St. Othmar Chapel Werd Island

The earliest traces date back to the time of the pile-dwelling people, whose remains—a Bronze Age settlement—were excavated in 1932. The Romans also had a large settlement here, the largest so-called civilian settlement in the canton of Thurgau. The first abbot of the Abbey of St. Gallen, Otmar, died in 759 on the island of Werd after being exiled there as a prisoner by the Franks. The abbot was buried on the island, but ten years later the monks from St. Gallen brought his remains back to their abbey and reburied him. A chapel was built on the former burial site of St. Otmar in the 10th century. At the same time, Emperor Otto I donated the island of Werd to the Abbey of Einsiedeln. The clergy of Eschenz now found a place to live in the priests’ house added in the 12th/13th century.