Date

Circa 1910

The current Romanesque Minster dates from 1103; the bell tower and nave have been restored. Beside the cathedral, the Romanesque-Gothic cloister is the largest in Switzerland. A former Benedictine Abbey, it was consecrated by Leo IX, 22 November 1049. Given a Papal grant of lands in 1080; an Imperial Abbey of the Holy Roman Empire. Converted to a monastery and cathedral church in 1524; dissolved in the Reformation in 1529. Today a city museum is within the complex, and the Minster is open for tours. In the cathedral courtyard sits the gigantic Schiller Bell, cast in 1486: its Latin inscription of vivos voco/mortuos plango/fulgura frango ("I call on the living, lament the dead, halt the lightning") is supposed to have inspired German poet Friedrich Schiller to compose his Song of the Clock despite the fact that Schiller never set foot in Schaffhausen.