Merzligen

Merzligen is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

The oldest trace of settlement in the area is the remains of a Roman road which was discovered near the Kühmatt section. By the Late Middle Ages a number of local nobles and monasteries owned land in the village. In 1398 it was acquired by the city of Bern and incorporated into the bailiwick of Nidau. The hamlet of St. Niklaus was named after a small chapel and hermitage. By 1480 the hermitage had grown into a small monastery. When Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation in 1528, the monastery was closed. During the 1798 French invasion, on 5 March 1798, a small battle was fought outside St. Niklaus. The Swiss forces had 16 men killed in the battle, all of whom were buried there and a small memorial was erected. In 1824 the original monument was replaced with the current obelisk.

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