The Abbey of Saint Gall was a Benedictine monastery in present-day Eastern Switzerland. Until 1798, the Abbot of Saint Gall was a prince of the Holy Roman Empire with a seat and vote in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and simultaneously the first affiliated place of the Swiss Confederation. The Abbey of Saint Gall was founded in 719 and dissolved in 1805. In 612, the Irish monk Saint Gallus, a companion of Columban of Luxeuil, settled by the Steinach River and established a hermitage. However, the actual founder of the Abbey of Saint Gall was Otmar, who had been educated and ordained at the episcopal see in Chur. Around 719, he was appointed by the tribune Waltram of Arbon as the head of the Gallus cell and tasked with establishing a regular monastery.