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Old Swiss Confederacy

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

                                                  History of Switzerland
                                             Early history  (before 1291)
                                                   Old Swiss Confederacy
                                                    Growth  ( 1291– 1516)
                                               Reformation  ( 1516– 1648)
                                             Ancien Régime  ( 1648– 1798)
                                                     Transitional period
                                            Napoleonic era  ( 1798– 1814)
                                              Restauration  ( 1814– 1847)
                                                             Switzerland
                                             Federal state  ( 1848– 1914)
                                                World Wars  ( 1914– 1945)
                                            Modern history ( 1945–present)
                                                                 Topical
                                          Military history

   The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland.
   The Swiss Eidgenossenschaft, as the confederacy was called, was a loose
   federation of largely independent small states that existed from the
   late 13th century until 1798, when it was invaded by the French under
   Napoleon I, who transformed it into the short-lived Helvetic Republic.

History

   The Old Swiss Confederacy from 1291 to the 16th century.
   Enlarge
   The Old Swiss Confederacy from 1291 to the 16th century.

   The nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy was an alliance between the
   communities of the valleys in the central Alps to facilitate the
   management of common interests such as free trade and to ensure the
   peace along the important trade routes through the mountains. The
   Federal Charter of 1291 among the rural communes of Uri, Schwyz, and
   Unterwalden is traditionally considered the founding document of the
   confederacy, although similar alliances may have existed already a few
   decades earlier.

Growth of the federation

   This initial pact was gradually augmented with additional pacts with
   the cities of Lucerne, Zürich, and Berne. This rare union of rural and
   urban communes, all of which had the status of imperial immediacy
   within the Holy Roman Empire, was caused by them all being under
   pressure by the Habsburg dukes and kings, who once had ruled much of
   these lands. In several battles against Habsburg armies, the Swiss
   remained victorious and even conquered the rural areas of Glarus and
   Zug, which became independent members of the confederacy, too.

   From 1353 to 1481, this federation of eight cantons, known in German as
   the Acht Orte (Eight Places), consolidated its position. The individual
   members, especially the cities, enlarged their territories at the cost
   of the local counts in the neighbourhood, mostly by buying the judicial
   rights, but sometimes also by force. The Eidgenossenschaft as a whole
   expanded through military conquests. The Aargau was conquered in 1415,
   the Thurgau in 1460. Both times, the Swiss profitted from a weakness of
   the Habsburg dukes. In the south, Uri led a military territorial
   expansion that would—after many setbacks—by 1515 lead to the conquest
   of the Ticino. None of these territories became members of the
   confederacy, though; instead, they had a status as condominiums,
   regions administered commonally by several cantons.

   At the same time, the eight cantons gradually increased their influence
   on neighbouring cities and regions through additional alliances. Not
   the Eidgenossenschaft as a whole, but several (or only one) individual
   cantons concluded pacts with Fribourg, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, the
   abbot and the city of St. Gallen, Biel, Rottweil, Mulhouse, and others.
   These allies, called the Zugewandte Orte, became closely associated to
   the confederacy, but were not accepted as full members.

   The Burgundy Wars prompted a further enlargement of the union with new
   members. Fribourg and Solothurn were accepted into the confederacy in
   1481. In the Swabian War against emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman
   Emperor, the Swiss again remained victorious and were exempted from the
   imperial legislation. The previously associated cities of Basel and
   Schaffhausen joined the confederacy as a direct result of that
   conflict. Appenzell followed in 1513 as the 13th member. This
   federation of thirteen cantons (Dreizehn Orte) constituted the Old
   Swiss Confederacy until its demise in 1798.

   The military expansion of the confederacy was stopped by the loss of
   the Swiss in the battle of Marignano in 1515. Only Berne and Fribourg
   were still able to conquer the Vaud in 1536, which mostly became part
   of the canton of Berne, with only a small part coming under the rule of
   Fribourg.

Confessional confusions

   The forces of Zürich are defeated in the second war of Kappel.
   Enlarge
   The forces of Zürich are defeated in the second war of Kappel.

   The Reformation in Switzerland led to a confessional division amongst
   the cantons. Zürich, Berne, Basel, Schaffhausen, as well as the
   associates Biel, Mulhouse, Neuchâtel, Geneva, and the city of St.
   Gallen became Protestant, the other members of the confederation and
   the Valais remained Catholic. In Glarus, Appenzell, in the Grisons, and
   in most condominiums both religions coexisted; Appenzell split in 1597
   into a Catholic Appenzell Inner Rhodes and a Protestant Appenzell Outer
   Rhodes.

   The confessional division led to civil war — the wars of Kappel — and
   separate alliances with foreign powers of the Catholic and Protestant
   factions, but the confederacy as a whole continued to exist. A common
   foreign politics was blocked, though, by the stand-off of the two
   equally strong camps. In the Thirty Years' War, the deep religious
   disagreements among the cantons kept the confederacy neutral and spared
   it from all belligerent devastations. At the Peace of Westphalia, the
   Swiss delegation was granted formal recognition of the confederacy as
   an independent state, separate from the Holy Roman Empire.

   Growing social differences and an increasing absolutism in the city
   cantons during the Ancien Régime of Switzerland led to various local
   popular revolts. Only the uprising in 1653 during the post-war
   depression after the Thirty Years' War escalated to the general Swiss
   peasant war in the territories of Lucerne, Berne, Basel, Solothurn, and
   in the Aargau. The revolt was put down by force with the help of the
   other cantons.

   The religious differences were increasingly accentuated by an
   ever-growing economic discrepancy. The Catholic and predominantly rural
   central Swiss cantons were surrounded by Protestant cantons with a
   flourishing economy that slowly became industrialised. The politically
   dominant cantons were Zürich and Berne, both Protestant, but in the
   common agencies of the confederation, the Catholic cantons had the
   upper hand since the second war of Kappel in 1531. An attempt in 1655,
   led by Zürich, to restructure the federation was blocked by a Catholic
   opposition, which led to the first war of Villmergen in 1656, which the
   Catholic party won, cementing the status quo. But the problems remained
   unsolved and erupted again in 1712 in the second war of Villmergen.
   This time, the Protestant cantons won, and henceforth dominated the
   federation. A true reform, however, was not possible: the individual
   interests of the thirteen members were too diverse and the absolutist
   cantonal governments resisted all attempts at centralisation or at
   introducing a federation-wide administration or a modern bureaucracy.
   The foreign politics remained fragmented.

   In 1798, the confederacy was invaded by the troops of Napoleon I. It
   succumbed with only insignificant resistance against the French armies.
   The Ancien Régime and the Old Swiss Confederacy were replaced by the
   Helvetic Republic by grace of Napoleon.

Structure of the federation

   The Federal Charter of 1291.
   Enlarge
   The Federal Charter of 1291.
   The Old Swiss Confederacy on a contemporary map 1637
   Enlarge
   The Old Swiss Confederacy on a contemporary map 1637

   Initially, the Eidgenossenschaft was not united by one single pact, but
   rather by a whole set of overlapping pacts and separate bilateral
   treaties between various members, with only minimum liabilities. The
   parties generally agreed to preserve the peace in their territories,
   help each other in military endeavours, and defined some arbitration in
   case of disputes. Only slowly did the members begin to understand the
   federation itself as a unifying entity. In the Pfaffenbrief, a treaty
   of 1370 among six of the eight members (Glarus and Berne did not
   participate) that forbade feuds and that denied clerical courts any
   jurisdiction over the confederacy, the cantons referred for the first
   time to themselves using the singular term Eidgenossenschaft The first
   treaty uniting all of the then eight members of the confederacy became
   the Sempacherbrief of 1393. This treaty was concluded after the
   important victories over the Habsburgs at Sempach and Näfels (1386 and
   1388) and defined that no member was to unilaterally begin a war
   without the consent of the other cantons. Subsequently, a kind of
   federal diet, the Tagsatzung, developed in the 15th century.

   Other pacts and renewals or modernizations of earlier alliances between
   some of the members reinforced the confederacy. Yet the individual
   interests of the cantons clashed in the Old Zürich War (1436 – 1450),
   which was caused by a territorial conflict among Zürich and the central
   Swiss cantons over the succession of the Count of Toggenburg. Zürich
   even entered an alliance with the Habsburg dukes, but finally re-joined
   the confederacy. The confederation had grown into a political alliance
   so close that it no longer tolerated separatist tendencies of its
   members.
   Tagsatzung of 1531 in Baden (1790s drawing).
   Enlarge
   Tagsatzung of 1531 in Baden (1790s drawing).

   The Tagsatzung served as the council of the confederation and typically
   met several times a year. Each canton delegated two representatives;
   including the associate states, who, however, had no vote. Initially,
   the canton where the delegates met chaired the gathering, but in the
   16th century, Zürich permanently assumed the chair (Vorort), and Baden
   became the sessional seat. The Tagsatzung dealt with all inter-cantonal
   affairs and also served as the final arbitral court to settle disputes
   between member states, or to decide on sanctions against dissenting
   members. It also organized and oversaw the administration of the
   condominiums; the reeves were delegated for two years, each time by a
   different canton.

   An important unifying treaty of the Old Swiss Confederacy was the
   Stanser Verkommnis of 1481. Conflicts between the rural and the urban
   cantons and disagreements about the repartition of the bounty of the
   Burgundian Wars had led to several skirmishes. The city states of
   Fribourg and Solothurn wanted to join the confederacy, but were met
   with distruct by the central Swiss rural cantons. The compromise of the
   Tagsatzung in the Stanser Verkommnis restored order and accounted for
   the rural cantons' complaints; Fribourg and Solothurn were accepted
   into the federation. While the treaty also restricted the freedom of
   assembly (many skirmishes were caused by unauthorised expeditions of
   groups of soldiers from the Burgundian Wars), it also reinforced the
   agreements amongst the cantons of the earlier Sempacherbrief and
   Pfaffenbrief.

   The civil war during the Reformation brought about a stalemate. The
   victorious Catholic cantons could block any decisions of the council,
   but due to their geographic and economic situation could not overcome
   the Protestant cantons. Both factions began to hold separate councils,
   but still met at a common Tagsatzung, even though this common council
   remained effectively blocked by the disagreements of the two factions
   until 1712, when the Protestant cantons reversed the situation after
   their victory in the second war of Villmergen. The Catholic cantons
   were excluded from the administration of the condominiums in the
   Aargau, the Thurgau, and the Rhine valley; in their place, Berne became
   a co-sovereign of these regions.

Cantons

   Structure of the Confederacy during the 18th century
   Enlarge
   Structure of the Confederacy during the 18th century

   The confederation expanded in several stages: first to the Eight Places
   (Acht Orte), then in 1481 to ten, in 1501 to twelve, and finally to
   thirteen cantons (Dreizehnörtige Eidgenossenschaft).
     * Uri, rural canton, since 1291
     * Schwyz, rural canton, since 1291
     * Unterwalden, rural canton, since 1291
     * Lucerne, city canton, since 1332
     * Zürich, city canton, since 1351
     * Glarus, rural canton, since 1352
     * Zug, city canton, since 1352
     * Berne, city canton, since 1353

     * Fribourg, city canton, since 1481; associate since 1454
     * Solothurn, city canton, since 1481; associate since 1353

     * Basel, city canton, since 1501
     * Schaffhausen, city canton, since 1501; associate since 1454

     * Appenzell, rural canton, since 1513; associate since 1411

Associates

   Associates (Zugewandte Orte) were close allies of the Old Swiss
   Confederacy, connected to the union by alliance treaties with all or
   some of the individual members of the confederacy.
     * Biel, 1344-1382, treaty with Fribourg, Berne, and Solothurn
     * Neuchâtel, 1406 treaty with Berne, 1495 with Fribourg, and 1501
       with Lucerne and Solothurn
     * Abbey of St. Gallen, 1451, treaty with Schwyz, Lucerne, Zürich, and
       Glarus (renewed 1479 and 1490)
     * City of St. Gallen, 1454, treaty with Schwyz, Lucerne, Zürich,
       Glarus, Zug, and Berne
     * Geneva, 1536, treaty with Berne, and 1584, treaty with Zürich and
       Berne

     * The Sieben Zenden, an independent federation in the Valais, became
       a Zugewandter Ort in 1416 through an alliance with Uri,
       Unterwalden, and Lucerne, and a treaty with Berne in 1446.
     * The Three Leagues, independent federations on the territory of the
       Grisons, became an associates of the Old Swiss Confederacy in
       1497/1498 through the events of the Swabian War. The Gray League,
       who had been allied with Glarus, Uri, and Obwalden through pacts
       from 1400, 1407, and 1419, entered an alliance with seven of the
       old eight cantons (Acht Orte, Berne excluded) in 1497; the
       Gotteshausbund followed suit a year later. The third of the
       leagues, the League of the Ten Jurisdictions, entered an alliance
       with Zürich and Glarus in 1590. The Three Leagues together
       concluded an alliance pact with Berne in 1602.

     * The city of Rottweil was also an associate of the confederacy from
       1519 – 1632 through a treaty with all 13 members; a first treaty on
       military cooperation had already been concluded in 1463.
     * Likewise, Mulhouse concluded a first treaty with some cantons in
       1466 and became an associate in 1515 through a treaty with all 13
       members of the confederacy and remained so until 1797.

     * The County of Gruyère had been allied with Fribourg and Berne since
       the early 14th century, became a full associate of the confederacy
       in 1548, and was liquidated and split between Fribourg and Berne in
       1555, after the counts had gone bankrupt.

Condominiums

   Condominiums were common subject territories under the administration
   of several cantons. They were governed by reeves delegated for two
   years, each time from another of the responsible cantons. Berne
   initially did not participate in the administration of some of the
   eastern condominiums, as it had no part in their conquest and its
   interests were focused more on the western border. In 1712, Berne
   replaced the Catholic cantons in the administration of the Freie Ämter
   ("Free Districts"), the Thurgau, the Rhine valley, and Sargans, and
   furthermore the Catholic cantons were excluded from the administration
   of the County of Baden.
     * Freie Ämter (in the Aargau), conquered 1415, administration by the
       Acht Orte minus Berne;
     * County of Baden (Aargau), conquered 1415, administration by the
       Acht Orte
     * Schwarzenburg, 1423, Berne and Fribourg
     * Uznach, 1437, Schwyz and Glarus
     * Sargans, 1460, Acht Orte minus Berne
     * Thurgau, 1460, Acht Orte minus Berne
     * Murten, Grandson, Orbe and Echallens, 1475, Berne and Fribourg
     * Abbey of Pfäfers, 1482, Acht Orte minus Berne
     * Rhine valley, 1490, Appenzell and the Acht Orte minus Berne
     * Hohensax/ Gams, 1497, Schwyz and Glarus
     * Blenio, Riviera, Bellinzona (in the Ticino), 1500, Uri, Schwyz, and
       Unterwalden
     * Maggia, Lugano, Locarno, Mendrisio (in the Ticino), 1512, Dreizehn
       Orte minus Appenzell

Protectorates

     * Gersau, an independent village, was allied with Schwyz since 1332
     * Abbey of Engelberg
     * Rapperswil, as of 1464

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