Construction of the monastery began in 1233, near the bridge at the Töss River by command of Count Hartmann IV of Kyburg.

[1] In December of the same year, the monastery was confirmed by Bishop Heinrich von Tanne of Constance.

Over the following centuries, the monastery grew until it owned properties or incomes in about 130 communities around the Canton of Zürich.

The Swiss mystic Elsbeth Stagel[3] and the Blessed Elizabeth of Hungary, the last member of the House of Árpád,[4] were both nuns of the monastery.

The monastery's estates were nationalized and used to support the needy in the Canton and after 1606 a local school.