Benedictine Abbey of Saint Gall

The place where Gallus built his cell around 612, became a centre of attraction for the local population after his death. A community of monks established itself in 719, which then became a Benedictine abbey in 747.

The abbey grew quickly in the first centuries of its existence. In its history of over a thousand years, the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Gall belonged to the most significant cultural centres of Europe between the 8th and 11th century.

As a grand economical and cultural centre, the abbey early on became a cynosure for the people that settled in its vicinity. Next to the abbey a settlement developed; the town of St.Gallen.

Abbey and town lived in a prosporous coexistence throughout centuries. In 1451, the Princely Abbey, and in 1454 also the town of St.Gallen became ‘Allied Countries’ to the confederation. The Reformation brought the denominational separation of abbey and town with it. The abbey became a centre of the Catholic reform and experienced a time of prosperity during Baroque.

The time of the French Revolution put an end to the prince-abbotly territorial sovereignty in 1798. The Canton St.Gallen was formed in 1803. In 1805, the parliament of the Canton suspended the Abbey of Saint Gall.

The Abbey of Saint Gall
The stocks of the Monastery Archive reveal access to more than a thousand year's history of the Abbey of Saint Gall: 20,000 certificates, countless documents, 2,500 manuscripts, prints, maps and plans. The Monastery Archive of St.Gallen is the oldest of its kind in the Occident.

Abbey of Saint Gall (Wikipedia)