History of the city of Wil (SG)
The town of Wil , founded around 1200, was handed over to the St. Gallen Monastery in 1226 by the Counts of Toggenburg . The disputes between the prince abbey of St. Gallen and King Rudolf von Habsburg led to the destruction of Wils in 1292. In the Old Zurich War in 1445 and in the Toggenburg 1712 Wil was under siege . In 1803 Wil came to the canton of St. Gallen and became a regional center.
middle Ages
| year | Middle of the 14th century | 1403 | 1445 | 1715 | 1837 | 1850 | 1900 | 1950 | 2000 | 2018 |
| Residents | almost 200 households |
314 Tax paid |
339 | 295 | 1098 | 1555 | 4982 | 8681 | 16'392 | 23,966 |
Wil was mentioned in the Henauer deed in 754 as Wila , 762 as villa Vila , 1215 as Wile and 1244 as Wila . The monastery of St. Gallen received goods and rights in Wil as a gift in the second half of the 8th century . The barons of Toggenburg founded the city of Wil around 1200 . After the so-called Toggenburg fratricide by Diethelm of Friedrich in 1226, her father, Count Diethelm von Toggenburg, gave the old Toggenburg and the town of Wil to the abbot of St. Gallen Monastery, Konrad von Bussnang , who had buried the slain in church. Although the murdered man's brother, Count Diethelm von Toggenburg, and his sons denied this donation for years, Wil remained in the possession of the Prince Abbey of St. Gallen until 1798 . In the second half of the 13th century, with the expansion of Wil as a western base for the prince-abbot of St. Gallen, the prince-abbots came into conflict with King Rudolf von Habsburg , who founded the town of Schwarzenbach in the immediate vicinity . The disputes between the two rulers ended with the destruction of Wils in 1292. Duke Albrecht von Habsburg ordered the residents to move to Schwarzenbach. After the peace treaty of 1301, the city of Wil was returned to the Prince Abbey of St. Gallen and rebuilt, Schwarzenbach was to be razed. In 1312 Wil was devastated by fire.
The year of foundation of the parish church of St. Peter, first mentioned in 1248, is uncertain, but a previous building from around 1200 has been archaeologically documented. The Romanesque Madonna , still venerated in Wil, dates from the 12th century. The choir of the building ensemble dates from 1460, the Liebfrauenkapelle from 1498 and the nave from 1887. A people priest is first mentioned in 1209. The right of patronage lay with the Abbey of St. Gallen from 1248 at the latest. The branch church of St. Nicholas, which has existed within the city walls since the city was founded, was rebuilt in the 15th century. Under Prince Abbot Ulrich Rösch, it gained additional parish rights in the second half of the 15th century, which made it increasingly important. The collection of beginners at the Church of St. Peter, mentioned from 1284 and later based on the Dominican Order , moved in the 15th century near the better protected Church of St. Nicholas. Thanks to foundations, the churches of Wil had eight priests at their disposal at the end of the 15th century .
The old town consists of the core city with front and back alleys, a double row of houses in the middle and two suburbs. The residence of the St. Gallen prince abbots (right), to which the courtyard with the onion-shaped tower and the Toggenburg house, which was extended in 1694 belong, as well as the parish church of St. Nikolaus emerge from the townscape, as does the town hall with a corner tower in between. The Dominican convent of St. Katharina (bottom, center), the Capuchin monastery completed in 1657 (right, bottom corner), the two city ponds, the Bleicherwiesen and the church of St. Peter (left edge of the picture) characterize the surrounding area.
The prince abbots of St. Gallen often stayed in their secondary residence in the Hof zu Wil on the northeast corner of the walled town. Instead of an older tower, they had a new building built around 1400. In 1334 Abbot Hermann von Bonstetten gave the city its first hand-held festivals . In it he promised to keep her traditional rights and never to alienate her from the St. Gallen monastery. In 1345, Emperor Ludwig granted Bayer Wil the privilege that no city citizen could be brought before a foreign court. The council mentioned for the first time in this document shows that the city is increasingly self-governing. From 1379 it had its own seal . Also in 1379 Wil joined the Swabian Association of Cities and from 1388 to 1405 also belonged to that of the Lake Constance cities . In 1425, she concluded a protective alliance with Count Friedrich VII of Toggenburg , which was renewed ten years later. In the Old Zurich War , mercenaries von Wil took part on the federal side in campaigns against Zurich . In 1444, the so-called Wiler Böcke stood out. In 1445, Zurich troops besieged Wil and set fire to the Upper Suburb, but without storming the city because the Schwyz were on the march. As a thank you for the happy salvation, a votive procession is held in Wil every year on Whit Monday . When the prince abbot of St. Gallen concluded perpetual castle and land law in 1451 with the four towns of Schwyz, Lucerne , Glarus and Zurich , the city of Wil was also obliged to contribute its share to the abbot's team in the event of a conflict. The four places were represented from 1479 with a regional or umbrella captain based in Wil. 1463 transferred Emperor Friedrich III. the high jurisdiction over Wil of the prince abbey of St. Gallen, which was exercised by the imperial bailiff. The lower jurisdiction was divided between the prince abbey and the city, with the "Great Treaty" of 1492, which remained authoritative until the end of the Ancien Régime , regulating the legal powers of the 12 to 14 judges. The citizens of the city chose the mayor and the 12 members of the Small Council and 30 of the Grand Council from the candidates proposed by the Prince Abbot. From 1464 the court master represented the prince abbey of St. Gallen in the city council.
In addition to the weekly market , Ulrich Rösch acquired the right to two annual markets in Wil from the emperor in 1472 . He also promoted the canvas trade . Wiler merchants exaggerated distance trade , but the textile industry was always in the shadow of the city-the St. Gallen competition. The livestock market, the kernel, lard and yarn market were of particular importance . Since the prince abbots did not allow guilds with a political thrust, the craftsmen instead united in the four religious brotherhoods St. Elogi, St. Crispinus and Crispinianus , St. Sebastiani and St. Agathae as well as St. Severin and Severinus. The many artisans were characteristic of Wil, starting with the goldsmiths attested from the 13th century to the painters, tin casters and glass painters of the early modern era to the altar building business of the brothers Franz and August Müller in the 19th century.
Early modern age
There is evidence of a Latin school closely connected to the church in Wil from 1269 onwards. It was converted into a secondary school in the early 19th century . Many young men from Wil graduated from the late Middle Ages , a university degree , in the 15th and early 16th century, most often in Heidelberg and Erfurt . The Reformation was promoted from 1528 by the Zurich umbrella and four-city governor of the prince abbey, Jakob Frei, and introduced in 1529/30, however, after the Second Kappel War in 1531, it was reversed by the citizens of Wil, supported by the Catholic umbrella locations. Towards the end of the Thirty Years' War , the Federal War Council met in the small town and in 1647 agreed on the Defense Code known as the Defensionale von Wil. During the Second Villmerger War , the Toggenburg turmoil again brought Wil to the fore: in 1712 the city was shelled and forced to surrender . The people of Zurich and Bern held it until the Peace of Baden in June 1718. In September the old sovereign was able to move into the courtyard again. The townspeople now swore the oath of homage for the first time to Prince Abbot Joseph von Rudolphi , elected in exile in 1717 , who had successfully negotiated in peace .
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the city also set up a German boys ' and girls' school. The Dominican convent of St. Katharina was built south of the old town from 1605 to 1607 , the successor convent of the monastery of the same name in St. Gallen, which was repealed during the Reformation. In 1615 the Dominican Sisters merged with this monastery. From 1809 the nuns ran a girls' school. From 1654 to 1657, the Capuchin monastery was built in Wil on the basis of a donation from the Prince Bailiff Georg Renner . From the 16th to the 18th century, over 40 abbots and abbesses in Swiss monasteries came from Wil.
After the end of the princely territorial state in 1798, Wil formed a municipality in the canton of Säntis in the Helvetic Republic . In 1803 the city became part of the newly founded canton of St. Gallen and from 1831 to 2002 it was the capital of the district of the same name . In 1831, the constitutional basis was also created to separate the political from the local community . The city council has seven members and a 40-member municipal parliament has existed since 1985 . In 1985 the political and school community merged. The local community administers forests, goods and real estate, e.g. B. the baron house, and fulfills cultural and caring tasks.
In 1850 the proportion of Catholics was 91% and that of the Reformed 9%. The Reformed minority founded the Evangelical Reformed parish of Wil in 1889 , which also includes the Reformed from Rickenbach TG , Wilen TG , Bronschhofen and Zuzwil .
Younger modern times
In the first half of the 19th century most of the city walls and gates were demolished, only the Schnetztor remained. In 1835 the engineer Alois Negrelli redesigned the country road leading through the old town to compensate for the steep gradient. In 1855 the Winterthur – Wil railway line , which was extended to Rorschach in 1856 , went into operation. In 1870 the Toggenburgerbahn opened its line Wil– Ebnat and in 1887 the Frauenfeld-Wil-Bahn was opened to traffic. At the end of the 1960s, Wil was connected to the A1 motorway from Zurich to St. Gallen-Winkeln .
Industrialization began around 1850 , with the emphasis first on textiles and then on mechanical engineering. The jacquard and colored weaving mills of Johann Baptist Müller and his sons and the felt factory of Fridolin Müller were important. The embroidery flourished from 1895 with the Schiffli embroidery factory Reichenbach, in whose abandoned building Alois Ruckstuhl moved in 1925 with his stocking factory Royal. Other companies produced linen, knitted and hosiery goods , shirts, blouses, children's clothing, bobbin lace , trimmings , paraments and flags. In 1929, Hans Hürlimann founded the first Swiss tractor factory, which was in operation until 1983. From 1936 the agricultural machinery company Agrar was economically significant, from 1937 the sewing machine needle factory Nadag and a little later the Sumag saws. The Stihl & Co. exported saw chains worldwide. In the 19th century, four beer breweries were established in Wil, of which the Hof brewery was the last to cease operations after it was taken over by the Hürlimann brewery in 1983. Many small companies, especially in the IT industry, were founded at the end of the 20th century. Wil has had a cantonal psychiatric clinic since 1892 and a general hospital since 1970.
Music and theater have been firmly anchored in Wil since the middle of the 16th century. In the 1870s the Cecilia Association , the Orchestra Association and the Concordia male choir merged to form a theater company. Every three years it performed operas and operettas with music-loving amateurs in the Tonhalle, which was built in 1876. Specific customs are cultivated in Wil, such as the carnival with the traditional Wiler devils, the “Stäcklitträger” on the first Sunday of October with the children's parade of gifts for the final shooting of the town riflemen and the children's lantern parade on New Year's Eve. The old town with its well-preserved historic houses earned Wil the Wakker Prize in 1984 .
literature
- Magdalen Bless-Grabher: Wil (SG). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
This article is largely based on the entry in the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), which, according to the HLS's usage information, is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution - Distribution under the same conditions 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Permanent and non-permanent resident population by year, canton, district, municipality, population type and gender (permanent resident population). In: bfs. admin.ch . Federal Statistical Office (FSO), August 31, 2019, accessed on December 22, 2019 .