Sumiswald

Sumiswald is a municipality in the district of the Emmental administrative district in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. It is mostly known for being the manufacturing location of the Swiss railway clock. Sumiswald is first mentioned in 1225 as Smoldeswalt. The name either comes from the Germanic settler "Suomolt" or the Latin term summa vallis ("bank over the valley"). The von Sumiswald family is first mentioned in 1135. They probably took their name from a now vanished castle in the area. The last member of the family, Lütold, donated the village, land and churches in Sumiswald and Escholzmatt to the commandery of the Teutonic Knights of the "Ballei" Swabia-Alsace-Burgundy. In 1525, the town bought its way out of serfdom, but stayed a part of the Teutonic Knights even after the Protestant Reformation was introduced in 1528; Sumiswald was sold to the city of Bern for 36,000 Reichs thaler in 1698. The village Church of St. Mary was first mentioned in 1225 along with the village. The old church was replaced with a new building in 1510-12. When Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation, the village converted and the municipality acquired the patronage rights over the church. Hans Haslibacher, who was decapitated on October 20, 1571 in Bern because of his Anabaptist conviction came from Sumiswald; his decapitation was the last execution of an Anabaptist in Bern. The village was surrounded by a number of alpine meadows and seasonal alpine herding was an important part of the local economy. The first contracts governing ownership and access to the meadows are from 1498. In the following century many of the high forests were cleared to provide additional meadows for grazing. In 1572 the municipality passed laws to limit further clearing to prevent total deforestation. The settlements of Wasen, Ey and Grünen all developed out of small seasonal herding camps. In the following centuries ownership of the fields in the valley and the alpine meadows became firmly entrenched, creating a class of wealthy landowners and a class of poor artisans, day laborers and sharecroppers.