Payerne Priory

[3] On 2 February 1033, Emperor Conrad II held an assembly, was elected, and crowned King of Burgundy at the abbey.

The priory was first directly managed by the two abbots from Cluny, Odilo and Maiolus, both of whom lived several times in Payerne.

Starting in 1050, Cluny pulled back slightly from directly administering the priory, and the local prior led the monastery with increasing independence.

While the city formally recognized the sovereignty of the prior after the receipt of the town charter in 1348, in fact, he possessed no real power.

[3] The monastery was under the protection of the kings of Burgundy and the Holy Roman Emperor, but the Abbot of Cluny retained the right to choose the kastvogt or ecclesiastical bailiff.

The office of kastvogt was first held by the Counts of Burgundy, whose last representative, William IV, was murdered in 1127 in Payerne.

The Protestant Bern supported a small community of Reformed citizens, while the catholic Fribourg declared itself the guardian of the monastery.

[3] At the priory, some of the buildings were demolished, the remainder put to various secular uses: a bell foundry in the 17th century, a grain store in the 18th and later as a prison and barracks.