Kappel Abbey

In 1211, Pope Innocent III gave the monastery the Privilegium commune Cisterciense.

The oldest part of the monastery is the so-called core of the administration buildings, which were probably built in 1209/10 as a hospital (later the residence of the abbot and the prior).

Through donations from the landed gentry (Hallwyl, Hünenberg Bonstetten, Hinwil, Baldegg, Uerzlikon, Gessler and Habsburg-Laufenburg families), purchase and exchange the Abbey had numerous, widely scattered properties.

Then, in 1495 Zurich acquired, from the lords of Hallwyl, the vogtei or reeve rights over the Abbey.

In 1523, the last abbot, Wolfgang Joner (Rüpplin), brought the reformer Heinrich Bullinger into the Abbey as a teacher.

[1] Through Buillinger the teachings of the Reformation found their way to Kappel, and so were on 9 March 1525 the images were removed from the church.

While the leaders negotiated an end to the conflict, the common soldiers began making a meal.

This meal, the Kappeler Milchsuppe was a bread and milk soup cooked in a pot placed exactly on the cantonal border between Zurich and Zug.

On 11 October 1531, the Protestant and Catholic armies met again, and the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli was killed.