Sibylla von Helfenstein

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The Fraumünster at the time of Sibylla von Helfenstein - altar panels by Hans Leu the Elder (replica)

Sibylla von Helfenstein († May 11, 1487 in Zurich ) was abbess of the Fraumünster in Zurich from January 15, 1484 until her death .

Live and act

She was one of five daughters of Count Konrad III. von Helfenstein , whom he fathered and five sons in two marriages. Her mother was the baroness Ursula von Seckendorf. Three of the five daughters became nuns, two of them in the Fraumünster, where Sibylla, the eldest, is mentioned as a convent wife from 1467. Her sister Caecilia followed her to Zurich, while her sister Anna became a Dominican in the Mariental monastery (Steinheim an der Murr) .

The council with the driving force of Mayor Hans Waldmann tried to depose the abbess because of her inability. The resolution was passed in 1485, but her death came two years later before its implementation. According to the monastery accounts, a room decorated with the coat of arms of the von Helfenstein family was built in the abbey from 1484 in the newly started west wing of the abbey. This later so-called “Helfenstein Room” was not completed until two years after her death and is now owned by the Swiss National Museum , which acquired it in 1892. The ceiling with the carved helpline elephant coat of arms and the year 1487 as well as most of the paneling and the door are still original.

literature

  • Helvetia Sacra , Division III, The Orders with Benedictine Rule , Volume 1, Part Three. Francke Verlag, Bern 1986.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Meyer: Helfenstein, Sibylla von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ a b In the "Spital des Adels" , Karlfriedrich Gruber, in Geislinger Zeitung , February 18, 2015. Retrieved on August 23, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Helfenstein, Sibylla von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Abbess of the Fraumünster Zurich
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1487
Place of death Zurich