Delémont

Delémont lies in a broad valley of the Jura, beside the Sorne near its meeting with the Birs. Recorded as Delemonte in 736–737, it passed to the bishop of Basel in 1271. Bishop Peter Reich von Reichenstein granted it a charter in 1289, allowing the town a measure of self-government and the right to distribute land. Walls and four gates enclosed its streets.

The town obtained rights to tax wine and food in 1338 and to sell salt in the valleys of Delémont and Moutier in 1461. A fire destroyed much of it in 1487. During the Reformation, the canons of Moutier-Grandval fled to Delémont, where they used Saint-Marcel as their collegiate church. The bishop's castle was rebuilt as a summer residence in 1716–1721. French revolutionary troops took the town in 1793; after Napoleon's fall it passed to Bern in 1815.