Towers and walls separate medieval towns from the outside world. Inside these walls, enclosed rows of houses lend the narrow streets and squares their special atmosphere. As here in Willisau, pictured before 2013. Stadtarchiv Willisau, Bruno Bieri

Willisau. A small town and open history book

Small towns are rich in cultural history, remnants of which leave their mark on the public space and shape our historical awareness. Willisau is no exception: a small town that wears its biography openly, with an enticing mix of the typical and the unusual that is both instructive and appealing.

Kurt Messmer

Kurt Messmer (1946-2025) was a historian with a focus on history in public space.

The history of a town follows a chronology; exploring a town means taking one step after another, with scant regard for dates and subjects. Nevertheless, a full picture emerges at the end, made up of multiple parts, and with multiple meanings. Alongside a wealth of verifiable facts, we are left with many stimulating, unanswered questions. Welcome to Willisau, district capital and heart of the Lucerne hinterland.

The Lower Gate. A monument in the truest sense

A storybook entrance to the town. Magnificent, this gate tower with its monumental clock, gold numerals against black and red. But wait: isn’t the archway a little too large? Were the wagons that passed through it in the Middle Ages really loaded that high? – Aha, the gate dates back to 1980, is made of concrete, the arched opening tall and wide enough that even fire engines and double-decker buses can drive through it.

**Willisau, Lower Gate, erected in 1980. As seen from the railway station looking towards the Old Town.** Kurt Messmer

The key dates of the Lower Gate: first mentioned in 1347, it burned down in 1471 and was rebuilt. It burned down again in 1704 and was rebuilt. It was pulled down in 1854 but not rebuilt until newly erected in 1980 based on pictures of the original design.

We can look at this in one of two ways: a) A gap of this kind serves to remind us of the urban defortification in the 19th century, which placed town and country on an equal footing. The gap must be left as it is. Replacing it with a new building after 126 years falsifies history, a trend typical of the 1970s, when ‘historic’ buildings sprang up all over the place; b) Careful! We shouldn’t read too much historically into the gap between buildings. Today’s gate has a ‘Hollywood’ feel? Does anyone actually think it’s the same gate as in 1347, 1471 or 1704? – It's up to you to decide.

**Willisau from the air, 1962. The gap where the Lower Gate was re-erected in 1980 can be seen at the bottom of the photo.** ETH Library, Zurich, Werner Friedli

The old hospital. Light and shade

A town has a hospital, a village doesn’t. From the time that towns were founded, hospitals tended to the needy. This was where the old and the sick, single mothers and orphaned children, the physically and mentally impaired, beggars and outsiders could find food, lodging and care, initially for a short period, later permanently. Pilgrims were also given shelter here, and provisions for their journey.

Willisau, the old hospital, exterior. The tradition of exterior arcades dates back to the late Middle Ages and in some cases remains part of today’s building code in the Old Town. There is a lot of leeway regarding form, material and colour, as seen especially in Schaalgasse. Worth taking a detour. Kurt Messmer

In 1861, sisters from the Ingenbohl convent took over the care and supervision of the needy, applying the latest medical methods: sickbeds were often placed in the restored, extra-wide arcades in the belief that light and air would help speed recovery. But a shadier side was lurking close by. The rules of the ‘poorhouse‘, as the hospital was known in 1903, stated that: “Inmates are strictly forbidden from visiting hostelries and coffee houses and all private homes in the area and beyond; as punishment, offenders will be placed under house arrest for one to three days with bread and water.” A detailed catalogue of threatened punishments. The wrongdoers were locked up in wooden detention cells. No light, only shade.

Willisau, hospital, 19th century detention cells, each with two sliding hatches: one for food (centre) and one for removing the chamberpot (bottom). At that time, the detention cells were also used to confine patients who were resistant to calming medication. Kantonale Denkmalpflege Luzern, Fotohaus Schaller Willisau

Is the world any better today than at the time of the ‘poorhouse’ in 1903? In any case, the former hospital site is now a different world, housing a toy library with play equipment for children in the arcades.

Small-scale animal husbandry causing occasional trouble for the owners

Just a few metres away from the former poorhouse, the rural character of this small town remains evident. Solid wooden doors in the ground-floor brickwork at the rear of the buildings on Kirchgasse by the church remind us that livestock was once kept here.

**Willisau, buildings on Schlossrain. Stable doors as witnesses to the past.** Kurt Messmer

Until fairly recently, many people produced their own food as a way of making ends meet. They grew fruit, vegetables and berries in the garden. Small animals yielded meat, milk, eggs, wool and pelts. Livestock was kept in some of the housebarns on Schlossrain right up to the 1950s. If you wanted to play a trick on one of the owners, you opened the door to their barn, preferably during the Sunday service. The result: once high mass was over, the process of retrieving the animals from all over the Old Town could begin.

The town hall – an erstwhile merchants’ hall and theatre

A medieval town was essentially a fortified market. Which meant that ‘Kauff-haus und Mezig’ ‒ merchants’ hall and butcher’s ‒ should occupy a central location. In Willisau, markets were initially held on the square before the church, then, from 1720, in the newly erected merchants’ hall more or less in the middle of the main street.

The merchants’ hall in Willisau. It increasingly became known as the Town Hall from 1912, when a civic meeting space was created on the first floor. The building acquired its current Jugendstil facade at the same time. The ground floor continued to serve as a slaughterhouse until the 1950s. The space is now dedicated to culture. Kurt Messmer

The market function of these early merchants’ halls can be seen in the names given to the individual storeys. In Willisau, the ground floor ‘Schaal’ housed a hall where meat was sold, a drapers’ hall occupied the first floor ‘Tuchlaube’, where corn was also traded and weekly and annual markets held. Today, an iron rod measuring the length of two ells at the entrance to the building reminds us that cloth was once traded here. In the ‘town hall’ of neighbouring Sursee, we find a ‘Sust’ where goods were stored for trading, an ‘Ankenwaage’ where butter was officially weighed and a drapers’ hall. Sempach has a butcher’s and a drapers’ hall. In Lucerne, markets are still held next to the town hall, whose first floor bears the name of the erstwhile granary (‘Kornschütte’). Functional names that provide a glimpse of the past.

In many places, market halls were also used as dance halls and theatres. But it’s rare to come across purpose-built stages and auditoriums, especially of such elegance as here, in merchants’ halls.

Theatre auditorium in Willisau Town Hall. The Willisau Society of Theatre- and Music-Lovers was founded in 1804, the authorities approved the fitting out of a theatre on the second floor of the merchants’ hall in 1811. When the building underwent a complete restoration in 1991, the theatre space was relocated to the top floor. Stadtarchiv Willisau, Bruno Bieri

Typical: the French invasion of Switzerland in 1798 transformed subjects into citizens with equal rights, a previously unthinkable achievement. All too soon, the bourgeoisie began banding together in the urban centres forming all kinds of associations. Willisau’s Society of Theatre- and Music-Lovers is an early example of that.

Atypical: in 1811, the omens for the establishment of a thriving theatre in Willisau were particularly auspicious. The Society of Theatre- and Music-Lovers was able to acquire the seating ‒ ascending rows of wooden benches ‒ from the nearby St. Urban monastery, and the town’s very own fine artist Xaver Hecht painted a magnificent stage curtain showing a landscape with the Greek god Apollo at its centre, lyre in hand, surrounded by three music-making cherubs and three dancing Graces. As the god of the arts and music, he is simultaneously seen flying through the sky in his horse-drawn chariot. Willisau’s Baroque theatre is a true gem.

Gasthaus Adler. The façade paintings and their meaning

A few steps in the direction of the Upper Gate, on the other side of the street, the Adler and Sternen restaurants hark back to the Peasants’ War of 1653, the most significant uprising of the old Swiss Confederacy in an era when the term ‘revolution’ was beginning to appear in sources throughout Europe for the very first time. The rebellious peasants, looked down on by the powers-that-be as ‘miserable beggars’, boldly set up a league of their own in opposition to that of the ruling authorities. Their ‘lords and masters’ seized on this as an excuse to exact bitter, ruthless revenge.

Willisau, with the Bailiff’s Castle [B], built adjoining an existing tower in 1695, high above the town. Representative architecture as a demonstration of power. There could be no clearer way of flaunting the gap between the ruling elite and their subjects. Gone were the days in which the bailiff appointed by Lucerne lived cheek by jowl with the lower strata of society on the main street of the Old Town. David Herrliberger: Topographie der Eydgenossschaft, Zurich 1754–1773 (detail). Zurich Central Library

Remarkably, in 1653, a time of religious conflict, both the peasants and those who governed them succeeded in forming alliances that bridged the confessional divide. The rebels were driven by their determination to put up resistance, the ruling authorities by their determination to hold on to the reins of power.

Willisau, the Adler inn, façade paintings created in 1943 to commemorate the 1653 Peasants’ War. At top, four peasant leaders, from left to right, Antoni Farnbühler, Niklaus Leuenberger, Christian Schibi and local man Johann Jakob Peyer. The text records that the rebels assembled here and states where they came from: “from Entlebuch, Emmental and [the Lucerne] hinterland, from Gäu, Freiamt and Upper Aargau, from Solothurn and from Basel-Land”. Kurt Messmer

The painting was created in the middle of the Second World War, in 1942/43, when people were still afraid that Switzerland, “the little porcupine”, could be overrun by the German army “on the way back home”. Seen against this backdrop, the paintings on the façade of the Adler become an act of spiritual national defence. After all, in those dangerous times, farmers were called upon to put up resistance. They were expected to launch the ‘Anbauschlacht’, a programme to increase Swiss food production that also conjured up the unity of town and country. Willisau, a small rural town, was pre-destined for this role. The paintings show the Peasants’ War, but they really refer to the Second World War.

Street resurfacing and a source that can only be consulted once

In 2013, Farnbühler, Leuenberger, Schibi and Peyer, the four peasant leaders of 1653, still looked down on the church square. As the former marketplace, it promised to reveal particularly valuable information about the town’s past. Time and money would be needed to unearth this intelligence, buried in the ground. Time was pressing, money not forthcoming. It was March, the resurfacing of the main street was scheduled for completion by September. To cut costs, the cantonal government reduced the scope of the rescue excavation originally planned for the church square by 80%; the archaeological survey of the main street was abandoned completely. The cantonal archaeologists and the Wiggertal Heritage Society fought back using every available means, but in vain. The leader of the dig stated that: “Traces of the lives of at least 30 to 40 generations will be removed without being documented. Leaving behind a terrain with no history.”

**Willisau, 2013, street resurfacing work in front of the Town Hall, with the Lower Gate in the background. Plans for an archaeological dig on the main street were shelved permanently.** Kantonsarchäologie Luzern

Written sources are the diametric opposite of archaeological finds. A document like the Federal Charter can be analysed over and over again. Archaeological finds, on the other hand, can only be dug up once. And even though the original site of the find is documented using state-of-the-art techniques during excavation, it is ultimately destroyed. How could it not be? No archaeologist digs in the same piece of ground twice, not even in Willisau.

The parish church. An elephant in the town centre

The church square. Willisau has the largest church in the region outside of Lucerne itself. But what does largest, highest, longest actually mean? The colonnade in the Neoclassical style, designed by Josef Purtschert, the great master-builder from Pfaffnau, not far from St. Urban, is classy. The ceiling frescoes and altar pictures were created by Xaver Hecht, the same Willisau artist who designed the stage curtain in the town’s theatre. Most amazing of all is the building’s 800-year history, spread over four construction phases that could hardly be more distinctive.

**Willisau, Parish Church of Saints Peter and Paul, 1810. The location dominant, the size colossal, the building phases conspicuous.** Kurt Messmer

Something is not quite right here. The tower, erected after 1200, was originally Romanesque, as can be seen from the round-arched windows and simple capitals. An additional storey was added in 1647 along with a bulbous dome, thus lending the church a Baroque profile. In 1810, the new building in the Neoclassical style transcended all the previous dimensions, dwarfing even the heightened tower. Yet the church bells remained restricted in their range, a situation that could not go unchanged. In 1929, a monumental, copper-plated bell tower was placed atop the church roof: the elephant, as it is rather amusingly referred to in Willisau. Seven new bells, some of them huge, have been ringing out over town and country ever since, only nowadays ever fewer faithful respond to their summons.

A 1959 volume dedicated to monumental art in Willisau states in a footnote that: “In the interest of preserving our cultural heritage, the coming generation will face the task of removing this tower, which spoils the appearance of the church and the town as a whole.” The elephant, a pioneering work of reinforced concrete, has long since been placed under heritage protection.

“Innocent little child”. An eternity without joy and sorrow

A child is stillborn. Is there anything sadder? Surely even the most hard-hearted of Christians must believe that the child will go directly to heaven. But that was not always so. If you were not baptised, you had no place in paradise, and parents were not permitted to lay their unbaptised infants to rest in the cemetery as it stood on consecrated ground. Until around 1970, unbaptised babies were buried in the ‘Chilelöchli’, a shaft on the other side of the cemetery wall.

Willisau Parish Church, Schlossrain. The iron grille leads to a passageway through the cemetery wall to the place where unbaptised children were buried – outside consecrated ground. A small plaque was erected in 1970 reading: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God,” Mark 10: 14. There are no dates, names or other information. Perhaps the basin of holy water serves to retrospectively bless the unbaptised children who were left here for all eternity? Kurt Messmer

“Entrusting to God’s mercy,” the Roman Missal of 1970 made funeral rites for unbaptised infants possible for the first time. Popular belief had come to the aid of grieving parents decades previously, easing their suffering by imagining that while children who died without being baptised might not see “the glory of God”, they would at least go to a place where they would be free of suffering. Unbaptised innocents condemned to an eternity without joy. Not the Dark Ages, but the second half of the 20th century.

Living and working under the same roof 500 years ago

Constructed in 1590, the building at Müligass 5, a stone’s throw from the children’s burial site, would not have looked out of place in a row of houses in any town in the late Middle Ages. A survivor of the last great fire of 1704, it is the very model of a typical urban house of the period: workshop and shop on the ground floor, living-cum-dining room and kitchen on the first floor, bedrooms on the second, an attic at the very top.

Willisau, Müligass 5. A wooden structure of vertical posts and horizontal beams sits atop the ground-level masonry, a construction method common at the time that would later be superseded by half-timbering. The house has ribbon windows with large openings and is double the width of the house next door with its mere two-bay frontage. The gable roof overhang provides protection and adds to the representative character. Kurt Messmer

The fire that raged through the town in 1704 put an end to building with wood. When it came to reconstruction, the townspeople looked around the surrounding area for ‘good stone’. The surviving timber houses on Müligass were plastered to keep them in line with the trend, upgrading them from wooden house to stone house. The former wooden façades dating from the 16th century were only uncovered again during the restoration of the 1980s. A crazy story. Today, life at Müligass 5 in Willisau is (almost) as it was in the olden days: the ground floor houses a pottery studio and shop, with living quarters upstairs.

The miracle of the Holy Blood. How many stories does humankind need?

Five buildings further along from Müligass 5, the Upper Gate marks the end of the Old Town heading towards the Napf region. The Chapel of the Holy Blood stands just outside the gate. A story tells of three men who met here to amuse themselves playing cards. On losing all of his money, one of the men irately thrust his sword into the air, crying out that he hoped it would run through the body of Christ. Drops of blood then fell onto the table, and the blasphemer was carried off by the Devil. The second gambler was struck down during a vain attempt to wash off the blood in the nearby river Wigger. The third man, plagued to death by lice, collapsed at the town gate. The drops of blood were cut out of the tabletop and kept in a chapel that was built shortly thereafter to commemorate the miracle.

The Willisau miracle of the Holy Blood: illustration from the 1498 letter of indulgence for the Chapel of the Holy Blood in Willisau. Three gamblers stand around a card table on which lie dice. The man in the middle has just thrown his sword heavenward with his left hand. Christ, accompanied by the Virgin Mary, raises his finger in reprimand. Drops of blood have fallen onto the table. The gambler on the left brandishes his sword, like the course fellow he is; the gambler on the right points at the wrongdoer. Staatsarchiv Luzern

If we go in search of the origins of the legend, we need look no further than the surrounding area. In 1447, a sacred host was stolen in nearby Ettiswil, a well-documented event. In the unsettled times of the 15th century, the news spread like wildfire. A pilgrimage began, bringing in revenue and causing an upswing in the village’s fortunes, while relegating the small town of Willisau to a backwater. Lessons were learned. Five years later, in 1452, Willisau had its very own Chapel of the Holy Blood. But the oldest record of the legend was yet to come. It finally appeared in 1498. However, three key elements were missing: the date of the heinous deed, the name of the culprit, the number of drops of blood. Diebold Schilling, who otherwise found any kind of sensation impossible to resist, doesn’t mention the holy blood of Willisau with a single word in his 1513 chronicle. By saying nothing, Schilling speaks volumes.

Now that the Reformation had split the Christian church, the priest of Willisau knew what was owing to his faith. In 1564, at the start of the Counter-Reformation, he fleshed out the legend with precise details: the sacrilegious act had taken place on 7 July 1392, the miscreant was one Uli Schröter, there had been five drops of blood – clearly echoing the five stigmata of Christ. There could be no question of allowing any “small splashes or droplets landing to the side” to cause confusion.

Willisau, feast day known locally as the ‘Apliss’. Procession to the Parish Church via Müligass. This major atonement procession takes place on the second Sunday after Whitsun each year. Beneath the canopy, the Holy Blood Monstrance containing a drop of blood from the card table is carried through the streets of Willisau – “the most important festival of the year”. Photo taken in 2009. Stadtarchiv Willisau, Bruno Bieri

Towards the end of the Catholic Revival, the legend of the Holy Blood established a firm foothold in popular belief. A series of eight pictures created in 1638, now in the Bailiff’s Castle, portrays the legend in dramatic fashion. The chapel as it exists today was built in 1674. The representative Baroque building was endowed with a new series of eight pictures in 1684. Detail upon detail. The power of images. And once again we find that the further in time we move from an event, the more exact our knowledge of it becomes. The act of reconstruction turns into a history lesson.

Moving with the times

On the way back to the Lower Gate, we pause for one last look. History provides us with a basic model that can be understood as a legacy to preserve and develop in equal measure. Even an old town should remain vibrant and not frozen in time.

**Willisau, Chilegass 13. Old template, new interpretation.** Kurt Messmer

How specifically does regeneration work? In thousands of ways. A sizeable building was erected in Willisau in 2002, not far from the Parish Church: the same centuries-old footprint, ridge height, roof form, and eaves height – yet the building is still very much of its own time. Respect for what has gone before without any attempt to play up the past. An approach that would also work for building ensembles or whole parts of a town. Civilisation can be understood as a process, regeneration as an opportunity.

More of: Modern Age Tourism Culture Architecture

Further posts

The long road to church

Reto Bleuer 25.10.2023 Religion and the church used to be prominent in people’s lives. Church attendance was nigh on obligatory. For rural folk, the ‘Predigtgang’ (the journey to church) often involved a long walk, as was the case for the inhabitants of Buchholterberg.

Why go to church when you can go to the pub? Illustration by Marco Heer.

Baroque: love it or hate it?

Kurt Messmer 18.07.2023 Here is a simple test. The pilgrimage church of Hergiswald at the foot of Mount Pilatus contains a visually stunning depiction of biblical scenes from the baroque period, circa 1650. What response does this cultural-historical cosmos elicit from you?

Altar dedicated to St Felix, Hergiswald, 1656 (detail).

How the chalet became a symbol of Switzerland

Hannes Mangold 30.03.2023 The chalet symbolises Switzerland more than any other building. But it was visitors from abroad who turned the simple log house into a tourist hit.

Chalet under the Chillon Viaduct in Villeneuve (Canton Vaud), 1985.