Society for the Notenstein

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In the Society for the Notenstein the representatives from the ministerial aristocracy as well as the merchants and the noble craftsmen families ( citizen patriciate ) were brought together in the city council of the city of St. Gallen .

history

For every craftsman there was a compulsory guild. There were six guilds in St. Gallen, plus the Society for the Notenstein . In the 15th century, the city's merchants, who had been trading long-distance linen as far as Spain and Poland since the 13th century, came together to safeguard economic interests and socialize. In addition to linen, the Notensteiners also traded horses, metals, spices and furs.

After the old nobility, apart from two families in the Rhine Valley ( Counts of Hohenems and Barons of Sax ), took over their offices and successful merchants from the linen trade bought old castles or built their own castles in the Fürstenland and Rhine Valley. Thus, they separated themselves more and more from the craftsmen organized in the guilds. Some of the well-known Notenstein families were those of Fels, Zollikofer, Hochreutiner, von Saylern or the Müller von Friedberg (today only called Müller-Friedberg).

The "Haus zum Notenstein"

The former society house "zum Notenstein" in St. Gallen

The name of the society goes back to the name of their meeting house “zum Notenstein” in Bohl. In 1798 the house was sold to what was later to become the Wegelin & Co. Bank , which made it their headquarters. Today it is the seat of the St. Gallen branch of Vontobel .

literature

Archival material

  • Notensteiner Protocol 1466–1767 (Old City Archives in the Vadiana Library, No. 590d)
  • Notensteiner matriculation 1637 (Old City Archives in the Vadiana Library, No. 590b / c)
  • Notenstein, excerpt from the sayings, contracts and agreements between the abbot and the city of St. Gallen, 1373–1698, 1662ff. (Old City Archives in the Vadiana Library, No. 590e)
  • Notensteiner, Statutes 1544 (Old City Archives in the Vadiana Library, No. 590a)

Books

  • Albert Bodmer: The Society for the Notenstein and the Commercial Directorate. A contribution to the social and economic history of the old city republic of St. Gallen (= New Year's Gazette published by the Historical Association of the Canton of St. Gallen. Vol. 102). Tschudy, St. Gallen 1962.
  • Rolf E. Kellenberg: The Notensteiner. From trading company to private bank. Baden 2013.
  • Herbert Lüthy : The activity of Swiss merchants and tradespeople in France under Louis XIV and the reign (= Swiss contributions to economic and social science. Issue 6). Sauerländer, Aarau 1943.
  • August Näf: Historical report on the creation, purpose and circumstances of the commercial corporation and the directorate fund in St. Gallen. Zollikhofer, St. Gallen 1840 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • From the primeval times of the Swiss country (= New Year's Gazette of the historical-philological reading club in St. Gallen. Vol. 1). Scheitlin and Zollikhofer, St. Gallen 1861 ( full text in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Göldi: Society for the Notenstein. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .