Could Junkerngasse be the most haunted street in Bern? In the former monastery that once stood here, the inhabitants complained for a long time about the visit of a monk who committed a sin so solemn that neither body nor soul ever left this place.
Beneath the elegant facades of Bern's Junkerngasse and its parallel Gerechtigkeitsgasse, now known for its stately homes, stone paths and impressive views of the Aare River, lies a buried past of devotion, decline and damnation.
In the Middle Ages, this street, then called Kirchgasse or Church Lane, was the sacred artery of Bern's religious life. It wound past chapels, cloisters and courtyards belonging to powerful abbeys. Among them was a serene but significant estate: Frienisberghaus, the urban residence of the Cistercian monks of Frienisberg Abbey who came to the city on ecclesiastical matters or for recreation.
But for centuries after the Reformation, the house was rejected, whispered about, and eventually demolished. It was said to be haunted by a monk who carried a sin so solemn that death could not give him peace.
Monastery in the city
The Cistercian order was characterized by deep discipline and purity, based on silence, work and a vow of chastity. The monks of Frienisberg Abbey, located in the Seeland region northwest of Bern, belonged to a number of orders with property within the city walls. Already in 1285 they owned a house in Bern. In the 14th century, their possessions expanded as the city filled the ancient moat of Nydegg Fortress, granting the monks a monastery courtyard next to the Interlakenhaus, the largest monastic courtyard in the city, a stone's throw from the Nydeggkirche and what later became the Nydegg Bridge.
It was not a grand abbey, but rather a serene urban shelter, a place of refuge for monks coming from Frinisberg. And yet, in this peaceful environment, something terrible happened.
Sin in the monastery
One monk whose name has gone down in history did the unthinkable: he raped a nun, a crime so heinous in the Cistercian world that it still persists. The details remain unclear, but the sin of lust in an environment demanding cleanliness sealed the monk's eternal punishment.
After the Reformation swept through Bern in the 1520s, the monasteries and their properties were dissolved or repurposed. The Frienisberghaus became a state building used for charitable purposes, but its halls were never serene again.
For years, locals reported that a ghostly monk wandered the courtyard at midnight, his hood hanging low and his feet not touching the ground at all. He climbed the stairs slowly, mournfully, only to descend again after a while, as if condemned to walk in endless, unfulfilled penance. His figure was pale and almost lucid, a whisper of fabric and shadow.
Later still, as the house grew ancient and fell into disrepair, the haunting intensified. There were groans, sighs and scraping sounds coming from the attic. Tools rusted for no reason, and workers trying to repair the building reported feelings of fear they couldn't shake. During the final demolition of the building, something even more sinister was discovered: a skeleton bricked up in a closed alcove, curled up in a final pose of suffering. His blackened robes and rotten rosary still clung to his bones.
It was a confirmation of ancient fears. Whether he was buried secretly as punishment or to avoid scandal, this monk was walled up alive, and his soul never left.
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A sinful monk haunting a former monastery on Junkerngasse
Could Junkerngasse be the most haunted street in Bern? In the former monastery that once stood here, the inhabitants complained for a long time about the visit of a monk who committed a sin so solemn that neither body nor soul ever left this place.
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P. Keckeis and M. Waibel, Legends of Switzerland. Bern, Zurich 1986
Frienisberghaus – Bern City Archives
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