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Thunstetten
Thunstetten is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Thunstetten is first mentioned in 1220 as ''Tunchsteten''. Individual artifacts from the neolithic era have been found in the Thunstetterwald. Hallstatt era grave mounds are in Tannwäldli and Bützberg. The Thunstetten Commandery was established prior to 1210 for the Knights Hospitaller by an unknown benefactor. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Commandery lands grew with donations and purchases from local nobles. At the height of their power, they owned land in Oberaargau, the Bernese Seeland and around Solothurn. They bought vineyards in Twann and rights over village churches in Lotzwil, Ursenbach, Egerkingen, Aetigen, Rohrbach and Waldkirchen (now part of Niederbipp). As the Commandery grew, Thunstetten also grew. It had its own seal starting in 1274 and in 1320 entered into a Burgrecht agreement with Wangen. It entered into Burgrec ...
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Thunstetten Commandery
The Thunstetten Commandery was a medieval monastery of the Knights Hospitaller in the Swiss municipality of Thunstetten in the Canton of Bern. Today the lands house Thunstetten Castle, which is a national landmark of Switzerland. History Commandery The commandery was established prior to 1210 for the Knights Hospitaller by an unknown benefactor. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the commandery lands grew with donations and purchases from local nobles. At the height of their power, they owned land in Oberaargau, the Bernese Seeland and around Solothurn. They bought vineyards in Twann and rights over village churches in Lotzwil, Ursenbach, Egerkingen, Aetigen, Rohrbach and Waldkirchen (now part of Niederbipp). The commandery was granted limited rights of citizenship by its neighboring cities of Wangen an der Aare (1320) and Bern (starting in 1329). The commandery complex consisted of the commander's house (now the rectory), the 18th-century Church of St. John the Bapti ...
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Oberaargau (administrative District)
The Oberaargau is the region that encompasses the upper watershed of the Aar River in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On the north, lie the Jura Mountains, and on the south the hills leading to the Emmental. Administratively, the Oberaargau forms a district within the ''region'' Emmental-Oberaargau of the canton of Bern. Historically (until 2009), the Oberaargau comprised the two administrative districts of Wangen and Aarwangen. Geography It lies in the extreme northeast corner of the canton and includes the districts of Aarwangen and Wangen, and part of the district of Trachselwald. It is surrounded by the cantons of Solothurn, Aargau, and Lucerne. It is connected to the rest of the canton of Bern only in the south, where it borders on the Emmenthal. The Oberaargau lies on the Swiss Plateau between the large population centers of Bern and Zürich and has therefore become a major thoroughfare for traffic running both east and west and north and south. The Aar River trav ...
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Lotzwil
Lotzwil is a municipality in the district of Oberaargau in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Lotzwil is first mentioned in 1194 as ''Locewillare''. During the Middle Ages the major landowners in Lotzwil included St. Urban's Abbey and the Thunstetten Commandery. The area was ruled by the Baron of Langenstein until the extinction of that family, followed by the Utzigen and Balm families, then after 1370 the Grünenberg and Aarburg. In 1431 Thüring von Aarburg sold the village to Burgdorf. Burgdorf combined Lotzwil, Gutenburg, Kleindietwil, Rütschelen, Thörigen and Bettenhausen together into the bailiwick of Lotzwil and made the bailiff a member of Burgdorf's town council. Following the 1798 French invasion, the bailiwick was dissolved and the village became part of the District of Langenthal. In 1803 it became part of the Aarwangen District. The village church was first mentioned in 1194. The current church was built in 1682-83 on the foundations of earlier ...
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Langenthal, Switzerland
Langenthal is a town and a municipality in the district of Oberaargau in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2010 the municipality of Untersteckholz merged into the Langenthal. On 1 January 2021 the former municipality of Obersteckholz merged into Langenthal. Langenthal is an educational, cultural, and economic center for the region of Oberaargau. History Archeological evidence suggests that early settlements existed around 4000 B.C. in the Langenthal area. A Hallstatt necropolis with twelve grave mounds has been found at Unterhard. Remnants of two Roman villae have also been identified. Langenthal is first mentioned in 861, as ''marcha in Langatun'', referring to farming estates scattered along the Langete (a tributary of the Murg). The Old High German name ''Langatun'' is presumably composed of a hydronym ''langa-'' and the Gaulish element ''dunum'' "fort" (which had become productive as a suffix in toponyms). The re-interpretation of the name as including ...
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Bleienbach
Bleienbach is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Bleienbach is first mentioned in 1194 as ''Blaichinbach''. Evidence of prehistoric settlements near Bleienbach include a Hallstatt grave mound in Oberbützberg, a High Medieval earthen fortress in Eggwald, and an ancient road near the village church. The low court and right to appoint priests to the village church were originally part of the Herrschaft of Langenstein- Grünenberg. In 1331 Johann of Aarwangen purchased a half share in the rights to the village. In 1432 some of the rights went to Bern. The remaining rights followed in either 1443 or 1455. Under Bernese control, the village was assigned to the bailiwick of Aarwangen. In 1826, fire destroyed the center of the village, though it was quickly rebuilt. The first village church was, probably, a wooden church from the 8th or 9th centuries. It was replaced with a stone church built in the 9th o ...
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Herzogenbuchsee
Herzogenbuchsee is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The population is 7055 (2011), counting the villages in the Oberaargau. The traditional name was ''Buchsi''. History Herzogenbuchsee is built on a moraine of the Rhone Glacier. The area has been settled for at least 10,000 years, with ancient settlements around the Inkwilersee and Burgäschisee. There is also evidence of Roman buildings from approximately 200 CE near the current Reformed Church. The first documented use of the name ''puhsa'' (pronounced ''Buchsa'', in Latin ''buxum'', meaning "box") is found in the writings of Saint Gallus in 886 CE. In 1220 it was mentioned as ''Buchse'' and to distinguish it from Münchenbuchsee, in 1301 it was first mentioned as ''Herzogenbuchze''. It was ruled by Burgundy, the Zähringer, the Kyburger, and finally, brought under the Altberni sovereignty. On January 1, 2008, the municipality of Oberönz became part of th ...
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Thörigen
Thörigen is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Geography Thörigen has an area of . Of this area, 51.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 36.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 11.5% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.4%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). Demographics Thörigen has a population (as of ) of . , 4.2% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 5.5%. Most of the population () speaks German (97.9%), with French being second most common ( 0.4%) and English being third ( 0.4%). In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 58.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (11.7%), the SPS (11.3%) and the CSP (5.1%). The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23.3% of the population, whil ...
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Rohrbach, Switzerland
Rohrbach () is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Rohrbach was first mentioned in 795 as ''Roorbah'' when a local noble, Heribold, gave his lands in Madiswil to the church in Rohrbach. In the 9th century some land around the village was given to the Abbey of St. Gall. The Abbey established an administrator in Rohrbach to manage their lands in the Oberaargau region. Since the Abbey was an Imperial Abbey, the administrator and the landholders on the Abbey's land had immunity from the local count's court and could only be arrested or tried by the Abbey court. At the beginning of the 14th century the bailiwick and the low court of the local Barons of Ruti. Between 1314 and 1370 both offices were held by the Count of Signau and after 1371 by the Count of Grünenberg. The Grünenberg Counts incorporated the village into their personal territory. Hermann of Eptingen then acquired the rule over the village by ...
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Aarwangen
Aarwangen is a village and a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Aarwangen is first mentioned in 1255 as ''villa Arwangen''. Aarwangen grew from a fortified toll crossing over the river Aare, in a region where there were few realistic crossing places. The first bridge was built in the early years of the 13th century, and by the 16th century this had developed into a covered wooden bridge and customs post, defended by a castle. During the 18th century, by road, and the 19th century, by rail, this became a busy and important trade route for the movement of goods between the western and eastern parts of Switzerland. The municipal coat of arms is black and silver. It represents the seal of the Aarwangen family, who built the first Aarwangen Castle on the southern riverbank, though the present structure dates back only to the Landvögte, or Bailiffs, of Bern in the 16th and 17th centuries. When the Aarwangen famil ...
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Bern
Bern () or Berne; in other Swiss languages, gsw, Bärn ; frp, Bèrna ; it, Berna ; rm, Berna is the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland, referred to as the " federal city" (in german: Bundesstadt, link=no, french: ville fédérale, link=no, it, città federale, link=no, and rm, citad federala, link=no). According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has governmental institutions such as the Federal Assembly and Federal Council. However, the Federal Supreme Court is in Lausanne, the Federal Criminal Court is in Bellinzona and the Federal Administrative Court and the Federal Patent Court are in St. Gallen, exemplifying the federal nature of the Confederation. With a population of about 133,000 (as of 2022), Bern is the fifth-most populous city in Switzerland, behind Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan ...
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Wangen An Der Aare
Wangen an der Aare is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. This small town lies between Olten and Solothurn in rural surroundings on the Aare, a major river of the west-central lowland region of Switzerland, the ''Mittelland''. An ancient wooden covered bridge crosses the Aare at this point. Wangen an der Aare was the administrative centre of the former district of the same name. Transport links Wangen is situated on the Biel/Bienne - Olten railway line and close to the A1 motorway. History Wang(en) means an area at the foot of a slope; in this case the slope in question is almost certainly that of the nearby Jura mountain range. Wangen's coat of arms shows crossed St Peter's keys in blue on a white ground. The nobles (or ''Vögte'') who held the lordship of Wangen adopted this symbol which had been the badge of the Upper Aargau estates of the Abbey of Saint Peter in the Black Forest. The earliest document to be sea ...
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Burgrecht
A Burgrecht (''ius burgense, ius civile'') was a medieval agreement, most commonly in southern Germany and northern German-speaking Switzerland. It came to refer to an agreement between a town and surrounding settlements or to include the specific rights held by a city or town. The word ''Burgrecht'' is first used by the St. Gall monk Notker the German in about 1000 AD to refer to the Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ... civil law. Later, in the southern German region, it came to refer to inheritance laws and the rights that were tied to specific castle or town. In the territory, that would become Switzerland, starting in the 13th century, the term ''Burgrecht'' began to expand. It grew to mean any agreement between a town with other towns, monasteries, indivi ...
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