Abbaye de Saint-Gall

Saint-Gall

An Irish monk named Gall, a companion of Columbanus of Luxeuil, settled here and died in 646. The abbey was not founded until 719, when Charles Martel entrusted the keeping of his relics to Othmar. In the 9^th century it became one of the greatest copying workshops of the West, and its schools shone across the whole Empire. A Magyar invasion, between 924 and 933, forced the collections to be evacuated to Reichenau; the Toggenburg War scattered them again in 1712, to Zurich and Bern. Abbatial rule came to an end in 1805. The library preserves the most singular document of the early Western Middle Ages: the Plan of Saint Gall.

Getting there : Inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1983; admission charge for the abbey library, more than 100,000 visitors in 2016

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound