Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen stands on the High Rhine, above the great falls that interrupt navigation downstream. The counts of Nellenburg founded the Benedictine monastery of All Saints here around 1050, and the town grew around it. Its citizens gradually limited the abbot's power, receiving a charter of liberties from Emperor Rudolf I in 1277. An imperial city, Schaffhausen nevertheless passed into Habsburg hands when Emperor Louis of Bavaria pledged it to the dynasty in 1330.

By 1411 the guilds governed the town. When Duke Frederick IV of Austria was placed under the imperial ban after supporting a rival pope at the Council of Constance, his need for money gave Schaffhausen an opportunity to buy its freedom in 1418. The town allied with members of the Swiss Confederacy and joined it fully in 1501. The Reformation was completed here in 1529. During the Thirty Years' War, passing Swedish and Bavarian troops inflicted heavy damage, and the bridge across the Rhine burned.