Pfäfers Abbey (), also known as St. Pirminsberg from its position on a mountain, was a Benedictine monastery in Pfäfers near Bad Ragaz, in the canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Situated at the junction of the Tamina and Rhine valleys, it flourished as a religious house and owner of lands and serfs, as well as assuming extraordinary importance as a political and cultural centre of the Chur–Raetian region. History Middle Ages According to the chronicles of Hermann of Reichenau, Pfäfers Abbey was founded from Reichenau Abbey in 731, as (Latin for bean field); the first monks came from Reichenau. The founding legend refers to the itinerant bishop Saint Pirmin, with the first documentary mention of the abbey in 762. The monastery controlled the important route through the Kunkels Pass to the passes into Italy in the Graubünden. After the bishop's seat of Chur the monastery was the most important religious centre in Chur-Raetia and the diocese of Chur. Many parishes in the region were founded from Pfäfers in the 9th and 10th centuries. The substantial influence of the monastery was concentrated in eastern Switzerland, especially between Weesen and Maienfeld, but reached as far as present-day Baden-Württemberg, in the Val Bregaglia, the Vinschgau and the County of Tyrol. In 840, Emperor Lothair I, king of Northern Italy and, nominally, Emperor of the Franks, assured the monastery the right of freely electing its abbot. This was extended in 861 to include ecclesiastical immunity and royal protection. The East Frankish king Louis the Child gave Pfäfers, in 905, to Solomon III, Bishop of Constance, who was also the abbot of St Gall. Between 914 and 949, the Abbey of St. Gall and the bishop of Chur fought over the protectorship of the Abbey. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, finally confirmed again in 949 the right of free election of the abbot to the monks themselves. During the Investiture Controversy, Pfäfers again fell under foreign control, however. In 1095, Henry IV gave the abbey to the diocese of Basel, which exchanged the abbey with Henry V in 1114 for the castle of Rappoltstein in Alsace; only the intervention of Pope Paschal II in 1116 restored the monastery's freedom. During the early Middle Ages Pfäfers remained the most important monastery in the diocese of Chur, and intellectual centre of the region. The three most important Chur-Raetian manuscripts were made in Pfäfers: Liber Aureus (the main