secular obligations.

The convent was closed during the turmoil of the Reformation in 1529, but was restored after the Second Kappel Peace . In 1570, Charles Borromeo carried out a monastery visitation . In 1712, during the second Villmerger War , most of the nuns fled to Lucerne , only to return afterwards.

The nuns ran a girls' school, which was their main source of income. Nevertheless, the monastery was mostly in need of money. Since the monastery had a rather modest existence and only weak finances, the Helvetian Grand Council decided on August 23, 1798 to close the monastery. The 17 sisters came to the two Benedictine monasteries Hermetschwil and Fahr .

Use after dissolution

The convent building was acquired by the city of Bremgarten in 1806 and used as a school building until 1895. It was then used as a poor house and later for a time as a residential and manufacturing building. Today the building is used for parish events. It houses a small clubhouse and many rooms that can be used for conferences and also for weekly meetings of the youth groups Jungwacht and Blauring . The premises were also used by other organizations outside the Catholic parish, such as B. the YMCA .

Buildings

Initially, the sisters were most likely housed in the property that Count Rudolf IV had donated to Engelberg Monastery in 1261 . With the donation in 1390, the sisters received their own buildings. For more than two centuries the monastery did not have its own church. It was only in connection with the renovation of the monastery buildings that the procurement of workpieces began in 1623. As a result, at the beginning of 1625, the building of its own church could begin.

St. Clare Chapel

The St. Klara Chapel was built in 1625 for the neighboring Klarakloster. The founder was Abbot Plazidus Brunschweiler von Fischingen . The high altar comes from Junker Christoph Pfyffer and was built in 1627. The altarpiece shows a scene of the Annunciation. The tabernacle dates from 1655 and bears the coat of arms of the founder.

In 1687/1688 the chapel was redesigned for Anthony of Padua , as this saint gained importance at that time. Two side altars were added with the patrons Maria and Antonius. The architectural style of the chapel is located between Gothic and Baroque and is characterized by a simple design and furnishings that came in handy for the Franciscan order . From 1964 to 1967 the chapel was completely renovated.

Choir organ

In the chapel there is a choir organ by the organ builder Ferdinand Stemmer Zumikon from 1991. The small organ has a manual, a prospect area and the stops as footsteps. The housing is made of solid walnut and the pictures of the two wing doors are from Ernst Leu from Zumikon.

manual
Wooden dacked 8th'
Reed flute 4 ′
Principal 2 ′
Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′

Monastery building

Interior view of the Clara's Chapel

Until the 17th century there were no written sources on the building history. It is assumed that the nuns lived in the nurses' house, which was rebuilt after the fire in the lower town of 1481, until the renovations known below. After the Lucerne Guardian sent Father Christoph Ebert a visor in April 1622, the preparatory work on building a new monastery began.

Master mason Viktor Martin von Beromünster and master carpenter Martin Schwyzer were hired on May 4, 1623 to carry out the new building. The stone material was ordered from the quarry in Mägenwil ; the timber was a gift from the city of Bremgarten. On November 20, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated for the shell. The master Viktor Martin resigned at the end of 1624 and the construction management was transferred to the mason Hieronymus Kuster. The interior work was carried out between 1624 and 1628 by the joiners and master joiners Balthasar, Jakob Bürgisser, Jürg Koch and Hans Koch.

The access gallery to the nun's gallery and the infirmary were built in 1688. In the same year, the monastery entrance, which now faced the church, was moved. Master mason Kastor Konrad built the archive in 1698. The roof structure was increased in 1722. The bell founder Daniel Sutermeister from Zofingen delivered an artificial furnace in 1744. The master potter Leonz Küchler supplied two more ovens, one each in 1763 and 1765. These three ovens are no longer preserved or have been lost.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Regesta Episcoporum Constantiensium, Volume 3, Number 7965, The correspondence is dated to 1400, but includes the request to live according to the rules of St. Francis “Virgines et viduae quaedam instruct a FF. Convebtualibus vitam religiosam agentes hoc anno tertiam S. Francisci regulam solemniter sunt professae "
  2. ↑ Email from Ferdinand Stemmer on May 5, 2008
  3. ^ A sight in the form of a closter in Protocol I, page 50
  4. ↑ The obligation concerned not only the monastery but also the building of the church

Coordinates: 47 ° 21 '8.1 "  N , 8 ° 20' 24.7"  E ; CH1903:  668,119  /  244,992