Mechtern

According to tradition, in 288 AD the saints Gereon of Cologne and Gregorius Maurus – officers of the Theban Legion – were martyred here along with 318 soldiers and 50 Moors. Having converted to Christianity, the legion is said to have been persecuted and killed under Emperor Maximian (286–305). On the presumed site of these events rose the parish church of St. Bartholomew, with the addition "zu den Martyrern" (Latin: "ad martyres"); a corrupted pronunciation of this name evolved into "Mechtern" or "Meichtern". Beneath the church was said to lie an underground vault that had served as a secret meeting place for Christians in Roman times.

In 1180, Archbishop Philipp I of Heinsberg had a monastic estate for regular canons built on the site of the church. A document from 1256 confirms it as a branch of the Gereon parish. According to the Koelhoff Chronicle, the Count of Jülich camped near the convent at Mechtern in 1268 after escaping an assassination attempt in Cologne. The Augustinian canons remained until 1276; in 1277, Archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg dissolved the men's monastery for "indiscipline and extravagance" and transformed it into a Cistercian convent for women. Around 1258, the patrician Bruno Hardevust had donated one of his four Rhine mills to the monastery and funded the restoration of the decaying complex at his own expense; on 9 April 1277, thirteen Cistercian nuns and an abbess from Benden Convent moved into the building. Hardevust was buried at the convent after his death in 1278. Daughters of wealthy Cologne citizens frequently entered the convent, among them Fia von Falkenstein. From 1392, the convent belonged to the Andreas Foundation.

A place of execution near the Junkernkirchhof by Mechtern was first mentioned in 1356; there, on 31 January 1513, Adam von Nurrenberg, Tilmann Obenkirchen, and Eberhard Hundt were beheaded. Prostitution near the convent is documented for 1387. In 1395, Dietrich Hurtey the Younger caused damage to the convent and was arrested as a result.

In July 1474, the city council decided to demolish the women's convents of Weiher and Mechtern, both located outside the city gates, to deny the enemy any military advantage during the Cologne Diocesan Feud; both were considered weak points in the city's fortifications. In 1477, the foundation stone for a new convent was laid at St. Apern, and on the former Mechtern grounds the nuns established a large manor farm belonging to the St. Apern convent. A document from 1483 refers to the site as "Meichteren", and Hermann von Weinsberg still described Mechtern as an inhabited place in 1553. Arnold Mercator's 1570 city map of Cologne already shows a road leading northwest from the Friesentor – today's Venloer Straße – surrounded by pasture and farmland. In 1583, the former parish priest of Mechtern petitioned the Cologne council for compensation for the destruction of the convent and church.

Protestant preaching outside the city walls had already caused tension in Catholic Cologne: in 1567, the ribbon weaver Dietrich von Mülheim was interrogated for attending a Calvinist sermon in Rodenkirchen. On 8 July 1582, the Dutch governor Adolf von Neuenahr held several sermons at the by-then-abandoned Mechtern convent, which became known as the "Mechtern Sermons". The Cologne city council had the city gates locked and decreed that no one could leave the city without stating a reason, and that every citizen had to prove they had not attended the service.