Interlaken

Between lakes Thun and Brienz, the Aare crosses a flat stretch of land beneath the Bernese Alps. Here an Augustinian monastery was founded around 1133, controlling a bridge and collecting tolls from those who crossed it. A village and a mill grew beside the monastery, while another settlement stood across the river. By the thirteenth century the monastery had become a major landholder, with authority over churches, villages and farms across the neighbouring valleys.

Debt and disputes with tenants weakened the monastery in the later Middle Ages. Bern secularised it during the Reformation in 1528 and placed its lands under a bailiff; tenants who had hoped for relief from payments rebelled and were suppressed. Part of the monastery became an administrative seat, while another part housed a hospital. In the eighteenth century a new castle replaced its western wing. The villages around the mill also disputed their common fields and woods, finally dividing their shared property in 1810.