Fürstenland or Alte Landschaft is the name of a historic territory of the Swiss
canton of St. Gallen, corresponding to the modern districts of
St. Gallen (without the city proper),
Wil and
Rorschach.
It was a subject territory of the
Abbey of St. Gallen
The Abbey of Saint Gall () is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian Renaissance, Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot wh ...
until 1798.
Its population, known as the ''Gotteshausleute'', came into conflict with the Abbey after the
Swiss Reformation
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate, Mark Reust, and the population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matte ...
, during 1525–1531.
After the defeat of Zürich in the
Second War of Kappel
The Second War of Kappel () was an armed conflict in 1531 between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.
Background
The peace concluded after the First War of Kappel two yea ...
, the Fürstenland was forced to return to Catholicism.
After the
French Revolution, the territory was granted increased autonomy in a treaty of 1795, and in 1797 additionally its own seal and the right to elect a local parliament.
On 14 February 1798, it constituted itself as a "Free Republic" (''Freie Republik der Landschaft St. Gallen''), which was absorbed into the
Canton of Säntis three months later.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Furstenland
Abbey of Saint Gall
History of the canton of St. Gallen