CONSTANCE or KONSTANZ, a town in the Land of Baden, situated on the south or left bank of the Rhine, as it flows from the Lake of Constance to form the Untersee. Pop. (1933) 32.961. It is some 3o m. by rail from Schaffhausen (on the west) and 22 m. along the south-west shore of the lake from Rorschach. A fine bridge leads north over the Rhine to one suburb, Peters hausen, while to the south the town gradually merges into the Swiss suburb of Kreuzlingen. Constance, originally a Roman sta tion, was a bishop's see from the 6th century (transferred hither from Vindonissa, near Brugg, in the Aargau) till its suppression in 1821. To this it owes its importance. The bishop was a prince of the Holy Roman empire, while his diocese included at one time most of Baden and Wiirttemberg and a large portion of Switzerland. Towards the end of the i2th century the city be came an imperial free city, but the bishop practically ruled it till the time of the Reformation. The f ormer cathedral church was erected io69-89, but was later rebuilt in Gothic style. The Dominican convent, on an island east of the town, is now a hotel, but the buildings (especially the cloisters) are well preserved. The Kaufhaus (warehouse for goods) is I4th century, while the town hall dates from 1592. In the market-place are the Gasthaus zum Barbarossa, where Frederick Barbarossa is said to have signed the peace of Constance (1193), while in the house named zum Hohen Hafen the emperor Sigismund is said to have invested Frederick of Hohenzollern with the mark of Brandenburg (I4I7)• A great Reforming Church council was held in Constance from 1414-18. It condemned and burned John Huss in 1415 and Jerome of Prague in 1416. Constance is the natural capital of the Thurgau, so that when in 146o the Swiss wrested that region from the Austrians, the town and the Swiss Confederation should have been naturally drawn together. But Constance refused to give up to the Swiss the right of exercising criminal jurisdiction in the Thurgau, which it had obtained from the emperor in 1417, while the Austrians, having bought Bregenz, were also desirous of securing the city. In 153o Constance (whose bishop had been forced to flee in 1527 to Meersburg) joined, with Strasbourg, Memmingen and Lindau, the Schmalkalden League. But after the defeat of the Protestants in 1547 at Midhlberg the city found itself isolated in southern Germany. The Austrians had long tried to obtain influence in the town, especially when its support of the Protestant cause attracted the sympathy of the Swiss. Hence Charles V. in 1548 forced it to surrender to the imperial authority and to receive the bishop again and consent to annexation to the Austrian dominions. Protestantism was then vigorously stamped out. In 1633 Constance resisted successfully an attempt of the Swedes 'to take it, and in 1805, by the treaty of Pressburg, was handed over by Austria to Baden. Constance trades in textiles and iron goods.