Konstanz

Konstanz stands where the Rhine leaves Lake Constance, on the way from southern Germany over the Graubünden passes to Italy. Bishop Maximus moved here from Vindonissa around 585 and built a first church on the foundations of the late Roman fortress. The town stood at the centre of the linen trade, and its cloth was sold as tela di Costanza. In 1376 it helped found the Swabian League of Towns, and in 1388, at the height of its wealth, it built a warehouse on the harbour. Opening of the Gotthard pass then shifted trade to the route through Zürich and Basel, and the town stagnated.

From 1414 to 1418 the Council of Constance brought many more guests than the town's 6,000 inhabitants. The warehouse on the harbour housed the conclave that elected Martin V on 11 November 1417, the only papal election north of the Alps, and ended the Western Schism; the cathedral served as the council hall. Here the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus was burned on 6 July 1415, and Jerome of Prague on 30 May 1416.

The city became Protestant in 1527, and the bishops moved to Meersburg. After the Schmalkaldic War the emperor put it under the ban in 1548; the citizens beat off Spanish troops at the Rhine Gate, but Austrian besiegers forced it to surrender, and it lost its freedom. Konstanz was made Catholic again, withstood a Swedish siege in 1633 and passed to Baden in 1806.