Disentis

Disentis grew around a Benedictine abbey in the upper Rhine valley, near the route over the Lukmanier Pass. Founded in the early eighth century, the monastery already possessed extensive lands when Bishop Tello of Chur left it further property in 765. Its position on a route used by emperors travelling to Italy helped the abbots acquire estates extending as far as Lombardy. In the eleventh century Abbot Udalric became a prince of the Empire.

The abbey's subjects had their own magistrate from 1371, and its territory, known as Cadi, became an autonomous community of the Grey League in 1401. From 1472 the magistrate was chosen from candidates proposed by the abbot; by the seventeenth century the community elected him freely. The monastery joined the Swiss Benedictine Congregation in 1617, and its buildings were refurbished in Baroque style in the following decades.