Brugg
Brugg is a Swiss municipality and a town in the canton of Aargau and is the seat of the district of the same name. The town is located at the confluence of the Aare, Reuss, and Limmat, with the Aare flowing through its medieval part. It is located approximately from the cantonal capital of Aarau; from Zürich; and about from Basel.
Brugg is the Swiss German term for bridge. This is an allusion to the purpose of the medieval town's establishment under the Habsburgs, as the town is located at the narrowest point on the Aare in the Swiss midlands. The Habsburgs’ oldest known residence is located in the neighborhood of Altenburg, which had previously been an independent community. Prior to their relocation to Austria, Brugg was the center of the Habsburgs' territory. Between 1415 and Napoleon’s invasion in 1798, Brugg was a subject territory of Bern. Since then it has belonged to the canton of Aargau.
The town is the home of the Swiss Farmers’ Union and is the location of a campus of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. Brugg's Vindonissa museum is listed as a heritage site of national significance. An engineer training unit of the Swiss army is also based in the town.
Geography
The municipality extends for six kilometers from its southwestern to northeastern boundaries, and is barely wider than one kilometer at its broadest point. The Aare, which flows through the centre of the old town, divides the municipality into two separate, distinct landscapes – the Swiss plateau on the southern bank and the beginnings of the Jura on the northern side.The southwesternmost area of Brugg is primarily a flood plain, known as the Wildischachen, which is located between the Aare and a hill, the Wülpelsberg, upon which the Habsburg castle in the neighboring community of Habsburg was built. Approximately two kilometers further north two separate branches of the Aare come together near the village of Altenburg. In between these two branches, which came into being following the construction of the hydroelectric power station Wildegg-Brugg, is the forested island of Schacheninsel.
Following a bend in the river, at which it alters its course from the north to the east, the river enters a 200-meter-long section with a rapids and a gorge. The Aare narrows from its previous width of about to a mere. It is along this gorge that the historic center of Brugg formed near the old bridge, with sections of the old town developing on both banks. Today the southern bank is heavily built up and is composed primarily of residential and industrial buildings, while the northern bank, due to the lack of space at the foot of the Bruggerberg, or 6.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.5% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 7.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 24.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 14.7%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.1%. 27.9% of the total land area was heavily forested. Of the agricultural land, 8.3% is used for growing crops and 4.0% is pastures, while 1.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in rivers and streams.
Brugg is bordered by the municipalities of Rüfenach and Villigen to the north; Untersiggenthal and Gebenstorf to the northeast; Windisch and Lupfig to the east; Hausen, Habsburg, Holderbank, and Veltheim to the south; Villnachern and Schinznach to the west; and Riniken and Bözberg to the northwest. Over time the built-up areas of Brugg have grown into the neighboring communities of Umiken and Windisch.
Enlargement of the municipality
Up until the 19th century Brugg consisted of only one-tenth of its current surface area. The municipality's expansion began in 1823 with the purchase of around one-fourth of the territory of the neighboring community of Lauffohr. This was followed by the acquisition of a number of properties in 1827 from Umiken. Windisch sold the area around the train station in 1863 and transferred the land around the gas works in 1912. The village of Altenburg was incorporated into Brugg in 1901, and was followed in 1970 by the remainder of Lauffohr.On 1 January 2010 the municipality of Umiken and on 1 January 2020 the municipality of Schinznach Bad merged into Brugg.
History
Before the Municipality’s Establishment
Archeological discoveries from the prehistoric era are scant. Two blades and fragments of a stone ax from the early Stone Age as well as a sickle from the Bronze Age are all that have been unearthed.In 58 BC, or shortly thereafter, the Helvetii, who had returned to the Swiss Plateau following the Battle of Bibracte, founded the settlement of Vindonissa on a hill between the Aare and Reuss on what is today territory of the neighboring community of Windisch.
The Romans constructed a military post at Vindonissa around 15 BC, which they expanded into an encampment of a Roman Legion. At this time the first wooden bridge over the Aare was built as part of a Roman road across the Jura mountains to Augusta Raurica. It was the only position along the Aare between Lake Thun and the Rhine at which the river could be crossed with a single log. Remains of around 350 Roman graves have since been discovered within Brugg, where two large Roman burial grounds were located, and archeologists estimate that a total of 7,000 graves exist.
After the invasion of the Alemanni between 259 and 270 AD the Romans converted Vindonissa back into a camp of a Roman Legion, breaking with a 170-year "civilian phase." Around 370 AD the Romans established a fort as part of the Donau-Iller-Rhine-Limes-System in Altenburg. The Romans, though, ultimately withdrew between the years 401 and 406 AD. Settlement of the Alemanni in their stead has been traced to the 7th century. The toponymy is first recorded as Bruggo in 1064.
In the late 10th century a noble dynasty under Lanzelin, which was possibly related to the Alsatian Etichonids, settled in Altenburg. He expanded the established Roman fort into the Altenburg Castle and made it his seat. Around 1020 Lanzelin's son, Radbot, ordered the construction of the Habsburg Castle approximately three kilometers to the southwest on the Wülpelsberg in the modern town of Habsburg. A few decades later the royal house adopted the castle's name as its own. Consequently, Altenburg is the first verifiable residence of the Habsburgs. With the acquisition of this territory between the Aare and Reuss, known as the "Eigenamt," the Habsburgs established the steppingstone of their imperium.
Habsburg Rule
The earliest documented use of the name Bruggo has been dated to the year 1064, when Count Werner I attested to the possession of goods on the part of Muri Abbey in the area. The exact date, however, is contentious, as the Acta Murensia was first drawn up in 1160 and included a number of various older documents. Between 1164 and 1174 the place was mentioned as Brucca and between 1227 and 1234 as Brukke. At the end of the 12th century the Black Tower, or Schwarze Turm, was constructed at the behest of Count Albrecht III, Werner II's son. The Black Tower is the oldest standing structure remaining in Brugg's old town today.During the 13th century the settlement at the fortified river crossing took on the characteristics of a small town. Coins were minted from 1232, while a toll post was established in 1273. The town had a mayor, or Schultheiss, by 1278 and the first mention of a market can be traced to 1283. The importance of Brugg to the Habsburg can be seen in their decision to relocate to the town between 1220 and 1230. The confines of the Habsburg Castle had become too small for the family members that lived there. In 1242 the town is said to have been plundered by supporters of the Habsburg's Laufenburg Line.
Rudolf I, who spent a great deal of time in Brugg before his election to King of the Romans, awarded Brugg city rights, or Stadtrecht, on 23 July 1284. The decree awarding this new status was identical, word for word, to that of the town of Aarau. At the same time Brugg was granted independence from the Eigenamt and became a separate polity. Although the Habsburgs had moved their center of power a few years earlier to Vienna, they continued to maintain close ties with Brugg. The "Austrian House," later known as "Effingerhof," served as accommodations and a headquarters during military conflicts throughout this period of time in the Austrian forelands.
On 1 May 1308 King Albrecht I was murdered by his nephew John Parricida in the neighboring community of Windisch. In memory of this event his wife, Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, founded Königsfelden Abbey, a Franciscan monastery and Clarisse convent, in 1310–11 at the site – approximately 200 meters from Brugg. Albrecht's oldest daughter, Agnes of Hungary, the widow of the Hungarian King Andrew III, moved to Königsfelden in 1317 and led it to commercial success, but did not join a religious order. In 1348 she received the sovereign rights to Brugg as well as the neighboring districts of Bözberg and the Eigenamt from her brother Duke Albrecht II. These rights lapsed after her death in 1364.
Although the town was under Habsburg control, there were still the beginnings of an independent polity. In the 1350s Brugg agreed to association, or Burgrecht, treaties with Baden and Mellingen and with the Cloister of Wittichen in the upper Kinzig Valley. The departments of Bözburg and Eigenamt, upon their reversion of Habsburg control in 1364, also fell under the military leadership of the town. During this time the Austrians regularly assembled their armed forces in Brugg, as Duke Leopold III did in 1386 prior to the Battle of Sempach.
Conquest and Conflict
fell into disregard at the Council of Constance in 1415, after he assisted the flight of the opposition Pope John XXIII. In response, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund requested the Swiss to take control of Aargau. Bern did not hesitate and dispatched troops at once. The residents of Brugg did not resist the invaders and allowed them to enter the town unopposed. In return Bern left the town alone.The town and the Eigenamt, in turn, found themselves in the northeasternmost section of Bern's subject territories, known as Bernese Aargau. At the same time, the Habsburgs relinquished control of Schenkenberg, originally in the district of Bözberg, to creditors they had pledged the territory to following their loss in the Battle of Sempach. This left Brugg in a predicament as its periphery and forest on the Bruggerburg along the northern bank of the Aare remained outside of the jurisdiction of Bern. Brugg was therefore required to consult regularly with the rulers of Schenkenberg concerning its northern territory.
King Frederick III of the House of Habsburg joined with Zürich in 1443 in the Old Zürich War and demanded the return of his Argovian territories. The residents of Brugg expected an economic boost upon the return of the Habsburgs and were therefore sympathetic to Zürich's cause. Brugg's location at the edge of Bern's territory had led to a substantial economic slowdown in town. As Zürich was besieged by troops from the other Swiss cantons, French King Charles VII dispatched Armagnac mercenaries to the conflict region to aid Zürich. To assist in their advance towards the town, Brugg was attacked on the night of the 29th / 30 July 1444. A small band led by Baron Thomas von Falkenstein sneaked down the Bruggerberg and forced its way through town, ransacking homes and setting a number of them ablaze. Many citizens were kidnapped in the ensuing chaos and held for ransom.
Although the ordeal did not cause many deaths, it was nonetheless characterized as a downright massacre by Zürich's opponents and subsequently referred to as the "Brugg Night of Murder". In retaliation, forces from Bern and Solothurn attacked and destroyed Falkenstein's family seat near Niedergösgen. Meanwhile, the Armagnac's advance was halted at the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs on 26 August 1444, making the raid on Brugg militarily insignificant. On 5 September 1445 troops from Zürich launched another assault on Brugg, but their raid was detected at an early stage and consequently repelled, whereupon they pillaged surrounding villages.
In 1451, Thüring of Aarburg sold Schenkenberg to Hans and Markwart of Baldegg. The new rulers and Brugg soon found themselves in conflict with one another over Brugg's right to use the Bruggerberg. The Baldeggs, who had demonstratively aligned themselves with the Austrians, considered their territory on the northern bank of the Aare to be their personal property and took offense at the town's claims upon it. By 1460, Bern had had enough of the constant harassment of its subject town and seized the dominion.
All residents of Brugg were thereafter subjects of Bern. Nonetheless, this changed little on the outskirts of town, as Bern's border had been pushed to the north by only a few kilometers, and conflict continued to impair the town's economy. During the eighty years subsequent to the "Brugg Night of Murder" the population of Brugg was halved and surrounding communities were able to expand their trading areas and markets at the expense of Brugg.