page_title: Bulle
section_title: Middle ages
hierarchical_section_title: Bulle / History / Middle ages
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Bulle, Suisse
context_page_description: Bulle is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. In January 2006 Bulle incorporated the formerly independent municipality of La Tour-de-Trême.
context_section_description: During the Early Middle Ages it was the home of a parish church that covered a large parish.  This Church of St. Eusebius was probably built in the 6th or 7th century by the Bishop of Lausanne.  The church is mentioned several times between 852–875.  In the 9th century, the parish was split into several independent parishes.  As the parish shrunk in size, the church gradually lost its former importance, but it remained the center of the Decanate of Ogo until the 16th century.  The deanery covered the whole Saanen valley to Treyvaux, the Jaun and Sionge valleys and extended west to Glâne.  Bulle probably came under the secular power of the Bishop of Lausanne as early as the 6th century, and together with Avenches and Curtilles formed the territory originally owned by the bishop.
  Since the counts of Gruyères also possessed sovereign rights in Bulle, there were numerous conflicts between the counts and the bishop in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries.  Since these conflicts were always decided in favor of the bishop, the counts eventually lost all rights in Bulle.  Even by the 12th century, Bulle was an important regional economic center.  In 1195/96, Count Rudolph closed the market in Gruyère and extended his support to the older market in Bulle.  At that time, the town was a collection of homesteads, which surrounded a church and maybe had a castle near them.  In the 13th Century the bishops recognized that the town was crucial to their income and to administer and defend the surrounding region.  Bishop Boniface erected a city wall surrounding a rectangular town with two lanes and four rows of houses in 1231–39.  A little later, possibly under the episcopate of William de Champvent (1273–1301), the castle was built was in the southeast of the city.  The main building of the castle was a 33-metre-high (108 ft) tower that dominated the south gate and the surrounding plain.  Throughout the Middle Ages, the bishops appointed two officers, the castellan and the mayor to rule the town.  Throughout the 13th to 15th centuries, the noble de Bulle family held the office of mayor.  Although citizens of Bulle are mentioned in 1195/96, they first had an organization in the 14th century testifies.  Starting at end of the 12th century, individual freedoms, rights and privileges were often conferred on the citizens of the town and in general the citizens of Bulle had the same privileges as citizens in Lausanne.  Starting around 1350, many of the towns in the Saanen valley between Gruyere and Arconciel lost most of their historic importance and population.  However, due to Bulle's favorable location, its infrastructure and the support of the bishops, it remained an important  regional center.  It was also able to recover quickly from a devastating fire in 1447.
caption: The old town of Bulle
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX", "Image Model": "PENTAX K-x", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.11", "Image DateTime": "2012:10:09 21:34:55", "Image Artist": "Traumrune", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Traumrune", "Image ExifOffset": "752", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "12912", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5714", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "20", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:07:17 11:59:39", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:07:17 11:59:39", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2848", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "12788", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}