Pact of Brunnen

Last updated April 30, 2019

The Pact of Brunnen (Bund von Brunnen) is a historical treaty between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, concluded in Brunnen on 9 December 1315.

The canton of Uri is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss between the St. Gotthard Pass and Lake Lucerne.

The canton of Schwyz is a canton in central Switzerland between the Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centered on and named after the town of Schwyz.

Unterwalden is the old name of a forest-canton of the Old Swiss Confederacy in central Switzerland, south of Lake Lucerne, consisting of two valleys or Talschaften, now two separate Swiss cantons, Obwalden and Nidwalden.

Representatives of the four territories (Unterwalden was composed of Obwalden and Nidwalden) met in Brunnen after the success of the Battle of Morgarten in the previous month to renew the promise of mutual military assistance. In 1318, Leopold I, Duke of Austria concluded a truce with the confederates.^[1] According to Aegidius Tschudi, the pact of Brunnen marks the decision to make what had been a pragmatic alliance a permanent, sworn confederacy, initiating the phase of growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy, with the accession to the pact by Lucerne in 1332 and Zürich in 1351, Glarus and Zug in 1352 and Bern in 1353.^[2]

The Battle of Morgarten occurred on 15 November 1315, when a 1,500-strong force from the Swiss Confederacy ambushed a group of Habsburg soldiers on the shores of Lake Ägeri near the Morgarten Pass in Switzerland. The Swiss, led by Werner Stauffacher, defeated the Habsburg troops, who were under the command of Duke Leopold I. The Swiss victory consolidated the Everlasting League of the Three Forest Cantons, which formed the core of modern Switzerland.

Leopold I, Duke of Austria austrian duke

Leopold I from the House of Habsburg was Duke of Austria and Styria – as co-ruler with his elder brother Frederick the Fair – from 1308 until his death. Born at Vienna, he was the third son of King Albert I of Germany and Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, a scion of the Meinhardiner dynasty.

AegidiusTschudi was a Swiss statesman and historian, an eminent member of the Tschudi family of Glarus, Switzerland. His best known work is the Chronicon Helveticum, a history of the early Swiss Confederation.

While there are a number of earlier treaties of a similar nature, the treaty of Brunnen is particular because it was the first to be worded in German language rather than Latin. The treaty was long regarded as the foundational document of the Old Swiss Confederacy, until the Federal Charter of 1291 surpassed it in prominence during the first half of the 20th century.

Middle High German is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High German is defined as those varieties of German which were affected by the Second Sound Shift; the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch languages spoken to the North and North West, which did not participate in this sound change, are not part of MHG.

The Old Swiss Confederacy was a loose confederation of independent small states within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.

Federal Charter of 1291 Founding document of Switzerland

The Federal Charter or Letter of Alliance documents the Eternal Alliance or League of the Three Forest Cantons, the union of three cantons in what is now central Switzerland. It is dated in early August 1291 and initiates the current 1 August Swiss National Day. This agreement, in Latin, cites a previous similar pact. It is currently exhibited at the Museum of the Swiss Charters of Confederation in Schwyz.

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Since 1848, the Swiss Confederation has been a federal state of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of confederacy that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.

The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the Swiss Confederation. The nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the form of the first three confederate allies used to be referred to as the Waldstätte. Two further major steps in the development of the Swiss cantonal system are referred to by the terms Acht Orte and Dreizehn Orte ; they were important intermediate periods of the Ancient Swiss Confederacy.

The Battle of Sempach was fought on 9 July 1386, between Leopold III, Duke of Austria and the Old Swiss Confederacy. The battle was a decisive Swiss victory in which Duke Leopold and numerous Austrian nobles died. The victory helped turn the loosely allied Swiss Confederation into a more unified nation and is seen as a turning point in the growth of Switzerland.

The early history of Switzerland begins with the earliest settlements up to the beginning of Habsburg rule, which in 1291 gave rise to the independence movement in the central cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden and the Late Medieval growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

The Old Swiss Confederacy began as a late medieval alliance between the communities of the valleys in the Central Alps, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire, 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 Hohenstaufen emperors had granted these valleys reichsfrei status in the early 13th century. As reichsfrei regions, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under the direct authority of the emperor without any intermediate liege lords and thus were largely autonomous.

Eidgenossenschaft is a German word specific to the political history of Switzerland. It translates to "oath fellowship" in reference to the "eternal pacts" formed between the Eight Cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy of the late medieval period, most notably in Swiss historiography being the Rütlischwur between the three founding cantons Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, traditionally dated to 1307. In modern usage, it is the German term used as equivalent with "Confederation" in the official name of Switzerland, Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, rendered Confédération and Confederazione in French and Italian, respectively. The related adjective, eidgenössisch, officially translated as Swiss federal, is used in the name of organisations, for example the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The term Eidgenosse refers to the individual members of the Eidgenossenschaft. It is attested as early as 1315, in the Pact of Brunnen, referring to the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden. The abstract noun Eidgenossenschaft is attested in the 15th century. In modern usage, Eidgenosse is sometimes used for "Swiss citizen".

The early modern history of the Old Swiss Confederacy and its constituent Thirteen Cantons encompasses the time of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) until the French invasion of 1798.

Waldstätte is the Stätte, or later Ort or Stand of the early confederate allies of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden in Central Switzerland.

The Treaty of Basel of 22 September 1499 was an armistice following the Battle of Dornach, concluding the Swabian War, fought between the Swabian League and the Old Swiss Confederacy.

The English name of Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, an obsolete term for the Swiss, which was in use during the 16th to 19th centuries. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century.

The territorial evolution of Switzerland occurred primarily with the acquisition of territory by the historical cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy and its close associates. This gradual expansion took place in two phases, the growth from the medieval Founding Cantions to the "Eight Cantons" during 1332–1353, and the expansion to the "Thirteen Cantons" of the Reformation period during 1481–1513.

Uri is a Swiss Talschaft and canton in the upper Reuss valley.

The Thurgau was a pagus of the Duchy of Alamannia in the early medieval period. A County of Thurgau existed from the 13th century until 1798. Parts of Thurgau were acquired by the Old Swiss Confederacy during the early 15th century, and the entire county passed to the Confederacy as a condominium in 1460.

References

↑ Charles William Previté-Orton (ed.), The shorter Cambridge medieval history, vol. 2 "Twelfth Century to the Renaissance", 1975, ISBN 978-0-521-09977-6, p. 858.
↑ Christophe Guillaume Koch, Johann Daniel Sander, Gemählde der Revolutionen in Europa: seit dem Umsturze des Römischen Kaiserthums im Occident, bis auf unsere Zeiten, Volume 2, Sander, 1807, p. 47. J. Oswald Schön, Entwicklungsgeschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft für Schule und Volk: nach verschiedenen Geschichtswerken in gemeinfaßlicher Weise, Tellmann, 1861, p. 140. H. M. Latham L. C. Chew, A History of Europe - Volume I. - Europe in the Middle Ages 843 - 1494, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4437-1897-4, p. 293.

History and Creation of the Confederation to 1353 in German , French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland .
Battle of Morgarten and Aftermath in German , French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland .

<i>Historical Dictionary of Switzerland</i> encyclopedia on the history of Switzerland

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland is an encyclopedia on the history of Switzerland that aims to take into account the results of modern historical research in a manner accessible to a broader audience.

Pact of Brunnen

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