Benzenschwil
former municipality of Switzerland in Aargau
Benzenschwil is a former municipality in the district of Muri in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. The municipality of Benzenschwil merged on 1 January 2012 into the municipality of Merenschwand.
History
Benzenschwil is first mentioned in 1189 as Penziswile. In the Middle Ages, the major landholders included the Lords of Hünenberg (owner of the high and low justice rights) and the Frauenthal and Muri monasteries. The monasteries bought their rights in 1267 from Johannes von Schnabelburg. In 1394 the Merenschwand district, which included Benzenschwil, bought its freedom and placed itself under the city of Lucerne. Until the end of the Helvetic Republic it remained as part of Lucerne. In 1803, Benzenschwil, and the rest of the Merenschwand district, became part of the newly formed Canton of Aargau. In 1813, Benzenschwil separated from Merenschwand and became an independent municipality. Village fires destroyed 13 households in 1799 and 19 in 1803.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Benzenschwil” as former municipality of Switzerland in Aargau. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as former municipality of Switzerland in Aargau. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q611382. VIAF identifies the subject as 242304630. Authority coordinates are 47.248, 8.364. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 1189, 1267 and 1394.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Benzenschwil” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.