Pfullendorf

Pfullendorf is a small town of about 13,000 inhabitants located 25 km (16 mi) north of Lake Constance in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a Free Imperial City for nearly 600 years.

The town is in the district of Sigmaringen south of the Danube valley and therefore on the continental divide between the watersheds of the Rhine and the Danube. The area is known as the Linzgau.

History

Early History

Pfullendorf was founded by the Alamanni tribe during their third wave of settlement and might have been named after a clan chief named Pfullo. According to another theory, it was named Dorf am Phoul (Pfuol), meaning village on the Phoul.

The area around Lake Constance, particularly the Linzgau, Hegau and Vorarlberg, came progressively under the rule of the counts of Pfullendorf from the 8th century onward. The earliest documented bearer of that name was Count Ludwig von Pfullendorf, who is referred to as the ruler of the county of Hegau from 1067 to 1116. Presumably, Pfullendorf expanded due to its proximity to the counts' castle. Count Rudolf, a partisan of the future Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, was able to expand his family's possessions and they eventually owned fiefs from the Danube to the Grisons. Following the death of his son Berthold in 1167, Count Rudolf named the Emperor as his heir and then moved to the Holy Land where he died in 1181.