Merenschwand
municipality in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland
Merenschwand is a municipality in the district of Muri in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. The municipality of Benzenschwil merged on 1 January 2012 into Merenschwand.
History
The earliest evidence of human settlement is a lake side village from the Late Bronze Age. The lake has since silted up and is now part of the Rütiweid meadow. The modern municipality of Merenschwand is first mentioned in the 12th Century as Meriswanden, though this comes from a 14th Century copy of the original. In 1263 it was mentioned as Meriswandon. There are indications of a knightly family and a castle near Merenschwand, but no definitive evidence has been found. Merenschwand was under the authority of the Homberg family until 1293, and then under the authority of the Lords of Hünenberg and Schär. In 1393 Merenschwand bought its independence with the help of a loan from Lucerne. As many of the former residents of the village had become citizens of Lucerne, in 1394 the village formally became part of the city of Lucerne and the residents were granted Lucerne citizenship.
“Merenschwand” enters the record as municipality in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Merenschwand, municipality and canton can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Merenschwand” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Merenschwand, municipality and canton provides the most credible route into that argument.
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 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q64755. VIAF identifies the subject as 236554905. Authority coordinates are 47.262, 8.377. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 1263, 1293 and 1393.
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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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Merenschwand” 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.