Where are the roots of the Schrofer family?

Roots

The Schrofer family comes from the places Trimmis, Valtana, Says en Chur. These places can be found in the north of the canton Graubünden. And this canton is situated in the south-east corner of Switzerland. Beneath you can see 2 maps on which these places can be seen.

Left : Rhaetian Republic Communes Right: Municipality borders

The District of the Five Villages

NOTE: This document was taken from the book: GRAUBÜNDEN GESCHICHTE SEINER KREISE

On the left side of the Rhine this district extends from the Scheidtöbeli at the Calanda opposite Rossboden as far as the boundary of the Canton below Tardis Bridge. On the right side of the Rhine it extends from Halbmil north of Chur as far as the river Landquart and to the entrance of the Klus. With parts of the territory of the communes of Trimmis and Says the district reaches into the valley of Valzein, which geographically speaking belongs to the Prätigau.

Since 1880 the District of the Five Villages actually embraces seven communities, i.e. Haldenstein, Igis, Untervaz, Zizers, Mastrils, Says, and Trimmis. This fact will have to be referred to again.

A Bronze Age settlement on the castle rocks of Lichtenstein near Haldenstein, Iron Age settlements in the same place and at Lisibühl above Untervaz, as well as a number of single finds in almost all the communes, prove that the territory was already settled in prehistoric times. The territory was also settled by the Romans, proved by various single finds, and by the fact that this important gateway to the Rhaetian passes was shown on late-Roman route maps. There is also evidence of a Roman settlement at Chur.

During the Frankish epoch the territory belonged to the Ministerium Curisinum. In the late Middle Ages two sovereign territories arose:
The Bishop's sovereign territory of the "Four Villages" and the sovereignty of Haldenstein. The Bishop's sovereign territory of the " Four Villages", which later comprised Igis, Trimmis, Untervaz, and Zizers grew gradually around the royal domain at Zizers, which had been given to the Bishop by Otto the Great in 955. There were a great number of castles and most of them belonged to this sovereignty; some of them were the ancestral seats of vassals of the Bishop, others were held by the Bishop himself. Beside the Bishop the Benedictine Priory at Pfäfers had large domains at Untervaz and Igis, and Walsers settled on the estate at Valtanna in Says, on Mastrilserberg and Batänia.

During the Reformation the movement for political and economical emancipation was given impetus in the Four Villages by the Articles of Ilanz. In 1525 the villages refused to give the Bishop various taxes and also laid claim to some of the Bishop's levies. In 1526 they demanded of the League of God's House that the magistrate no longer be elected by the Bishop but by the jurisdiction.

In 1532 Igis became Protestant, but in the other villages there was parity of faith and the relationship between the confessions was settled by arbitration.

Within the League of God's House the Four Villages were one large jurisdiction with its own High Court. By the middle of the 17th century most of the sovereign rights had been bought off.

Around the village and the castle of Haldenstein a sovereignty arose belonging to the vassals of Vaz. They inherited the nearby stronghold of Lichtenstein around 1300. Towards the end of the 14th century the line died out and the sovereignty changed hands several times until, in 1542, it fell by marriage to Johann Jacob of Castion, French ambassador to the Three Leagues. Between 1544 and 1548 he built a new castle and soon afterwards he tried to put Haldenstein under the authority of the seven confederate cantons that ruled Sargans. Through arbitration by the other cantons it was decided that Haldenstein be placed under the protectorship of the Rhaetian Free State.

Thomas of Schauenstein, former chancellor of the University of Padua, bought the sovereignty in 1608. He was made a baron by the Emperor Rudolf 11 and was given the market and minting rights as well as the right of sanctuary. In 1616 he went over to the new faith with his barony.

The Mediation Act of 1803 deprived the barony of its rights and added the village to the Four Villages. Thus the High Court was given the name "Five Villages" and in 1851 the district continued to be known by this name although at the same time Mastrils joined it as a sixth and in 1880 Says as a seventh independent commune.

Marschlins, the ancestral seat of the Salis of the same name, and the two castles of the Salis line at Zizers, were the centres of political activity for many centuries.

The language of the district is the German spoken in the Rhine valley at Chur, with the exception of Says, where the dialect of the Walsets predominates.

The District of Chur

NOTE: This document was taken from the book: GRAUBÜNDEN GESCHICHTE SEINER KREISE

The district of Chur coincides with the territory of the commune of the town. The name Curia is pre-Roman and is derived from the old Celtic word "koria" meaning "tribe".

The important part which the settlement has played in the history of Rhaetia throughout the centuries is chiefly due to its geographical position: it controls the lower or Italian route to the Splügen and Bernardin, the higher route to the Juliet and the Septimer, the Lukmanier and Oberalp route, and also the route to Schanfiggand the Strela pass.

In view of its favourable position it is not surprising that traces of Neolithic settlement have been found in the area of Welschdörfli, i.e., going back to the year 3000 B.C. Continuous settlement, however, can only be proved from the late Iron Age (about 500 B.C.).

A Roman fragment excavated at Welschdörfli in 1965 proves that at the time of the birth of Christ Chur was a Roman administrative centre; the fragment refers to Lucius Caesar, the adopted son of the Emperor Augustus. So far the excavations at the Roman settlement at Welschdörfli date mainly from the lst and 2nd centuries A.D. It is highly probable that the Romans built a fort on the Hof, but there is no concrete archeological evidence to support this.

When the old province of Rhactia was divided in the middle of the 4th century, Chur became the seat of the Governor. A short time after the Romans left the territory north of the Alps, mention is made of a Bishop of Chur, Asinio, in a document of the Synod of Milan dated 451.

After the turmoil of the Great Migration, Rhaetia became part of the Frankish empire. Chur became "civitas publica ". It was the seat of the Präses, the temporal lord of the country. In this independent church state a local family, the Victorides, held the office of the Bishop as well as the office of the Präses.

This combination came to an end when, around the year 800, the Franks made a new division of the land and Chur became the seat of the Duke. Thereupon the bishopric was separated from the duchy; the diocese became part of the archbishopric of Mainz and was no longer joined to the metropolitan alliance of Milan. This was also the beginning of a period of Germanisation, which was probably completed in the 15th century.

In a document dated 831 the Emperor, Ludwig the Pious, conferred immunity on the bishop's possessions in Chur-rhaetia, Alsactia and Alemania which meant that he was exempt from paying various public duties and taxes and that officials could not intervene. These seignorial rights and immunity made it possible for the bishop to become the actual master of the town.

The politics of the Ottonic emperors in Italy made Chur a very important town again, as it held the key position to so many passes. The bishop, as the guardian of these passes, was gradually given all the fiscal rights of the duchy by the Emperor, rights of toll and mint, half the town of Chur, and many other privileges. Under Barbarossa he even became Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a title he held up to 1803.

The decline of the power of the Emperor also caused difficulties for the bishop. The self-consciousness of the citizens of the town was strengthened by trade and commerce. In 1282 the citizens and council of the town are mentioned, who also had their own seal. With its gate and three towers it refers to the walls, built in the first half of the 13th century, which protected the mediaeval city at the foot of the bishop's residence. In 1367 the citizens took an active part in the foundation of the League of God's House, which opposed the bishop, who had allied himself with Austria and sold a number of rights.

In 1413 the town received the right to build a market-house and to collect tolls and transport duties. After the catastrophe of the great fire in 1464 the citizens of Chur were given the privilege by the Emperor to introduce 5 guilds and lay down their rules. These guilds helped in a decisive way to shake off the sovereignty of the bishop. At the head of the city there were the Great and the Small Council, whose members were elected from the guilds. The mayor was responsible for current affairs.

Chur was the place where the League of God's House met, in rotation with Davos and Ilanz, and assemblies of the highest authorities in the Free State were held there. Ambassadors of foreign countries such as Austria, Spain, France, and Venice, had their residences there. In 1499 the victory over Austria and the Empire at Calven was celebrated at Chur.

During. the Reformation Chur took a leading part under Johannes Comander, a friend of Zwingli's. The spiritual and political emancipation of the citizens from the bishop resulted in the Hof (the residence of the bishop) becoming a religious and political enclave, a situation which remained until the introduction of the cantonal constitution in 1854 and which led to many disputes, for instance concerning the right of sanctuary.

During the wars of the Grisons the town was known as a Spanish-Austrian nest. It was besieged by the people of Prätigau in 1622 and the Austrian troops were forced to leave. A climax in the political turmoil of those years was the murder of Jörg Jenatsch in the "Staubigen Hüetli " during the pre-Lent carnival of 1639.

Of even greater consequence for the town than the political troubles were the great fires of 1464, 1574 and 1674, and also the epidemics. There was an outbreak of plague in the second half of the 16th century, and the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1629 claimed over 1000 victims.

After Rhaetia had gained its freedom, a goal for which Jenatsch had striven, quieter times returned to Chur. Service for foreign powers, trade, and the leasing of fiscal rights, brought wealth to the leading families.

After the upheavals of the French Revolution, during which the town was occupied and ransacked in turn by French and Austrian troops, the town became the capital of the canton when the Grisons joined the Confederation in 1803.

The bill on the division of the canton was passed in 1851, and the town, with Masans and Araschgen, became the district of Chur. Economically, agriculture dominated at Chur until the late Middle Ages. The transport trade, which had always been a considerable source of income, reached its climax in the first half of the 19th century when the roads across the Alps in the Grisons were improved. This lasted until the railway through the Gotthard was opened. Crafts and trades were organised within the guilds, and the catering and hotel trades were especially important to the economy. Of no less importance were the tolls and duties, which brought the Salis, Massner and Bavier families great wealth when these rights were leased in 1716. The corn trade held a special position. In the first half of the 17th century special corntrading companies came into being. Many families gained profits from foreign service and from the offices in the Valtellina.