Constituencies of the Canton of St. Gallen - Canton of St. Gallen (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Canton of St. Gallen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The lands of the canton St. Gallen represent acquisitions of the abbey of St. Gallen over centuries. The founding of St. Gallen is based on the Irish monk Gallus (ca 550620 or 640), who built a hermitage at the river Steinach in 612. Around 720, one hundred years after Gallus's death, the Alemannian priest Othmar built an abbey and gave it the name Abbey of St. Gallen. In 926 Hungarian raiders attacked the abbey and surrounding town. About 1205 the abbot became a prince of the church in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1311 St. Gallen became a Free imperial city. By about 1353 the guilds, headed by the cloth-weavers guild, gained control of the civic government. In 1415 the city bought its liberty from the German king Sigismund. In 1405 the Appenzell estates of the abbot successfully rebelled and in 1411 they became allies of the Old Swiss Confederation. A few months later the town of St. Gallen also became allies. They joined the "everlasting alliance" as full members of the Confederation in 1454 and in 1457 became completely free from the abbot. However, in 1451 the abbey became an ally of Zrich, Lucerne, Schwyz and Glarus who were all members of the Confederation. In early 1490 the four cantons supported the Abbot against the rebellious city and the Appenzell. Following their victory the Confederation took ownership of the city of St. Gallen and rejected the inroads of the empire. Starting in 1526 then-mayor and humanist Joachim von Watt (Vadian) introduced the reformation in the city of St. Gallen. The town converted to the new reformed religion while the Abbey remained Roman Catholic. While iconoclastic riots forced the monks to flee the city and removed images from the city's churches, t... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=319656