The history of Olsberg Convent can be traced back to the year 1234. Named ‘Hortus Dei’ (Garden of God), it was relocated from its original site near St. Urban to Olsberg in 1236. Responsibility for secular matters lay with the Habsburgs until it was handed over to the newly established canton of Aargau. Until 1748, it was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Cistercian Abbey in Lucelle, Alsace; during the latter years of its history, it answered to Salem Abbey and finally Tennenbach Abbey. With the break-up of the old Swiss Confederation, the fate of Olsberg Convent too was sealed once and for all: in 1802 it was secularised, the nuns were pensioned off, and the convent’s treasures were declared state property. By 1807, a school had already been established on the convent premises for the daughters of aristocratic families. This institute was eventually to become one of the first teacher training centres for women in the canton. In 1835 the cantonal parliament demanded a change in its admission policy, opening it up fully to all female students regardless of background. In 1860, the private sponsors agreed that the canton of Aargau should take over the institution and convent site. The church was extensively renovated between 1971 and 1981 and the knights’ lodgings refurbished throughout. The church originally extended further to the west. The old outline is still visible where the wall runs around the forecourt. Above the central window is a statue of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the leading figure in the Cistercian Order. The original was replaced by a copy in 1977 and can be found inside the church in front of the stairs leading up to the gallery. The convent site underwent a complete renovation between 1986 and 1995.

In the 10^th century, the region of Fricktal belonged to the Kingdom of Burgundy. A noble Burgundian family settled in two castles in what is now Rheinfelden, later adopting the title of ‘Counts of Rheinfelden’. Count Rudolf of Rheinfelden was even appointed the German ‘anti-king’. He died in 1080 as the result of an injury sustained in battle. His opponent had severed his right hand, the legendary ‘hand of Rudolf of Rheinfelden’. Half a century later, the Zähringen family founded the town of Rheinfelden, whose church was first documented in 1146. When the Habsburgs took control of the town in the 14^th century, the church was able to look out over a flourishing commercial centre which, together with the entire Fricktal region, continued to be ruled by the Habsburgs and the Austrian Emperor until the late 18^th century.

It was only in 1803 that Rheinfelden and the region of Fricktal joined the newly established canton of Aargau. At a town meeting in 1873, a unanimous decision was taken to reject the two new papal dogmas of the First Vatican Council (according to which the Pope was the highest bishop in the entire world church, and infallible in matters of faith and morals in any official pronouncements he made), as a result of which it left the Roman Catholic church. The town church and all its possessions, including the later dissolved monastery, passed seamlessly to what was later known as the ‘Old-Catholic’ denomination, to which it still belongs today.

The church was renovated in the late 19^th century. The grey painted walls of the time and the varnish applied to the altars, along with the dust, grime and physical changes caused by its thick coat of paint, meant that the church’s appearance had become increasingly drab over the course of generations. It was only when its exterior was extensively restored in 1980 and its interior in 1989-1992 that the original bright colours of the church were revived and it reassumed the appearance first familiar to congregations during the second Baroque period. As far as possible, an attempt was made to return the church to how it had looked in 1772.

The Dukes of Zähringen, famous for establishing towns in Switzerland and the southwest of Germany, founded the family monastery of St. Peter – which would also serve as their burial place – in about 1100 on an elevation in the Black Forest a few kilometres to the east of Freiburg. The new Benedictine abbey was endowed with properties inherited from Agnes of Rheinfelden in what is now Oberaargau. The centres of her power there were the priory of Herzogenbuchsee and the parishes of Huttwil and Seeberg.

Already overshadowed by the harbingers of secularisation, the abbey experienced another spiritual, scientific and cultural blossoming in the last hundred years of its existence. Its lasting legacy are the Baroque monastery buildings constructed and embellished from 1720 over a period of about fifty years, which have survived almost intact. At their heart lies the library.

The church (1724-1727) is an early work by Peter Thumb, who in this case found all his inspiration in the traditional style of architecture in which Vorarlberg minsters were built. The sculptor Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer created the figures on the altar and the series depicting Dukes of Zähringen on the pilasters. The ceiling paintings with scenes from the life of the church’s patron are by Franz Joseph Spiegler.

The abbey was secularised in 1806. Following an eventful history as a military hospital and, for many years, a seminary, the monastery has housed the spiritual centre of the archdiocese of Freiburg since 2006.