Orpund

Orpund is a municipality in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

History

Orpund is first mentioned in 1255 as Orpunt. The municipality was formerly known by its unknown name er Orpondes, however, that name is no longer used.

The oldest traces of settlements in the area were neolithic, Bronze Age and La Tène era artifacts which were discovered during construction of the Nidau-Büren Canal. A horde of Bronze Age items and a Roman era settlement were found on the Büttenberg. During the Middle Ages, the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau founded a monastery at Gottstatt and gave the village of Orpund to the monastery. The village and the monastery jointly owned an island in the Thielle/Zihl river, which they used for fishing. At the end of the 14th century, Bern acquired all the lands around Nidau and Orpund was incorporated into the Bernese bailiwick of Nidau. Part of the village was in the parish of Mett while the rest belonged to the parish church located on the Büttenberg hill near Orpund. During the Protestant Reformation of 1528, Gottstatt Monastery was secularized and the monastery church became the parish church for all of Orpund.