The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli

Near the source of the river Thur, in Wildhaus, a mountain-village of the Toggenburg, lived the bailiff Ulric Zwingli, with his wife Margaretta Meili, in moderate circumstances and universal esteem. Eight sons and two daughters were the fruit of their marriage. The third of these sons, born on the first of January 1484, seven weeks after Luther's birth-day, received the name of his father. A brother of the bailiff, Bartholomew Zwingli, was chosen by the burghers of Wildhaus, who a short time before had separated from the mother-church of Glarus, as the first pastor of the new congregation. The mother also had a brother of the clerical order, John Meili, abbot of Fischingen.