Oetenbach nunnery

Because the swampy area at the Oetenbach stream was a bad place for the construction of a permanently inhabited convent, some decades later, it was built on the northern slope Sihlbühl of the present Lindenhof hill.

[3] Also probably Johann I von Habsburg-Laufenburg, son of Countess Elisabeth by first marriage, may have supported the nunnery as being in close friendship to the Predigerkloster which got in the 1340s asylum in Rapperswil.

The irrigated grave system of medieval Zürich, consisting of Fröschengraben, the outer Sihlgraben and the intermediate town wall was first mentioned in 1258 AD as niuwer graben, and on 23 June 1292, a law to regulate by decree was sealed by the city of Zürich and the convent, related to the section of the town wall at the Sihlbühl area.

Therefore, the Predigern parish church was in charge of the pastoral care of the Oetenbach nunnery, as well as of the urban communities of the women Beguines, who lived nearby the Dominican and Franciscan mendicant orders in separate quarters outside the convents.

The stronghold replaced a wooden mounting in the garden of the Oetenbach convent and had to secure the western town wall and the gate at the Limmat River.

Measuring about 17.5 metres in length, it connected the lower Mühlesteg and Papierwerd between present Limmatquai and Bahnhofquai nearby Bahnhofbrücke Zürich.

After the death of the last Oetenbach nun in 1566, the grain master of the city of Zürich moved his offices to the east wing of the dormitory, which was henceforth referred to as Kornamtshaus.

As well as the so-called Äbtissinnenstuben of the Fraumünster abbey, the last resident Katharina von Zimmern, thanks to their uninterrupted use and appreciation of the institutions established there, remained in use until a few years before the demolition of the monastic buildings occurred.