History of the villages of the Lac district (Fribourg)
The 54 documented localities of the Lac district, in the canton of Fribourg. Each page covers the origin of the name, the main stages of its history and its remains, with sources.
Towns and villages 52
Agriswil
Agriswil belonged to the Cluniac priory of Villars-les-Moines. In 1990, 73 % of its inhabitants worked outside the village, against 8 % in 1970.
FRAltavilla
Called « Alta villa » in 1340, the village became « Altenfüllen » in the 16th century. Its ground has yielded Hallstatt burial mounds and traces of Roman settlement.
FRBarberêche
Above the Sarine cliffs, Petit-Vivy is a rare surviving example of a small triangular castle. Shortly before 1293 it replaced the castle of Grand-Vivy, by then already in ruins.
FRBüchslen
Büchslen, « Buchillion » in 1339, belonged to the priory of Payerne from the 12th century. A municipality from 1831, the village is still part of the Bernese parish of Ferenbalm.
FRBurg bei Murten
The Russian revolutionary Alexander Iwanowitsch Herzen became a citizen of Burg bei Murten in 1851. The village name, « Chastel » in 1340, is said to come from a stronghold never found.
FRChandossel
Around 1327 Hermann de Cressier founded the charterhouse of Val de la Paix at Chandossel. It was suppressed as early as around 1333.
FRClavaleyres
From 1807 to 2021 the small German-speaking village of Clavaleyres was a Bernese enclave inside the canton of Fribourg. On 1 January 2022 it changed canton by joining Murten, the first change to Fribourg's territory since the 19th century.
FRCordast
In 1848 Cordast was assigned against its will to the Lake district. Until 1870 it tried in vain, with the other municipalities of the parish of Gurmels, to move to the Sense district.
FRCormérod
A Roman villa at Cormérod was adorned with a 3rd-century mosaic showing Theseus fighting the Minotaur in the labyrinth.
FRCourgevaux
Courgevaux (Gurwolf), a bilingual village on the road from Murten to Fribourg, saw the Diesbach manor built in 1684 and the small castle of the Herrenschwand estate in 1688.
FRCourlevon
The Fribourgeois burnt Courlevon in 1448, and fire swept through the village again in 1790. Its chapel of St Lawrence had gone before the Reformation.
FRCournillens
Pilgrims came to the chapel of Saint-Léger at Cournillens for its water, which was believed to cure eye diseases.
FRCourtaman
Excavations in 1873 yielded Roman bronze statuettes, including a Venus. With Micarna's arrival in Courtepin in 1960, the village grew from 221 inhabitants in 1950 to 1'054 in 2000.
FRCourtepin
The station on the Fribourg-Murten line, built in 1898, gave rise to a new quarter beside the old farming village. The Sadem works settled here in 1903, followed by Micarna in 1960.
FRCourtion
In 1960 Courtion saw the first oil drilling ever attempted on Fribourg soil. Nothing came of it.
FRCoussiberlé
Coussiberlé, « Corsibellay » in 1425, had some thirty inhabitants around 1558. Joined to Courgevaux in 1832, it broke away in 1871 and linked up with Courlevon.
FRCressier
The manor house of Cressier keeps painted decoration from about 1665 to 1691, regarded as the most important in the canton. The de Reynold family, that of the writer Gonzague de Reynold, owned it until 1980.
FRFräschels
Fräschels, the northernmost municipality of the canton of Fribourg, had a hospice of the Teutonic Order in 1225. In 1795 its people and those of Kerzers fought three Bernese municipalities over land in the Grosses Moos.
FRGalmiz
At the end of 2004 the Fribourg government agreed to rezone farmland at Galmiz as building land for a multinational pharmaceutical group, a decision that drew reactions across Switzerland.
FRGempenach
The Forstmatte at Gempenach held one of the largest Early and Middle La Tène cemeteries in the canton. A gravel pit destroyed it in the 19th century, with no record made.
FRGreng
On the Spitz headland at Greng, a Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling village is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The castle, built in 1785-1787 to plans by Charles de Castella, became a much-frequented meeting place.
FRGrossguschelmuth
In 1700 the farmers of Guschelmuth, who owed dues to the Burghers' Hospital of Fribourg, bought their freedom. A century later Grossguschelmuth built its chapel of St John the Baptist.
FRGuévaux
Divided between Vaud and Fribourg since the 14th century, Guévaux has only two mansions and two winegrowers' houses. On the Fribourg side, the bailiff Jean Bernard Kilchberger built Les Rondas in 1742.
FRGurmels
Excavations on the Dürenberg show continuous occupation from the Mesolithic to Roman times. On this hill stands a chapel of Our Lady, attested in 1339, which became a much-visited place of pilgrimage.
FRJeuss
The Jeuss forge, mentioned in 1334, is one of the oldest country forges in the region. On the edge of the Galm forest, the avoyer of Murten had a leased estate, the Galmgut, built in 1737-1738.
FRKerzers
The cemetery around the church of Kerzers (Chiètres) was used from the 6th or 7th century until 1876. In the 20th century the village became the largest municipality of the Grosses Moos.
FRKleinbösingen
For a century, from 1883 to 1982, Kleinbösingen shared its administration with Liebistorf. On the Saane, a former gravel pit at the Auried has become a 15-hectare nature reserve.
FRKleingurmels
In 1982, after a century of joint administration with Gurmels, the assembly of Kleingurmels voted to separate. The village thus became the smallest municipality in the canton.
FRLiebistorf
In 1271 the knight Berthold von Schüpfen gave a mill at Liebistorf to the Knights Hospitaller of St John in Fribourg. Later the local lords, the von Diesbach family, called themselves Diesbach-Liebistorf.
FR · TownLugnorre
Seat of a lordship that took in Môtier, Joressant and Mur, Lugnorre obtained its franchises in 1398, before being sold to the town of Murten in 1469.
FRLurtigen
Lurtigen lies in a clearing still ringed by forest in the early 21st century, an almost unique case on the Swiss Plateau. Its village bakehouse, probably of 1760, holds an archive cupboard dated 1738.
FRMeyriez
The church of St John at Meyriez (Merlach), mentioned in 1228, stands on the site of a probably Merovingian sanctuary. In 1239 the avoyer of Murten handed it over to the Premonstratensian abbey of Fontaine-André.
FRMisery
In 1460 Petermann de Faucigny buys the fortified house of Misery, a manor that wall paintings decorate in the years 1470-1480.
FR · Merger 1997Misery-Courtion
Dropped in 1987 because the subsidy on offer was too small, the merger of the four villages of the parish of Courtion went through in 1996 by an overwhelming majority.
FR · Merger 2016Mont-Vully
Rejected in Bas-Vully in 1983 and again in 2003, the union of the two Vully municipalities went through in 2015, narrowly in Haut-Vully, by 371 votes to 360.
FRMonterschu
In the mid-18th century the Fégely family built a manor house at Monterschu. Under the will of Maria Fégely it became an orphanage, run by the Baldegg Sisters from 1909 to 1961.
FRMôtier (Vully)
The church of Saint-Pierre at Môtier, built on Romanesque foundations, served the whole Fribourg Vully. On the shore, the Neolithic site Môtier I has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 2011.
FRMuntelier
Muntelier (Montilier) has six Neolithic lake-dwelling villages, dated between 3890 and 2625 BC. Its church of St Maurice, demolished in 1762, was the parish church of Murten.
FRMur (FR)
Split in two by the border between Vaud and Fribourg, Mur keeps on its Fribourg side a tithe barn of 1710 and the manor Jean-Rodolphe Fischer made out of a winegrower's house in 1760.
FR · TownMurten
Recorded in 515 as « Muratum », Murten became a town in the 1170s or 1180s. The ring wall laid out in 1238 survives almost in full.
FRNant
A village in two parts, one on the shore of Lake Murten and the other at the foot of Mont Vully, Nant keeps the ruin of the Saracens' Tower, built in the 12th and 13th centuries.
FRPensier
In 1903 the manor of the Gottrau de Pensier took in Dominican sisters from France, who opened an international girls' boarding school there. The house is now the Centre Saint-Dominique.
FRPraz (Vully)
The oldest and largest patrician winegrower's house in the Vully stands at Praz: the d'Erlach-Velga house, built in the 1520s.
FRRied bei Kerzers
Ried bei Kerzers was still called Oberried in 1901. This street village on the edge of the Grosses Moos, which had two mills, turned to market gardening from the end of the 19th century.
FRSalvenach
Sitting right on the language border, Salvenach opened a French school in 1679, which became German as early as 1683. The village kept the « Ringskiste », the chest holding the deeds of the Galm forest.
FRSugiez
On the edge of the Grand-Marais, Sugiez has been home since 1898 to the cantonal prison of Bellechasse. Six Roman bridges and three river ports have been found on its land.
FRUlmiz
On the eve of the battle of Morat, in the night of 21 to 22 June 1476, the Confederates pitched camp on Ulmiz land. In the 19th century the Biberen drove an oil mill, a bark mill and a tobacco mill here.
FRVillarepos
The church of St Stephen, built in 1572, was demolished in 1984 despite strong protests. A new church had replaced it in 1971.
FRVully-le-Bas
Until 1831 Praz, Nant, Sugiez and Chaumont made up the « commune générale des quatre villages de La Rivière », whose common property was run by four governors.
FRVully-le-Haut
On 8 March 2015 Haut-Vully voted yes to the merger with Bas-Vully by 371 votes to 360. In 1983 it was the neighbouring municipality that had said no.
FRWallenbuch
Wallenbuch is the only German-speaking Fribourg enclave, set in the middle of the Bernese district of Laupen. Fribourg acquired the seigneurial rights here from 1502 and made it a tiny bailiwick.
FRWallenried
From 1729 the Castella family held the small lordship of Wallenried. The chapel of their castle, fitted out in 1764, now serves as the parish church.
Sites 2
Champ de bataille de Morat (1476)
On 22 June 1476, around noon and in heavy rain, nearly 24'000 Confederates took by surprise the army of Charles the Bold before Murten, which lost between 8'000 and 20'000 men.
FR · SiteOppidum du Mont Vully
Around 124 BC the Helvetii cut off Mont Vully with a 600 m rampart enclosing some fifty hectares. Burnt around 80 BC, the stronghold was never rebuilt.