Berthoud (Burgdorf)

Berthoud — Burgdorf in German — was built on two levels, at 533 metres, where the Emme leaves the Emmental. Below, the lower town and its network of canals; above, the upper town, packed along a single street, and the castle set on its spur. The drop between them is such that in 1835 a road had to be built that bridges over itself to climb it. The upper town has been closed to through traffic since 1989; one walks there between sandstone façades with coloured shutters, up to the church, built at the end of the 15th century, whose rood screen ranks among the major pieces of late Gothic stone carving in Switzerland.

Everything starts with the castle. It appears in the records in 1084 as castellum Bertaldi ducis, in the chronicle of Bernold of Constance, before the settlement itself is mentioned in 1175. The Zähringen line died out in 1218; the Kyburgs succeeded them and in 1273 the Goldene Handfeste came into force, the oldest surviving version of Burgdorf's town law — some of its provisions remained in use for more than 500 years, until the end of the Old Swiss Confederacy. In 1384, at the close of the Burgdorf war, the town passed to Bern, formally by purchase.

The French name does not come from the founder. Berthoud points to Berthold I of Rheinfelden, the owner named in the record of 1084, and not to Berthold IV of Zähringen. The town also has a long habit of beginnings: a press printed seven Latin theological works here in 1475-1476; Pestalozzi worked out his teaching method here from 1800 to 1804 and set it down in How Gertrude Teaches Her Children; and in 1899 the Burgdorf-to-Thun line opened as the first fully electrified standard-gauge railway in Switzerland, running on three-phase current at 750 volts and 40 hertz.

Why this place is remarkable

Berthoud adds up verifiable firsts rather than superlatives: a written town law preserved since 1273 and applied for more than 500 years, a press at work from 1475, the Pestalozzi method developed on the spot between 1800 and 1804, and the first electrified standard-gauge railway in Switzerland, opened on 21 July 1899. All of it can still be read in a two-level plan, castle above, canals below, which 1989 gave back to walking.

History and origin

The castle, recorded in 1084 and held by the Zähringen, controlled the entrance to the Emmental. After the line died out in 1218 the Kyburgs held the town and granted it wide autonomy, set down in 1273 in the Goldene Handfeste. Ruined, they ceded it in 1384 to Bern, which installed its bailiffs there until 1798. The Reformation was introduced in 1528 and the church altars removed. A fire destroyed about 60 houses in the upper town in 1706; the Solennität school festival, for its part, has been held since 1729.