The Districts of Klosters and Küblis 

	These two districts shared the same history for a very 
long time and according to the old division of the country 
formed the durisdiction of Klosters with the two 
half-jurisdictions of Innerschnitz and Ausserschnitz.  For this 
reason they can be considered together in the following short 
survey.

	The district of Klosters comprises the whole catchment 
area of the upper part of the river Landquart with the valleys 
of Vereina, Verstancla, and Schappin as far as the point where 
the valley narrows below Serneus; Laret however belongs to 
Davos.  The territory of the district is the same as that of 
the political communes of Klosters-Serneus, which are 
subdivided into Monbiel, Aeuja, Selfranga, Klosters-Platz, 
Klosters-Dorf, and Serneus-Mezzaselva.

	The district of Küblis reaches from the above mentioned 
narrow part of the valley below Serneus to the Schaniela brook 
that flows from St. Antönien and joins the Landquart.  St. 
Antönien, which formerly belonged to Ausserschnitz, is no 
longer part of the district of Küblis.  the district comprises 
the political communes of Conters i.P., Küblis and Saas.

	The name Küblis is derived from Latin cubulum, Romansh 
"cuvel" meaning cave.  Explanation of the name Klosters see 
below.
	
	No evidence of prehistoric settlement has been found 
either for Klosters or for Küblis, but it may be assumed that 
since there are prehistoric finds in the lower Prätigau the 
Flüela pass and the Schappinerjoch were in use at that time.

	The Frankish division of the land at the beginning of 
the 9th century joined the region to the Miisterium Curisinum.  
The Dukes of Bregenz took over the rest of the Prätigau and 
also Klosters and Küblis, which they inherited from the old 
Frankish duchy.  In 1158 the possession of Bregenz passed to 
the Duke Hugo of Tübingen and then by marriage to the Lords of 
Vaz.

	In the first half of the 13th century Premonstratensian 
monks from Churwalden founded the Priory "Sancti Jacobi in 
silva" (St. Jacob in the Woods).  the priory was in the middle 
of a territory which at that time was mainly covered with 
forests, and the names Selvaplana and Mezzaselva still remind 
us of this fact.  The monastery, which gave its name to the 
village and the district, stood in the centre of the 
present-day village.

	The Lords of Vaz, the patrons and protectors of 
Churwalden, not only took the initiative to found this branch 
at Klosters but also settled Walsers in the teritory of 
Klosters and Küblis.  The Alemannic peasants, who came over 
from Davos, settled in a country that had been partly cleared 
by the Premonstratensian monks and was cultivated by 
Romansh-speaking serfs belonging to the monastery of the Lords 
of Vaz.  The Walsers went on clearing the periphery, which is 
shown by names such as Rüti and Schwendi.  Schlappin seems to 
have been the only settlement where they established themselves 
in a larger group.

	Due to the influence of the Walsers and the 
German-speaking immigrants Germanisation of the territory made 
rapid progress in the 15th century.  the co-existence of 
Romansh and German-speaking people led to a dispute about the 
officers of the court at Klosters in 1489.  The Archduke 
Sigmund arbitrated and decided that the magistrate should be 
elected by Austria.  From that time on the magistrate was 
German-speaking.

	During the process of Germanisation of sovereign 
rightswent to the Dukes of Toggenburg after the extinction of 
the Lords of Vaz in 1338, and then, after the death of the last 
toggenburg in 1436, to the Lords of Montfort-Tettnang, who 
allowed their subjects to buy off several rights.  In the same 
year the land and court belonging to the monastery in the 
Prätigau took part in the foundation of the League of Ten 
Jurisdictions.  Klosters and Küblis, as mentioned earlier, 
formed the High Court of Klosters with the jurisdiction of 
Klosters.  Each of the two half-juridictions possessed even 
then a certain degree of independence.  The magistrate was 
taken in turn from the inner and outer Schnitz.  He was 
assisted by 16 judges.

	In 1471 the Lords of Montfort sold the court of 
Klosters to the Austrians, who ceded it to the Lords of Matsch 
under the provision that they had the right to buy it back.  In 
1477 Austria made use of this right and the court of Klosters, 
together with Davos and Belfort, was in the control of an 
Austrian bailiff who resided at Belfort Castle.

	In 1526, at the time of the Reformation, the community 
of the monastery at St. Jacob dissolved and Provost 
Bartholomäus Bilger went over to the new faith as did the 
whole jurisdiction.  The posessions of the monastery were given 
to the neighbours at the small monastery as a permanent loan.

	During the was of the Grisons the people suffered under 
the hard rule of the Austrians, especially when the Austrian 
Colonel Brion of Montafun entered the territory of Klosters 
with 800 soldiers on his way across the Schlappinerjoch, 
killing women, old men and children, and seting fire to 75 
houses and barns.  But the hard military rule and attempts to 
bring back Roman Catholicism provoked resistance amongst the 
people, who then had to endure revolts and occupation.  
Starvation, the plague, witches and witch trials were the sad 
consequences of these political troubles.  In 1630 more than 
500 people in the jurisdiction of Klosters died of the plague.  
On 4th June 1649 the jurisdiction of Klosters and Davos, 
Castels, Schiers-Seewis and Churwalden was able to purchase the 
Austrian rights for 75,000 Tyrolean guilders.

	The floods of 1762, the landslide of 1770 which burried 
large parts of Monbiel, as well as the landslide of 1900 which 
advanced as far as Kloster-Platz, are some of the catastrophes 
that befell the district of Klosters.
	
	The Revolution brought new miseries when 1500 French 
soldiers were billeted at Klosters in spring 1799, and when the 
Austrians started a counter-attack and penetrated into the 
valey across the Schlappinerjoch.

	The new division of the canton in 1851 joined the 
half-jurisdiction Innerschnitz to the district of Klosters, the 
half-jurisdiction Ausserschnitz, excluding St. Antönien, to 
the district of Küblis. 

	The territory, which was originally Romansch-speaking, 
was Germanised by the colonies of Walsers at Davos and St. 
Antönien.

Personalities from the districts of Klosters and Küblis:

	Johann rudolf Brosi, federal magistrate, (1801 - 1877) 
from Klosters.  He studied law in Berlin and then became a 
lawyer at Klosters.  Being the leader of the Radicals in the 
Grisons he propgated the ideas of the years 1830 and 1848.  He 
was several times a member of the Small Council, a 
representative in the legislative assembly, after 1848 a State 
Councillor and later a member of the Swiss federal Court.

	Johann Wilhelm Coaz (1822 - 1918) from Küblis and 
Schanfs.  He was the first Federal Inspector of Forestry.  
Being an excellent topographer he drew several maps of the Alps 
for the topographical atlas edited by Dufour.  As a mountaineer 
he made a name for himself by many first ascents, one of which 
was the Piz Bernina in 1850.  Coaz was on the founder-members 
of the Rhaetian section of the Swiss Alpine Club and of the 
Society for Natural Sciences of the Grisons where he excelled 
with scientific papers on botany.

District Coat of Arms:

	Klosters : Gold, wild man standing and bearing in his 
right hand a flag azure with a cross silver. 
	Blazonry : Since 1545 Klosters has had in its seal the 
wild man with the flag of the League of Ten Jurisdictions in 
his right hand.  Later the corss appeared suspended or even 
paty. 	 
	District colours: yellow-blue-white.


	Küblis : Gold, wild man standing and bearing in his 
right hand an uprooted fir tree vert, in his left had a club 
vert.
	Blazonry : The wild man with the fir tree and the club 
has been used in various seals of the district since the 19th 
century.
	District colours: yellow-green.



NOTE:  This document was taken from the book:  GRAUBÜNDEN GESCHICHTE SEINER KREISE