Kappel Abbey is a former Cistercian monks monastery located in Kappel am Albis in the Swiss canton of Zurich.
Kappel Abbey is a former Cistercian monks monastery located in Kappel am Albis in the Swiss canton of Zurich.
Kappel Abbey is first mentioned in 1185 by Bishop Hermann II of Constance. The abbey was founded by the Freiherr of Eschenbach. The name was derived from a chapel in which, according to a foundation legend, hermits used to live. In 1211, Pope Innocent III gave the monastery the Privilegium commune Cisterciense. Between the 13th to 15th centuries the Abbey received several Imperial and Royal privileges. [1]
On the site of the original church (of which parts are preserved in the present structure), a new church was started in about 1255. This early gothic building wouldn't be completed until the early 14th century. The oldest part of the monastery is the so-called core of the administration buildings, which were probably built in 1209/10 as a hospital (later the residence of the abbot and the prior).
The spiritual and economic golden-age lasted until the middle of the 14th century. Through donations from the landed gentry (Hallwyl, Hünenberg Bonstetten, Hinwil, Baldegg, Uerzlikon, Gessler and Habsburg-Laufenburg families), purchase and exchange the Abbey had numerous, widely scattered properties. With the help of a number of lay brothers, the Abbey ran a number of businesses. These included a vineyard on Lake Zurich and granges in Wollishofen and Zug. In the 15th century, the Abbey lost the use of most of these distant businesses, they were limited to products produced at the Abbey and a local dairy. [1]
Due to the involvement of Walters IV von Eschenbach in the regicide of King Albert I of Germany near Windisch in 1308, all the Eschenbach possessions were confiscated by the Habsburgs in 1309. In 1339 they were all placed under the authority of the Lords of Hallwyl. In 1344 and then in 1403 the Abbey entered into citizenship contracts with first Zug and then Zurich. Increasingly, it now fell under Zurich's authority, and after 1473 the monastic economy was under the direct supervision of the Zurich City Council. In the Old Zurich War, the Swiss Confederation plundered the monastery, whose monks had fled to Zurich. In 1493, a fire damaged the convent building. Then, in 1495 Zurich acquired, from the lords of Hallwyl, the vogtei or reeve rights over the Abbey. In 1523, the last abbot, Wolfgang Joner (Rüpplin), brought the reformer Heinrich Bullinger into the Abbey as a teacher. In the following years, the Reformation was gradually introduced. In 1527 the monastery was abolished, and its property was taken over by the city of Zurich. [1]
Through Buillinger the teachings of the Reformation found their way to Kappel, and so were on 9 March 1525 the images were removed from the church. On 4 September of that same year, the Mass was abolished. A year later, on 29 March 1526, the monks celebrated Communion as Protestants and put off their cowls. Many left the monastery and turned crafts or became preachers. The Convention finally handed over the monastery in 1527 to the City of Zurich. Wolfgang Joner, Heinrich Bullinger and four other men remained in Kappel and operated the school as a boys boarding school. The present church became the parish church of Kappel. During the First War of Kappel, in June 1529, Kappel was the scene of the encounter between Protestant and Catholic troops. The encounter ended peacefully with a negotiation and the legendary Kappeler Milchsuppe. While the leaders negotiated an end to the conflict, the common soldiers began making a meal. This meal, the Kappeler Milchsuppe was a bread and milk soup cooked in a pot placed exactly on the cantonal border between Zurich and Zug. For the soup, the Catholics provided the milk, while the Protestants provided the bread. [2] However, the Second War of Kappel didn't end as well. On 11 October 1531, the Protestant and Catholic armies met again, and the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli was killed.
Following the Reformation, the monastery became the property of the Canton of Zurich. In 1836 it was converted into a workhouse and a school for orphans for the Knonau District. A "correctional institution" was added to the facility. In 1894 it became a district hospital for the poor. However, over the following decades, it gradually became too small, old and run down to continue being used as a hospital. In the 1960s the district began looking at alternative uses for the complex. [3] Beginning in 1983, the cantonal Reformed church used the building as a spiritual retreat. Today it houses a hotel with 79 rooms. [4]
Heinrich Bullinger was a Swiss Reformer and theologian, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Church of Zürich and a pastor at the Grossmünster. One of the most important leaders of the Swiss Reformation, Bullinger co-authored the Helvetic Confessions and collaborated with John Calvin to work out a Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
Thurgau, anglicized as Thurgovia, more formally the Canton of Thurgau, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of five districts and its capital is Frauenfeld.
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate, Mark Reust, and the population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Seven cantons remained Catholic, however, which led to intercantonal wars known as the Wars of Kappel. After the victory of the Catholic cantons in 1531, they proceeded to institute Counter-Reformation policies in some regions. The schism and distrust between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons defined their interior politics and paralysed any common foreign policy until well into the 18th century.
The wars of Kappel (Kappelerkriege) is a collective term for two armed conflicts fought near Kappel am Albis between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.
The First War of Kappel was an armed conflict in 1529 between the Protestant and the Catholic cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland. It ended, without any single battle having been fought, with the first peace of Kappel.
The Second War of Kappel was an armed conflict in 1531 between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.
Kappel am Albis is a municipality in the district of Affoltern in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.
Muri Abbey is a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. It flourished for over eight centuries at Muri, in the Canton of Aargau, near Zürich, Switzerland. It is currently established as Muri-Gries in South Tyrol and was formerly a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
Wettingen Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in Wettingen in the Swiss canton of Aargau. It was founded in 1227 and dissolved during the secularisation of 1841, but re-founded at Mehrerau in Austria in 1854. The buildings are listed as a heritage site of national significance.
The Old Swiss Confederacy or Swiss Confederacy was a loose confederation of independent small states, initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.
St. John's Abbey in the Thurtal was a Benedictine monastery originally established in Alt St. Johann in the Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland, in the mid-12th century.
Hauterive Abbey is a Cistercian abbey in the Swiss municipality of Hauterive in the canton of Fribourg. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire Hauterive area is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
Rüti Monastery was a former Premonstratensian monastery, founded in 1206 and suppressed in 1525 on occasion of the Reformation in Zürich, situated in the municipality of Rüti in the canton of Zürich, Switzerland. The monastery's church was the final resting place of the Counts of Toggenburg, among them Count Friedrich VII and 13 other members of the Toggenburg family, and other noble families. Between 1206 and 1525, the monastery comprised 14 incorporated churches and the owner of extensive lands and estates at 185 localities.
Interlaken Monastery was a convent of the Augustinian Canons Regular from about 1133 until 1528 at Interlaken in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
St. Urban's Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in the municipality of Pfaffnau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Töss Monastery was a community of Dominican nuns located in the former Swiss city of Töss, now a part of Winterthur. Nothing of the original buildings exists today.
The Toggenburg War, also known as the Second War of Villmergen or the Swiss Civil War of 1712, was a Swiss civil war during the Old Swiss Confederacy from 12 April to 11 August 1712. The Catholic "inner cantons" and the Imperial Abbey of Saint Gall fought the Protestant cantons of Bern and Zürich as well as the abbatial subjects of Toggenburg. The conflict was a religious war, a war for hegemony in the Confederacy and an uprising of subjects. The war ended in a Protestant victory and upset the balance of political power within the Confederacy.
The Reformation in Zürich was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrates of the city of Zürich and the princess abbess Katharina von Zimmern of the Fraumünster Abbey, and the population of the city of Zürich and agriculture-oriented population of the present Canton of Zürich in the early 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy, and thus initiated the Reformation in Switzerland.
The Thurgau was a pagus of the Duchy of Alamannia in the early medieval period. A County of Thurgau existed from the 13th century until 1798. Parts of Thurgau were acquired by the Old Swiss Confederacy during the early 15th century, and the entire county passed to the Confederacy as a condominium in 1460.
