St. Urban Monastery
| St. Urban Monastery | |
|---|---|
 West side |
|
| location |
 Switzerland Canton of Lucerne |
| Coordinates: | 47 ° 13 '55 " N , 7 ° 50' 24" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
514 |
| founding year | 1194 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1848 |
| Mother monastery | Lützel Monastery |
| Primary Abbey | Morimond Monastery |
The St. Urban Monastery is a former Cistercian abbey in the municipality of Pfaffnau in the canton of Lucerne , Switzerland .
history
At the instigation of the Barons von Langenstein from Oberaargau , monks from Lützel Abbey in Alsace founded the monastery in the valley of the Rot in 1194 . The monastery community thus belonged to the filiation of the Morimond Primary Abbey .
In the late 13th century, the monastery produced large quantities of bricks that made up the second monastery complex. The bricks were made in two versions: the simple, rectangular bricks that were used for walls and the ornate moldings. These ornate workpieces were used for door frames, door posts, archways, window frames, lintels and cornices. Floor tiles were also made. Due to the wealth of shapes of these decorative stones and the ceramic technique of the pressed ornaments, these stones became "witnesses to a remarkable Swiss craft of the 13th century". Since 1991 Richard Bucher has again set up a workshop for hand-made brick production in the former monastery.
The current monastery was built in the first half of the 18th century by the Vorarlberg master builder Franz Beer and is one of the most impressive examples of Baroque architecture in Switzerland. One of the sights in the monastery church, which was built between 1711 and 1715, is the choir stalls from 1700 to 1707. The organ built by Joseph and Viktor Ferdinand Bossard in 1721 is also important. The St. Urbanhof in Zofingen and its counterpart in Sursee were used as an administrative building for the fiefdom of the monastery.
On April 13, 1848, after the death of Abbot Friedrich Pfluger, the canton of Lucerne ordered the abolition of the monastery and the sale of the monastery property to repay the war debts to the victorious cantons of the Sonderbund War . Art treasures and the monastery library with the Gatterer collection were transferred to the state. This also included the artistically valuable choir stalls, which could only be bought back in the 20th century and put up again in 1911. The monastery premises , which were also sold at first , were bought back and a cantonal “ insane asylum ” was set up here in 1873 . A cantonal psychiatric clinic (Lucerne Psychiatry) still exists here today .
Monastery life and music culture in the 18th century
Monastery life. The monastic life of St. Urban manifested itself in different areas: religion, education, culture, economy and politics. From an economic point of view, the monks and lay brothers were active in meadow and arable farming, sometimes with artificial irrigation techniques. The work areas were in the monastery, near it, but also in the wider area. The vine growing of the monastery, for example, was on Lake Biel . The monastery brickwork also produced its products for export.
Prince abbey. How the monastery presented itself politically in the 18th century is conveyed by the following quote from the publication by Wilhelm Jerger: “One of the purest courtly stages was probably owned by St. Urban, whose princely abbots were honorary citizens of Solothurn and Bern and with astonishing princely pageantry after the Elections for the renewal of civil rights moved to Solothurn and Bern. ” At that time there was a tendency towards monastic territorial rule. However, due to the intervention of the federal locations , this could not prevail.
Education. In the field of education, it is documented that the monastery school already existed around 1470. In the decades that followed, the first climax came in the time of humanism and reform writings. Later, under the direction of Abbot Benedikt Pfyffer from 1768 to 1781, St. Urban developed into a model school. In 1780 it was the first teacher training college in Switzerland. The following subjects were taught in this educational institution for elementary school teachers: modern languages, liberal arts, music, dancing, horse riding, fencing, drawing, etc. The educational and especially the musical heyday of the 18th century lasted until Abbot Karl Ambros Glutz resigned in 1813. The school was then continued in an adapted form until the monastery was closed in 1848.
Music care. Wilhelm Jerger wrote about the maintenance of music in the 18th century: "In St. Urban there was once a significant local music maintenance, of which little is known even in Switzerland." St. Urban already had a rich library when the monastery was founded with fonts for music and singing. As a result, music and instruments were regularly exchanged with other monasteries. Together with the population of the surrounding villages ( Sursee , Willisau etc.) the tradition of the so-called New Year's singing arose in the monastery. It was a music competition with prizes, in which the neighboring schoolmasters and their students also took part.
The peak of musical culture in the 18th century. The completion of the baroque buildings formed the framework for intensive music care. The new organ from 1721 was then the largest and richest organ in Switzerland. In addition to the baroque church, the monastery also had a stately and extremely splendid ballroom, which even surpassed the so-called prince's hall of Einsiedeln in wealth. The ballroom was used for theatrical and concert performances. At the inaugurations of the abbots, singing games were performed with themes from Greek mythology (Apollo, Homer , Oracle of Delphi, etc.). The composer and symphonist Constantin Reindl (1738–1798), who worked in both St. Urban and Lucerne , is seen as the author of the Singspiel in German-speaking Switzerland . When the young Swiss musician Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (1786–1868) visited his uncle and composer Benignus Schnyder von Wartensee (1754–1834) in St. Urban Monastery, he discovered in 1802 “that there were so many musicians among the monks, that the orchestra staff necessary for mass could be filled from them. ” Other well-known musicians in St. Urban were the Swiss composer and Cistercian monk Johann Evangelist Schreiber (1716–1800) and the composer and organist Martin Vogt (1781–1854) from the Upper Palatinate. . Martin Vogt wrote about his stay from 1808 to 1811: “Because of the many guests who always came to Sankt Urban, my compositions were now known in Switzerland, and if I had wanted to satisfy all orders, I would have had to write day and night. "
List of Abbots of Saint Urban
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More pictures
West side
West side
East Side
South entrance
North entrance (lower gate), Gasthaus Löwen
Coat of arms Abbot Karl Dulliker, 1677–1687
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Choir stalls
The choir stalls, which were probably created by local artists around 1700–1707 under the direction of the sculptor Johann Peter Frölicher (1661–1723) from Solothurn, are located in the monastery church. "The wealth of forms, the artistic quality of the sculptural work and the rich iconographic program make the St. Urban stalls one of the greatest and most important choir stalls of the Baroque". After the monastery was closed in 1853, the choir stalls were sold to a St. Gallen banker, then to an Irishman and then to Scotland. After years of negotiations, the Gottfried Keller Foundation succeeded in buying back the stalls in 1911 on the condition of the seller that they be put back in their original location.
The back wall of the stalls is structured with columns. They represent the artistically most valuable part and are the work of master master Johann Peter Frölicher. Between the pillars there are relief panels of different sizes arranged one above the other in three zones. The lowest relief zone depicts subjects from the Old Testament, the middle scenes from the New Testament and the uppermost particularly parables and events from the teaching of Christ.
Detail of a folding seat with " misericordie " to support when standing (St. Urban choir stalls)
Left wing of the St. Urban choir stalls
High relief from the middle relief row of the dorsal (St. Urban choir stalls)
Figurative columns (St. Urban choir stalls)
Columns in the corner (St. Urban choir stalls)
High reflief "Flight to Egypt" (St. Urban choir stalls)
See also
literature
- Alois Häfliger (Ed.): Sankt Urban 1194–1994. A former Cistercian monastery. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1994, ISBN 3-7165-0924-8 .
- André Meyer: The former Cistercian monastery of St. Urban. (Swiss Art Guide, No. 545). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1994, ISBN 978-3-85782-545-3 .
- Friedrich Jakob: The organs of the St. Urban monastery church. The masterpiece and workshop book of the organ builder Joseph Bossart (1665–1748). (= 243rd publication by the Society of Organ Friends ). Orgelbau Kuhn Publishing House, Männedorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-033-02914-9 .
- Wilhelm Jerger: The maintenance of music in the former Cistercian Abbey of St. Urban. In: The music research. 4/1954, Bärenreiter , Kassel, p. 386.
- Martin Vogt: Memories of a Wandering Musician. Autobiography of the first half of his life from 1781 to 1821. Basel 1971, p. 84.
Web links
- Homepage of the St. Urban Monastery
- Choir stalls on the St. Urban Monastery website
- Waltraud Hörsch: Sankt Urban. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ floor panels on: lwl.ch .
- ^ Fritz Junker: St. Urban. A monograph of the former abbey . Raeber Verlag, Lucerne 1975, ISBN 3-7239-0033-0 , p. 21-23 .
- ↑ Vera Rüttimann reports on Bucher's monastery brickwork in the Catholic Sunday newspaper of the Augsburg diocese on July 15, 2018
- ↑ Portrait of the instrument on the website of Orgelbau Kuhn , accessed on September 26, 2011.
- ^ André Meyer: The former Cistercian monastery of St. Urban . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History. Bern 1994, ISBN 3-85782-545-6 , p. 34 .
- ^ André Meyer: The former Cistercian monastery of St. Urban . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History. Bern 1994, ISBN 3-85782-545-6 , p. 35-36 .