Tänikon Abbey is a former

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

nunnery in the village of

Ettenhausen Ettenhausen is a village and former municipality in the district of Frauenfeld (district), Frauenfeld in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland. It was first recorded in 1278 as ''Oetenhusen''. The municipality also contained the village Iltishausen. ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Aadorf Aadorf is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Münchwilen (district), Münchwilen in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Thurgau in Switzerland. In 1996 Ettenhausen, Guntershausen bei Aadorf, and Wittenwil merged in ...

in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

Thurgau Thurgau (; ; ; ), anglicized as Thurgovia, and formally as the Canton of Thurgau, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of five districts. Its capital is Frauenfeld. Thurgau is part of Eastern Switzerland. I ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. The former abbey church and the conventual buildings, now Agrotechnorama Tänikon, are both Swiss heritage sites of national significance.

History

Tänikon was first mentioned in 789 as ''Tanninchova'' as a local court. In 817

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (; ; ; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only ...

gave all his lands in Thurgau, including Tänikon, to the

Abbey of St. Gall The Abbey of Saint Gall () is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had er ...

. An established nunnery at Tänikon was first mentioned in 1249. In 1257, the abbey church took over the rights to the nearby chapel of St. Anna. Around the same time Eberhard II and Eberhard III of Bichelsee granted land holdings to the abbey and it became Cistercian. In 1263,

Pope Urban IV Pope Urban IV (; c. 1195 – 2 October 1264), born Jacques Pantaléon, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 29 August 1261 to his death three years later. He was elected pope without being a cardinal; he was the fi ...

asked the abbot of Kappel to administer Tänikon. From 1268 the community had a number of

lay brother Lay brother is a largely extinct term referring to religious brothers, particularly in the Catholic Church, who focused upon manual service and secular matters, and were distinguished from choir monks or friars in that they did not pray in choi ...

s who lived and worked onsite. They were slowly replaced by secular servants or employees and by 1491 there were no more lay brothers. In 1415 the Hohenlandenberg and Gachnang families donated money to help establish a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

for the chapel. By 1520, the abbey owned land or rights in Aadorf, Bichelsee, Elgg, Ellikon, Ettenhausen Gerlikon, Guntershausen, Hagenbuch, Krillberg, Lommis, Niederwil, Stettfurt, Tannegg and Tuttwil. In 1508 Abbess Anna Welter of Blidegg built a new

refectory A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monastery, monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminary, seminaries. The name ...

on the grounds. During the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

in 1523 several nuns left the abbey. When the Protestant Council of Zurich visited in 1525, there were still 13 nuns in residence. A few years later, in 1532, the abbess retired though a few sisters remained. Sophia von Grüth was appointed caretaker over the monastery in 1548. Two years later she was raised to be the abbess and the Abbot of Wettingen was appointed as the abbey's

Visitor A visitor, in English and Welsh law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution, often a charitable institution set up for the perpetual distribution of the founder's alms and bounty, who can interve ...

. It became a center of the

Counter Reformation The Counter-Reformation (), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to or from similar insights as, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It w ...

and in 1606 all nuns were required strictly to obey the rules of the order. During the 17th century, the community grew and several new buildings were built, including the

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...

's house in 1616 and the abbess's house in 1678. During the wave of secularization that followed the

Helvetic Republic The Helvetic Republic (; ; ) was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, ma ...

, much of the abbey's land was nationalized. After 1804, the community were virtually forbidden to accept any new

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

s. The Thurgau Cantonal Constitution of 1831 placed all the abbey's assets under state control. In 1836, the canton appointed a trustee and sold off the lands. In 1848 the

Grand Council of Thurgau The Grand Council of Thurgau () is the legislature of the canton of Thurgau, in Switzerland. Thurgau has a unicameral legislature. The Grand Council has 130 seats, with members elected every four years. The council has the unique feature in Swi ...

dissolved the abbey and took over the buildings. Two years later, 1850, they sold the nunnery and chapel to the Planta family and the Tänikon

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

. In 1853, the nuns moved into the former Capuchin friary at

Frauenfeld Frauenfeld (Alemannic German, Alemannic: ''Frauefäld'') is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Thurgau, Thurgau in Switzerland. The official language of Frauenfeld is (the Swiss variety of Standard) Swiss Standard Ge ...

. In 1869 they moved again to Mariastern Abbey in

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 ...

. The premises were sold in 1936 to Otto Zuber and in 1969 were taken over by the new ''Eidgenossenschaft Forschungsanstalt für Betriebswirtschaft und Landtechnik'' (Swiss Federal Institute of Business and Agriculture), which in 2006 became the Agrotechnorama Tänikon. During the 15th and 16th centuries, parts of the abbey were demolished and later a road was built through the

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

. The former abbey church includes a

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

and

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

by Johann Josef Mosbrugger from 1830-31.

List of the Abbesses

Agrotechnorama Tänikon

The Agrotechnorama Tänikon is a museum dedicated to the development of agricultural technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. The museum occupies the former abbey barn and includes about 750 objects from 1813 to 1984 showing the transition from manual labor to animal powered and mechanized farming. The museum is open by appointment only.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanikon Abbey Cistercian nunneries in Switzerland Christian monasteries in Switzerland Cultural property of national significance in Thurgau