page_title: Wartau
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wartau / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Wartau Castle from the B13 road south of Sevelen, Canton Graubünden
context_page_description: Wartau is a municipality in the Werdenberg constituency of the Swiss canton of St. Gallen. The municipality consists of a number of villages on the eastern flank of the Alvier group, along the left shore of the Alpine Rhine.
context_section_description: There are a number of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age traces, as well traces of an early medieval estate. 
  The name Wartau is taken from that of Wartau Castle, built in 1225 (overlooking Gretschins). The center of the medieval manor was at Gretschins, with a church first mentioned in 1273.
  The lordship of Wartau passed to the counts of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg in 1399, and further to Lucerne in 1485 and to Glarus in 1517. In the 14th century, the higher parts of the territory of the modern municipality (Matug,  Walserberg, Palfris) were settled by Walser.  High justice lay with the county of Sargans from 1483 until 1798.  There was a Rhine ferry between Trübbach and Balzers in the medieval period.  The Swiss Confederacy constructed a road along the Rhine to Sargans in 1491/2.
  The church at Gretschins was dedicated to Saint Martin in 1494, but the parish adopted the Swiss Reformation at an early time, in the 1520s. Attempts to re-introduced the Catholic mass in 1694/4 resulted in the "Wartau conflict" (Wartauerhandel), which almost triggered a larger religious war in the Swiss Confederacy. A second church was built in Azmoos in 1736.
  The municipal coat of arms is attested on a stained glass panel dated 1632. It shows a grapevine below a gold star in a red field (Gules a Vine Stump Vert leaved issuant from Coupeaux of the same and in chief a Mullet Or).  An unrelated municipal coat of arms, showing the castle ruins, was designed in 1939. 
  This was replaced in favour of the historical coat of arms in the 1970s.
  In 1802, a short-lived "Republic of Wartau" was proclaimed, before the modern municipality was formed as part of the Swiss canton of St. Gallen in 1803. The Walser population which now found itself on the territory of the municipality was naturalized only in 1827, under pressure from the cantonal authorities.
  Railway stations at Trübbach and Weite were built in 1858. The Rhine ferry was replaced by a bridge in 1872. The A13 motorway dates to 1967.
  The prehistoric settlement and sacrifice site at Gretschins-Herrenfeld and Ochsenberg, as well as the nearby medieval castle ruins and the Walser Rathaus (council house) auf Palfries are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance.
  The villages of Azmoos and Oberschan as well as the hamlets of Fontnas and Gretschins are designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
caption: Wartau Castle from the B13 road south of Sevelen, Canton Graubünden
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