The Convent of St. Peter is an ancient Catholic cloister in

Bludenz Bludenz (; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ''Bludaz'') is a town in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg with around 15,000 inhabitants. It is the administrative seat of the Bludenz District, which encompasses about half of Vorarlberg's territ ...

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( ; ; , , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the second-highest popu ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is run by the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

. The convent was founded in 1286.

History

Count Hugo I of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg, who had granted rights to

in 1274, left the right of patronage to St. Peter's Church to the Augustinian nuns of Ottenbach near

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. The monastic community changed leadership from the Augustinians to the Dominicans. The convent was a pilgrimage site and granted indulgences to visitors. The building of the convent began in 1286 and was completed in 1354. The convent served as a school for the daughters of noble families of Walgau

Rhine Valley Rhine Valley (German: ''Rheintal'' ) is the valley, or any section of it, of the river Rhine in Europe. Particular valleys of the Rhine or any of its sections: * Alpine Rhine Valley ** Chur Rhine Valley (or Grisonian Rhine Valley; , or sometimes ...

, and later also to the bourgeois families of the region. In 1560 the plague raged in Bludenz. Almost all of the nuns died from disease. The convent remained closed and deserted for sixteen years. The original building was burned in a fire in 1552 and again in 1576. The present buildings were built in the early eighteenth century and expanded in 1721, 1723, and 1730. In 1796 the Tyrolese Landvogt Ignaz Anton von Indermauer was murdered inside the convent by members of a peasant revolt. From 1805 to 1814 a military hospital was run in the convent. The convent was closed in 1941 by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. In 1945 it was officially abolished, and a hospital for occupied French troops was set up in one of the school buildings. In 1997 the convent church was restored and inaugurated as a Catholic community again.

References

{{Authority control Tourist attractions in Vorarlberg Buildings and structures in Vorarlberg Dominican convents Roman Catholic monasteries in Austria 1280s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 1286 establishments in Europe Augustinian nunneries

History

See also

References