1524 Stor­my ti­mes – The It­tin­ger storm in fo­cus

The attack by a troop of around 3,000 people on the Ittingen Charterhouse resulted in the complete looting and burning of the monastery complex. The exhibition in the Ittingen Museum highlights the various aspects and stages of this tumult.

The storming of the Ittingen Charterhouse in the summer of 1524 was a key event in the history of the Swiss Reformation. Around 3,000 villagers from the surrounding area gathered together to attack the monastery and ultimately left it in ruins. The events had a wide range of repercussions: first in the political and legal analysis by contemporaries and then in historiography. For the ruling circles, the attack was a wake-up call: in the increasingly denominationally divided Swiss Confederation, the Catholic side felt encouraged to support the monasteries, while the Reformed side sought an orderly liquidation of the monasteries and under no circumstances wanted to tolerate a popular uprising of this kind.