Before Switzerland: Medieval Lords and Mountain Communities
This is the retelling of Chapter 1 of A Concise History of Switzerland by Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head (Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-14382-0).
Switzerland as we know it did not exist until pretty late. Modern historians agree that “the Swiss” as a concept only appeared in the 1400s. The actual state showed up in the 1800s and took its final shape in 1848. Before all that, there was just a fragmented region of mountains, valleys and small towns. No unity. No shared identity. Just geography and local politics.
The land and its people
The territory is small. About 41,000 square kilometers. More than half of it is Alps. The midlands between the Alps and the Jura range were always the population center. All the major cities sat there: Geneva, Zurich, Berne, Lucerne. The mountains had deep valleys where people farmed, herded cattle and made cheese for export.
The Alpine passes were the real prize. They connected Italy to Germany and France. Whoever controlled them controlled trade. The St Gotthard pass opened around 1200 and changed everything for the central valleys. Uri, sitting right on that route, suddenly mattered. Merchants paid tolls. Local communities maintained the paths and provided transport. Money started flowing in.
By 1300 the population reached maybe 800,000. There were many small cities, an unusual density for Europe at the time. People spoke different languages: Alemannic German, French, Italian, Rhaeto-Romance. Multiple bishoprics covered the area. Seven separate ones, belonging to five different archbishoprics. Fragmentation was the default state.
The political mess
Politically, everything belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. “Belonged” is a strong word though. The Empire was fragmenting. Major dynasties kept dying out. The Kings of Burgundy vanished after 1032. The Dukes of Zahringen expired in 1218. The Hohenstaufen Emperors ended in 1250. Each time a dynasty collapsed, local nobles scrambled for power.
This chaos was actually useful. Cities and even rural communities started organizing as political corporations. They got charters, seals, courts. The key concept was “imperial liberty,” meaning you answered only to the Emperor, not to local lords. For a town or valley, best deal you could get. You could buy it, earn it through political support, or just grab it when nobody was looking.
I find this part fascinating. Reminds me of how open source communities form. When the central authority is weak, local actors step up and build their own structures. Medieval self-organization, basically.
Peace alliances and the 1291 pact
When Emperors and nobles failed to keep order, towns and valleys made their own peace alliances. They swore oaths to obey laws, resist violence and settle disputes through arbitration instead of fighting. Berne started seeking allies in the 1240s. It allied with cities, nobles, bishops, rural communes. Whatever worked.
The famous 1291 pact between Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden was one of many such alliances. The document promises mutual support and says no outside judges allowed. What made it special was that all three parties were rural valley communities, not cities. They had their own seals and claimed imperial liberty. The pact was probably written down in 1309 or later, not actually in 1291 as traditionally claimed. The 19th century picked this document as the founding moment, and that story stuck.
Why 1291 specifically? Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg had just died. A rival got elected. People feared civil war. Good time to renew your alliances. Uri and Schwyz also signed a pact with Zurich that same year. Just covering all bases.
The Habsburg problem
The Habsburgs were a local noble family that hit the big time. Rudolf of Habsburg became Emperor in 1273 and grabbed Austria after a major military victory. Suddenly they were one of Europe’s most powerful dynasties. Their old territories in Switzerland were now a sideshow compared to their eastern ambitions.
This created an interesting dynamic. The Habsburgs wanted to consolidate control over their Swiss lands. They bought lordships, created registries of possessions, installed bailiffs. They kept getting distracted by imperial politics though. Every time they looked away, the local communities grabbed more autonomy.
The communities fought back systematically. At Morgarten in 1315, troops from Schwyz ambushed and routed a Habsburg force. After that, Emperor Louis the Bavarian (a Habsburg rival) confirmed the imperial liberty of the three valleys. Your enemy’s enemy is your friend. Always has been.
Building toward a real thing
Through the 1300s, the network of alliances grew denser. Lucerne joined the three valleys in 1332. Zurich came in after an internal guild revolution in 1336 brought new leadership that was anti-Habsburg. Berne connected to the eastern network in 1353. Glarus and Zug got pulled in too. Still not a state. Just overlapping alliances.
In 1370, six members passed the Pfaffenbrief, their first common statute. Two big innovations: all inhabitants (including nobles) must swear loyalty to territorial government, and clerics cannot appeal to church courts for non-spiritual matters. For the first time, the signatories called themselves an “Eidgenossenschaft” (oath-comradeship). No longer just a peacekeeping network. It was becoming a territorial power.
Sempach: the turning point
The real crisis came in 1386. Duke Leopold III of Habsburg marched toward Lucerne with an army. At Sempach on July 9th, a smaller Swiss force defeated him decisively. Leopold died in the battle. A legitimate lord, killed by commoners who had seized his territory. Chroniclers across Europe were shocked.
After Sempach, the alliance became more attractive. More communities joined. The remaining members signed the Sempach treaty to regulate joint warfare. The Habsburgs and Swiss signed truces rather than peace. By the 1390s, the Eidgenossenschaft was a recognized political force. Not a state, not a nation. Each member kept its own alliances and interests. Something new existed though.
The Black Death, economic crises, weakened nobility, strong corporate traditions, strategic mountain passes. All of these factors came together. As the authors put it, the key question for the 1400s was whether this loose alliance would get absorbed by the dynastic states forming around it, or whether it would survive as something different.
We know the answer. Getting there took another few centuries of messy, complicated politics. Which is the next chapter.
This is part of my retelling of A Concise History of Switzerland by Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head, Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-14382-0.