Murten

Murten or Morat is a municipality in the See district of the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.

It is located on the southern shores of Lake Morat, also commonly called Lake Murten. Morat is situated between Berne and Lausanne and is the capital of the See/Lac District of the canton of Fribourg. It is one of the municipalities with a majority (about 75%) of German speakers in the predominantly French-speaking Canton of Fribourg.

On 1 January 1975 the former municipality of Burg bei Murten merged into the municipality of Murten. It was followed on 1 January 1991 by the former municipality of Altavilla and on 1 January 2013 by the former municipality of Büchslen. On 1 January 2016 the former municipalities of Courlevon, Jeuss, Lurtigen and Salvenach merged into Morat(Murten).

History

The oldest archaeological traces of a settlement around Morat are from the Mesolithic (8200-5500 BC). The Mesolithic finds are mostly small flint shards for use in weapons or tools. These flints were produced mostly in the swampy lowlands east of the city at Murten-Combette and Murten-Ober Prehl. While many of these flint objects are in museums, the exact discovery sites were not properly documented and have been lost or covered by later excavations. Several other sites were discovered during construction of the A1 motorway in 1976-95. These settlements are from the Neolithic (5500-2500 BC) and the Bronze Age (2300-800 BC). Murten Pré de la Blanc was used in the Neolithic and middle Bronze Age, while the sites Murten-Lowenberg, Murten-Ober Prehl and Chantemerle 1 are from the Late Bronze Age. The cemetery at Lowenberg was used for more than a millennium, from the middle Bronze Age to the La Tène period. The nearby necropolis holds a number of Hallstatt era graves. The remains of a large Roman villa from the end of 1st or early 2nd century BC and a piece of a Roman road have also been found.

The town's name derives from the Celtic word moriduno, meaning "lakeside fortress". It was first mentioned in 515 as a defensive place called "Muratum". In 1013 the area was fortified by King Rudolph III of Burgundy. The fortifications were attacked and occupied by Odo II of Blois-Champagne in 1032 during the conflict after Rudolph's death. Odo only held Murten briefly before Emperor Conrad II besieged and destroyed the castle. In 1079 Emperor Henry IV granted Muratum and other properties to the Bishop of Lausanne.

Murten was founded by Duke Berchtold IV of Zähringen or Landri de Durnes, the Bishop of Lausanne in either 1159 or during the 1170s or 1180s next to the fortress. Murten was first mentioned as a city in 1238. After his death the German emperor Frederic II recognized Murten as a "Free Imperial Town". At that time the emperor himself lived in the south of Italy and a small town north of the Alps was not his concern. It did not last long – in 1255 Murten fell under the protection of Count Peter of Savoy. When Philip I of Savoy refused to give Morat to him, King Rudolph of Habsburg seized it as a royal estate. After Rudolf's death Amadeus V of Savoy, bought the city again in 1291, but lost it to King Albert I of Germany again. The House of Savoy bought the city and surrounding lands again in 1310 for 4,000 marks of silver. This time the city remained under Savoy control. During this time, Murten began to develop alliances and ties with the surrounding Swiss cities. In 1245 they created a treaty with Fribourg, followed in 1335 with Bern.

A fire in 1416 led to rebuilding in stone.

On 22 June 1476, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, laid siege to the place in an action known as the Battle of Morat. The town hung on for 13 days but finally was saved by the Bernese army. The enemy's army was destroyed completely — some 10,000 Burgundians were killed. Since then, Murten celebrates the victory every year on June 22.

From 1484 on, and for 300 years, Murten was ruled by the two cantons — Bern and Fribourg. In 1530, under pressure from Bern, Murten adopted the Protestant Reformation, after the preacher Guillaume Farel began to preach the new faith. Murten's Protestant faith often brought the city into conflicts with the more conservative, Catholic Fribourg.

During the second half of the 17th century the city grew wealthy on trade over the road from Bern to Vaud and along the Broye river to Yverdon. Most of the houses in the city were rebuilt with this wealth. Although Bern and Fribourg had already granted Murten permission in 1584 to form guilds, the coopers, carpenters, locksmiths and cabinet makers first formed their guilds in 1731. In the late 17th century a brickyard and a brewery were built outside of town.

Following the 1798 French invasion, under the Helvetic Republic Murten was part of the Canton of Sarine and Broye. When the Republic collapsed, the Act of Mediation in 1803 gave the town to the canton of Fribourg.

Industrialization began in Murten in the early 1850s when Etienne-Ovide Domon founded a watch factory, which was later moved to Montelier. The Petitpierre family operated an absinthe distillery between 1831–1901 and Oskar Roggen ran a winery from 1888-1913. Since 1855 Murten has had its own newspaper, the "Murtenbieter". In the 20th Century other industries settled in Murten; especially in the field of precision engineering, electronics and food. In 1973, the Swiss Federal Railways bought Löwenberg Castle and lands from the family de Rougemont, to establish a training center.

In 1856, a plan to run the Lausanne-Bern railway line through Morat was shelved and the line was rerouted through Fribourg. The loss of revenue from transportation affected Murten for almost twenty years. This changed in 1875-76 with the construction of the Palézieux-Murten-Lyss railway line. This first line was followed in 1898 with the Fribourg-Murten line and in 1903 with the Murten-Ins line. Steamship service between Murten and Neuchâtel began in 1835. The Bon Vouloir Hospital, opened in 1867 in Merlach and by the 1920s it became the district hospital. The tourism industry, began with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Morat in 1876.

Geography

Morat has an area of 17.41 km2 (6.72 sq mi). Before the mergers expanded the municipal borders, 6.19 km2 (2.39 sq mi) or 51.4% was used for agricultural purposes, while 3.16 km2 (1.22 sq mi) or 26.2% were forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.6 km2 (1.0 sq mi) or 21.6% were settled (buildings or roads), 0.03 km2 (7.4 acres) or 0.2% were either rivers or lakes and 0.03 km2 (7.4 acres) or 0.2% was unproductive land.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 9.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.1%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 40.4% is used for growing crops and 9.5% is pastures, while 1.4% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The small medieval town lies in the Swiss "Midlands" on the edge of the Great Marsh, on a gentle hill (450 m (1,480 ft) above sea level) and on the shore of Lake Morat (or the Murtensee in German). Numerous attractions from a significant past have been well preserved here, such as the castle, the ring wall, the street scene and the arcades. Lake Morat is a smaller lake located in between Lake Biel and the lake Neuchâtel.

Mont Vully stands on the western side of the Seeland's largest plain and resembles a pearl gently placed among the three lakes of Murten, Neuchâtel and Biel/Bienne. Already long ago, the Celtic and Helvetic tribes appreciated the region's temperate climate and the local countryside's particular charm. Today, the Vully vineyards take up a large part of the south face of Mont Vully. The over 100 hectares of vineyards are facing towards Lake Morat.

Morat is also famous in history for the defeat of Charles the Bold by the Swiss in 1476. The former fortified city has kept most of its ramparts and towers.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent a Lion rampant Gules crowned and armed Or on Coupeaux Vert.

Heritage sites of national significance

The farm house at Erli 2, Murten's city walls, the Grosshaus at Hauptgasse 43, the Rathaus or town council house, Löwenberg Castle and the Old School House in Valvenach are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire old city of Murten's and the village of Lurtigen are part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

• Farm House at Erli 2

• City Walls

• Grosshaus at Hauptgasse 43

• Rathaus (Town council house)

• Löwenberg Castle

• Old school house building

World heritage site

It is home to the prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlement at Segelboothafen that is part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Segelboothafen (sail boat haven/harbour) site is located along the lake shore at the foot of the old town's hill. The site dates to the Middle and Final Neolithic period. Some of the piles were dendrochronologically dated to the late Cortaillod Middle Neolithic around 3552 BC and the Final Neolithic around 2534 BC. The site was first excavated in 1883-84 by Süsstruck. Later excavations found one or two strata that are up to 40 cm (16 in) thick and a field of wooden piles. Archeological finds included pottery, stone tools, wooden objects and animal bones.

Religion

From the 2000 census, 1,675 or 30.0% were Roman Catholic, while 2,661 or 47.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 96 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.72% of the population), there were 3 individuals (or about 0.05% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 338 individuals (or about 6.06% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 2 individuals (or about 0.04% of the population) who were Jewish, and 281 (or about 5.04% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 7 individuals who were Buddhist, 5 individuals who were Hindu and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 448 (or about 8.03% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 222 individuals (or about 3.98% of the population) did not answer the question.

Weather

Murten has an average of 126.2 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives 995 mm (39.2 in) of precipitation. The wettest month is June during which time Murten receives an average of 106 mm (4.2 in) of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 11 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 13.3, but with only 96 mm (3.8 in) of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is February with an average of 67 mm (2.6 in) of precipitation over 10 days.