In the 3rd century, Felix and Regula, siblings and members of a Roman legion stationed in Valais, fled to Zurich: not a stupid thing seeing as the legion had been defeated and was to be executed en masse. Unfortunately they were Christians, and in Zurich they were tried for refusing to pray to the Roman gods. This time they didn’t get away and were decapitated on the site of today’s Wasserkirche in the Neiderdorf.

But there’s more. According to the legend, they then walked forty steps up the hill and - presumably to take advantage of better view - picked up their heads and took them along. They were buried were they fell, which is now the site of the Grossmünster. Like many Christian martyrs, Felix and Regula, along with their servant Exuperantius, were canonized and today are the patron saints of Zürich. Still, the story is not over.

The story was first written down in an 8th century account by a monk called Florentius, involving another famous figure; Charlemagne. Obviously an extremely tenacious hunter, Charlemagne chased a stag all the way from Aachen (near Colonge, Germany), to Zurich, where his horse suddenly went down on its knees in reverence to the saints buried there. Yeah, I know it’s a stretch, but it was enough for Charlemagne to found a church in their honor. The Grossmünster would not be built for another 200 years.

Whether it was share and share alike, or if the Abbess of the Fraumünster was pulling rank (she was a very powerful figure in Zurich*), but at the end of the 9th century, relics of the saints were transferred across the Limmat to the newly rebuilt Fraumünster convent, which now became part of what I’m sure was a lucrative pilgrimage trail including the Grossmünster as the burial site, the Wasserkirche as the site of execution, and the Fraumünster, now the repository of the saints’ remains. The Münsterbrücke was built around 1220 to link the sites.