Reformation in Zürich
The Reformation in Zürich was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrates of the city of Zürich and the princess abbess Katharina von Zimmern of the Fraumünster Abbey, and the population of the city of Zürich and agriculture-oriented population of the present Canton of Zürich in the early 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy, and thus initiated the Reformation in Switzerland. Prologue At the time of the reformation, the city of Zürich was mainly dominated by the ancient families of Zürich and the guild representatives in the Kleiner Rat and Grosser Rat. The Kleiner Rat was equivalent to the executive branch of government. After about the 1490s, the Grosser Rat was mainly an equivalent of present-day committees to assist. Those dominating Zürich supported, in the late European Middle Ages, the then popular mendicant orders by attributing them free plots in the suburbs. The mendicant orders were asked to support the construction of the city wall in return. The city's fortification's construction began in the late 11th or 12th century and further on. Fraumünster Abbey was established in 873 AD, and its abbesses were imperial representans, i.e. de facto the mistresses of the city republic of Zürich to 1524 AD. Memorial measurements in Zürich usually had to be held until the 14th century at Grossmünster, because thus the most income was achieved. Until the Reformation in Switzerland, all income obtained with the funerals had also to be delivered to the main parish church. Within the city, the mendicant orders, namely Predigerkloster and Augustinerkloster in the 15th-century have been reduced to the function of area pastors, thus the orders supported regime of the Guilds of Zürich. The priories at Grossmünster and St. Peter were responsible for all religion related questions and decisions. The Oetenbach nunnery (1321 AD) became influential, as the convent of the Fraumünster had been for centuries. Nuns from both women's monasteries came from noble families. As a result, they owned the most financial resources and estates in the so-called Zürichgau. These estates were leased to the rural population who had to bring their products to feed Zürich. Furthermore, the water mills and the coinage right were held by the Fraumünster Abbey. Some local power was also held by the merchants, who had primarily secured the long distance trade outside the Old Swiss Confederacy. Later, the Guilds held power through the institution of the Grosser Rat, and the guilds' 12 deans in the Kleiner Rat, in the 14th and 15th century. Huldrych Zwingli Zwingli was born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a Renaissance humanism. He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus. In 1518, Zwingli became the pastor