Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen, capital of Schaffhausen canton, northern Switzerland, on the right bank of the Rhine, west of Lake Constance (Bodensee). The site was first mentioned in 1045 as Villa Scafhusun. About 1049 Count Eberhard III of Nellenburg founded there the Benedictine monastery of All Saints, around which the community developed. The town became a free imperial city between 1190 and 1218 but fell under Habsburg domination from 1330, until it bought its independence in 1415. It allied with the Swiss Confederation against the Habsburgs in 1454 and was admitted as a full member in 1501.

The Protestant Münster, or cathedral (consecrated 1103), formerly the church of the All Saints monastery, has a bell (cast in 1486) inscribed “vivos voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango” (“I call the living, I toll the dead, I break lightning bolts”), which is said to have inspired Friedrich Schiller’s famous poem “Das Lied von der Glocke” (“The Lay of the Bell”). The former monastery now houses the municipal museum. Other notable landmarks are the round, massive Munot Fort (1564–85), the parish church (1460–1517), the old (1382–1412) and new (1617) town halls, and the Haus zum Ritter, or the Knight’s House (1485), with frescoes by Tobias Stimmer.

A busy rail junction and tourist centre, it manufactures machinery, chemicals, metal products, and watches. Important hydroelectric plants are nearby on the Rhine, there noted for its magnificent Rhine Falls, 2 miles (3 km) southwest. The population is German speaking and predominantly Protestant. Pop. (2007 est.) 33,459.