The Iglingerhof and the Olsberg Monastery

15 June 2022

Each Swiss village or country road has its beauty. The Iglingerhof comprises two houses with farms near Magden (Canton of Aargau).

The estate existed in the Middle Ages and was owned by Olsberg Monastery until 1790. This Cistercian monastery for women is the oldest of this order in Switzerland.
It was founded at the beginning of the 13th century.

Through bequests and purchases, it acquired more and more estates and vineyards in Alsace and the present-day cantons of Aargau and Basel-Landschaft. The monastery also owned properties in the towns of Rheinfelden and Basel.

The monastery was dissolved in 1803 when the canton of Aargau was created by the new Confederation (Act of Mediation of 1803). The properties were sold to private individuals. The Iglingerhof had already been sold in 1790.

The Christian Merian Foundation acquired the Iglingerhof and 67 ha of land and forest in 1918. The Foundation has been leasing the estate for farming since this time.

The Niklauskapelle already existed in the thirteenth century. It burned down in 1860, but its memory lives on in the Gothic choir, which has been restored and integrated into the complex.

In various other places, medieval churches are incorporated into farm houses; examples are the Romanesque chapel in Donatyre (canton of Vaud) and the Romanesque church of San Niclà in Strada (canton of Graubünden).

(Source and further information: Kloster Hortus-Dei (kloster-olsberg.ch).