ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some information on the complicated history and constitution of the valley, and then examines the authorities' strategies to confessionalize the public houses as well as the resistance against the measures. Clientelism widely spread across the paternalistic oligarchies and 'democracies' of the Swiss Confederacy had been a practice of power in Saint Gall since the late fifteenth century. Like the authorities of their Swiss neighbour states, the prince-abbots of Saint Gall aimed to strengthen control over popular culture, focusing much of their energy on public houses, which were favoured sites for early modern sociability, including social drinking and oral communication. The chapter focuses on the results of the prince-abbots' public house politics. There is some evidence that the Protestants sang their psalms, an important means for creating their identity, in public houses, showing their Catholic neighbours their courage and faith in public.
