Zürich was continuously inhabited since Roman times. The name Zurich is possibly derived from the Celtic dur (water). It is first mentioned in 807 under the form Turigus, then in 853 as Turegus. The Latinized form is Turicum, but the false form Tigurum was given currency by Glareanus and held its ground from 1512 to 1748.
It is not till the 9th century that we find the beginnings of the Teutonic town of Zurich, which arose from the union of four elements: (1) the royal house and castle on the Lindenhof, with the king's tenants around, (2) the Gross Münster, (3) the Frau Münster, (4) the community of free men (of Alamanian origin) on the Zurichberg.
Similarly we can distinguish four stages in the constitutional development of the town: (i) the gradual replacing (c. 1250) of the power of the abbess by that (real, though not nominal) of the patricians, (ii) the admittance of the craft guilds (1336) to a share with the patricians in the government of the town, (iii) the granting of equal political rights (1831) to the country districts, ruled as subject lands by the burghers, and (iv) the reception as burghers of the numerous immigrants who had settled in the town (Derived from Free Public Domain: Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition)
Political power lay with the Grossmünster and Fraumünster abbeys during medieval times, until the guild revolt in the 14th century which led to the joining of the Swiss Confederacy. Zürich was the focus of the Swiss Reformation led by Huldrych Zwingli, and it came to riches with silk industry in early modern times.
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