St Columban
There are hardly any direct witnesses to the activities of Irish “pilgrims” in Switzerland – above all St Columban of Luxeuil (died ad 615) and his companions – that one can still visit today. Their journey in search of a place to establish another monastery first led them in about ad 610 through the pagan Alemanni territory of Basel via Vindonissa and Zurich to Tuggen at the upper end of Lake Zurich. The local authority has “eternalised” the presence of the Irish missionaries in its coat of arms; and archaeologists have proven that the first church in Tuggen was built about ad 700.
Later, Columban and his companions travelled via Pfyn to Arbon, where they met a Christian community that dated back to the days of Roman Christianity. Their next stop was pagan Bregenz, where they established a community of monks. However, Columban carried on further to Italy, eventually reaching Bobbio.
The only one to stay on Swiss territory was St Gall (died around ad 640), who in ad 614 settled as a hermit on the Steinach. Like the hermit Meinrad in Einsiedeln about two hundred years later, Gall’s monk’s cell was later the nucleus for the founding of the St Gallen Monastery, where the monastery rules of St Columban were observed until ad 746.
Worth a visit:
In search of traces in Arbon
St.Gallen
The pilgrim group accompanying Columban and Gall would supposedly have heard a forged bell, the Gall Bell. Today it is kept in St Gallen Cathedral and is regarded as being one of the oldest intact bells for Church use in Europe.