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Concept
Einsiedeln
Summary
Einsiedeln (ˈaɪnziːdl̩n) is a municipality and district in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland known for its monastery, the Benedictine Einsiedeln Abbey, established in the 10th century.
There was no permanent settlement in the area prior to the early medieval period, but numerous artefacts left by prehistoric hunters, dated to the Mesolithic to Bronze Age were recovered.
The original "hermitage" is associated with St. Meinrad, a Benedictine monk family of the Counts of Hohenzollern. According to legend, Meinrad lived on the slopes of Mt. Etzel from 835 until his death in 861.
During the next eighty years Saint Meinrad's hermitage was never without one or more hermits emulating his example. One of the hermits, named Eberhard, previously Provost of Strasburg, erected a monastery and church there, of which he became first abbot. Work on the monastery is said to have begun in 934. Following a miraculous vision by Eberhard, the new church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
At the time of the foundation of the Abbey, the local hunters and small farmers of the forest, placed themselves under the authority of the noble-born Abbot. The surrounding population was known as Waldleute (forest people) because of the forests around the Abbey. The Abbey encouraged the Waldleute to settle in surrounding villages and begin farming. The settlement of EInsiedeln is first mentioned in 1073.
The alpine valleys were used to raise cattle, which became increasingly more important to the village. By 1250 the major business in the village was breeding and raising cattle. Expansion of grazing land into nearby alpine valleys led to a two century conflict with Schwyz.
As early as 1100, the villages of Einsiedeln and Schwyz were in conflict over land near the two Mythen mountains. Over the following century, conflicts over the land led to many court battles and actual battles. In 1173 when the Habsburgs gained rights over the village of Schwyz and in 1283 when they raised the Abbey to an independent principality under the Habsburgs, this raised a local conflict into a regional one.
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