Oetenbach was a Dominican nunnery in the medieval municipality of Zürich in Switzerland. Oetenbach was named after the small stream of the same name at its first location at Zürichhorn, situated outside of the European Middle Ages town walls, but moved to the present Sihlbühl. The nunnery was abolished on occasion of the Reformation in Zürich – the Waisenhaus building is its only remained structure, now the headquarters of Kantonspolizei Zürich.
Standort
The Oetenbach nunnery was first mentioned in 1237 AD at its first location at the present Zürichhorn. Because the swampy area at the Oetenbach stream was a bad place for the construction of a permanently inhabited convent, some decades later, it was built on the northern slope Sihlbühl of the present Lindenhof hill.
On the so-called Murerplan map of 1576, the central Lindenhof–Sihlbühl hill area is illustrated, surrounded by the Limmat river – at the top, in fact in the east and not in the north – the Fröschengraben and Schanzengraben moat to the right, and some of the then meandering streams of the Sihl river to the right. There are also shown the watermills, provided by the nunneries in Zürich at the location of the present Rathausbrücke and southernly Münsterbrücke and former Gedecktes Brüggli bridges over the Limmat river, an old priviligue dating back to the foundation of the Fraumünster abbey located at the present Münsterhof square.
History
Oetenbach was named after the small stream of the same name at its first location at Zürichhorn, as today named Wildbach respectively Hornbach. The nuns changed the unhappy chosen location of the former convent to the today's Oetenbachgasse in 1286.[1] The founding was supported by the House of Rapperswil, namely by Elisabeth von Rapperswil, who has like her mother and father before, an ally of the city of Zürich and had the citizenship (Burgrecht) of the municipality at the northwesternly end of Zürichsee. Thus, her daughter Cecilia von Homberg (* probably before 1300; † after 1320) became the prioress of the Dominican nunnery, which promoted its further development, and her brother Wernher von Homberg donated the Our Lady Chapel in 1320.[2] Also probably Johann I von Habsburg-Laufenburg, son of Countess Elisabeth by fist marriage, may have supported the nunnery as being in close friendship to the Predigerkloster which got in the 1340s asylum in Rapperswil.[3] So the nunnery spread at he location where the present Urania underground parking facilities were built in the 1960s, and also was forced by the city government (Rat) of Zürich to enforce the northwesternly fortifications of Zürich, namely the so-called Oetenbach bulwark.
Because of his great appointment district in the province of the order Dominican Teutonia order, the Predigerkloster at Neumarkt opposite of the Limmat river, influenced almost throughout the German-speaking Switzerland. Therefore, the Predigern parish church was in charge of the pastoral care of the Oetenbach nunnery, as well as of the urban communities of the women Beguines, who lived nearby the Dominican and Franciscan mendicant orders in separate quarters outside the convents.[3]
The irrigated grave system of medieval Zürich, consisting of Fröschengraben, the outer Sihlgraben and the intermediate town wall was first mentioned in 1258 AD as niuwer graben On the wall gardens, probably the area between Fröschengraben, Sihlgraben and Schanzengraben, a house is mentioned in 1346. Over the decades, the time accumulating sludge was periodically dug out by day laborers or in forced labor to process. The excavation was used to fertilize the fields of the Oetenbach nunnery.
The Oetenbach nunnery was dissolved on occasion of the Reformation in Zürich, and its property passed over to the city government in 1525. It served thenafter as part of the city fortifications, prison and asylum. Except the later built Waisenhaus, all convent buildings were demolished when the Uraniastrasse was built in the 1900s. So, the last remain is the former Waisenhaus building, thus not one of the former convent buildings, but now used as the headquarters of the city police Stadtpolizei Zürich.
Oetenbachbollwerk
The Oetenbachbollwerk was a bastion of the fortifications, and was built under the supervision of Balthasar Keller in 1532. The stronghold replaced a wooden mounting in the garden of the Oetenbach convent and had to secure the western town wall and the gate at the Limmat river. In 1642 the bulwark was covered, and in 1764 the adjoining Waisenhaus building provided as a storage room and economics building. In 1903 the bastion was broken as the last construction of the city's fortifications. Numerous finds came to light, including the grave stone of Ulrich I von Regensburg, which was missused as a loophole cornice of the bulwark.[4]
Gedecktes Brüggli
The so-called Gedecktes Brüggli served as a pedestrian bridge, was very popular, but was broken in 1950.[4] As its Swiss-German Swiss-German name explains, it was a covered wooden bridge that was created by architect Vögtlin over an arm of the Limmat river in 1689. Measuring about 17.5 meters in length, it connected the lower Mühlesteg and Papierwerd between present Limmatquai and Bahnhofquai nearby Bahnhofbrücke Zürich. At the site of the then mill lower ridge at Papierwerd – a former river island that later was used as the site of a paper mill – the today's Mühlesteig pedestrian bridge was errected.
See also
Literature
- Christine Barraud Wiener and Peter Jezler: Die Stadt Zürich I. Stadt vor der Mauer, mittelalterliche Befestigung und Limmatraum. In: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Zürich, Wiese Verlag, Basel 1999, ISBN 978-3-9061-3171-9.
References
- ^ Gebrüder Dürst. "Oetenbachgasse" (in German). Gang dur Alt-Züri. Retrieved 2015-01-17.
- ^ "Bd.: 10, Gruber - Hassencamp, Leipzig, 1879" (in German). Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved 2014-11-12.
- ^ a b Dölf Wild, Urs Jäggin, Felix Wyss (2006-12-31). "Die Zürcher Predigerkirche – Wichtige Etappen der Baugeschichte. Auf dem Murerplan beschönigt? – Untersuchungen an der Westfassade der Predigerkirche" (in German). Amt für Städtebau der Stadt Zürich. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Gebrüder Dürst. "Oetenbachbollwerk" (in German). Gang dur Alt-Züri. Retrieved 2015-01-22.
External links
- Martina Wehrli-Johns: Oetenbach in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 25 December 2012.
