Interior of the Burnt-Out Barfüsserkirche, Looking West, during Reconstruction, 1681

The Franciscans, also known as "barefoot" monks ("Barfüsser"), had their own monastery, with an early Gothic church consecrated in 1278, along the Pegnitz at the site of today's Museumsbrücke bridge (known at the time as the "Barfüsser" bridge). The Franciscans lost possession of the site in 1529, when the monastery was closed by the Reformation, after which the complex saw various secular uses (as a girls' and boys' orphanage, and as a women's prison from 1671 onwards).