Highlights in St.Gallen
Ironically, the history of St. Gall begins with an Irishman: St. Gallus.
Gallus was a member of the Irish peregrini, foreign missionaries who melded pilgrimage and missionary travel as a way of life. Much of Western Europe was first exposed to the Gospel through these itinerant priests, including St. Gall. In 612, Gallus settled in Switzerland's Steinach Valley, establishing a cell and prayer house at the site of today's Abbey of St. Gall. His biography chronicles that the Irish monk divided the remainder of his life between reclusive meditation and conversion of the local Alemanni people; less certain is the local legend that a bear regularly delivered firewood to Gallus. The story is a pleasant one, nonetheless, and it is common to see depictions of St. Gallus in the company of a friendly-looking bear.
Around 720, following Gallus' death, Otmar the Alemann took over leadership of the religious center, becoming the first abbot of St. Gall. Otmar introduced Benedictine monastic rule and oversaw the construction of a chapel which still exists today, the Otmar Crypt. In Around 830, Abbot Gozbert laid the foundation stone for a monumental new churchabbey, the Carolingian precursor to today's Abbey ChurchCathedral. Gozbert's building plan is still preserved within the Abbey Library, and is considered the most precious medieval architectural drawing in existence.
During the 9th and 10th centuries St. Gall peaked as a center of Western scientific and cultural thought as well as religious ideas. The monkFamous monks as Notker Balbulus, who wrote a moralizing work called Gesta Karoli Magni (The Deeds of Charlemagne) in the 880s. He also originated a musical style called the Sequence, popular until the 12th century in northern Europe, making Notker one of the first German composers. Notker Teutonicus translated in the 10th century for the first time the bible and the 150 psalms into german, therefore St. Gallen is also the cradle of the german language.
The Abbey's most celebrated 9th-century accomplishment was the establishment of its scriptorium, the Stiftsbibliothek.. Texts as old as St. Gallus himself wereare still today preserved in the abbey-library, the Stiftsbibliothek, as well as 9th-century copies of the rules of St. Columban and St. Benedict. In addition to preserving these priceless documents for posterity, St. Gall's library unwittingly gave the world a patron saint. As Hungarian troops pushed toward St. Gall in 926, threatening damage to the libraryabbey, the recluse Wiborada moved the books to safety, some to the forest, others to a nearby monastery. St. Wiborada was martyred for her actions; today she is considered the patron saint of libraries and bibliophiles.
The Protestant Reformation was introduced to St. Gall in the early 16th century by a layman, Joachim von Watt, known by his Latin name, Vadianus. Vadianus, a highly-respected humanist, poet, orator and rector of the University of Vienna, also served as St. Gall's mayor and physician. The doctor had a keen interest in the Reformation: He corresponded frequently with Erasmus and the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli, invited evangelical ministers and teachers to St. Gall, and participated in religious disputations at Zürich and Bern. Vadianus was also, coincidentally, a brother-in-law to Konrad Grebel, an early Anabaptist leader.
In St. Gall, the Reformers found fertile soil. Local residents immediately embraced the Reformation message. Visiting preachers and laymen preached the Protestant message for two years beginning in 1524, pronouncing their newfound tenets outside churches and within guild halls. They led the charge against religious icons, removing them from churches and publicly setting fire to them. Only the organ and the bones of Sts. Otmar and Notker were spared, and in 1527 an evangelical church was introduced in St. Gall. In March, 1529, the first evangelical service was held in the Abbey of St. Gall with four thousand worshipers present.
St. Gall's status as a Protestant city would not remain unchallenged; in fact, the city's religious affiliation would be contested for decades. After the Catholic victory at the Second Kappel War in 1531 (a battle in which Swiss Reformer Zwingli lost his life), Diethelm Blarer was reinstated as St. Gall's Catholic Abbot and territorial prince. Later, in 1558, the city's magistrate decreed sharp separation of the territory and its abbey: The town would revert to Protestantism, while the monastery would remain Catholic. The abbey built its own circular wall and the Charles Borromeo Gate, named for the Counter Reformation leader of the same name. St. Gall Abbey and the Reformed church of St. Laurentius, only fifty meters apart, were separated by a stone wall.
While tensions raged between Catholics and Protestants for decades, St. Gall's Anabaptist community found a relatively secure home in the city. The arrival of Konrad Grebel, a leading Anabaptist, threatened to spark intense confrontation in 1525 when Grebel and his followers disrupted a baptismal service on Palm Sunday. Rather than resorting to arrests or violence, St. Gall's council demanded resolution through public disputation a week later at St. Laurentius Church. The Anabaptists did not succeed in convincing the council to adopt its tenets; on the contrary, town leaders threatened sympathizers with heavy fines should they follow Anabaptist practices. Nevertheless, there remained in St. Gall considerable sympathy for the Anabaptist cause. The movement was officially prohibited, but St. Gall would become the only Swiss city in which Anabaptists retained an identifiable presence.
