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The wars of Kappel (Kappelerkriege) is a collective term for two armed conflicts fought near Kappel am Albis between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.
The first conflict saw the establishment of the Christian Union (formed of cantons Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, and Zug) in order to stop the spread of Protestantism throughout Switzerland. [1] The union was a rejection of Swiss leader Huldrych Zwingli's attempts at forced reformation. [2]
In 1529, after enlisting the help of the leaders of the forest cantons, [3] Zwingli attempted to reform the cantons by force. However, the winning diplomacy of the Union forced the Protestants to not cross the border, postponing the conflict until 1531.
The canton of Zürich was the principal supporter of Zwingli and the movement of Swiss reformation. When they fought the Musso War against the Duchy of Milan, the member states of the Catholic Union refused to provide aid. Zwingli immediately sanctioned the Catholic cantons.
Since 1848 the Swiss Confederation has been a federal republic of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of federation that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
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, centred on and named after the town of Schwyz.
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 Battle of Morgarten took place on 15 November 1315, when troops of Schwyz, supported by their allies of Uri and Unterwalden, ambushed an Austrian army under the command of Leopold I, Duke of Austria on the shores of Lake Ägeri, in the territory of Schwyz.
The Federal Charter or Letter of Alliance is one of the earliest constitutional documents of Switzerland. A treaty of alliance from 1291 between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, the Charter is one of a series of alliances from which the Old Swiss Confederacy emerged. In the 19th and 20th century, after the establishment of the Swiss federal state, the Charter became the central founding document of Switzerland in the popular imagination.
Obwalden or Obwald is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of seven municipalities and the seat of the government and parliament is in Sarnen. It is traditionally considered a "half-canton", the other half being Nidwalden.
The Sonderbund War of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic cantons formed the Sonderbund in 1845 to protect their interests against a centralization of power. The war concluded with the defeat of the Sonderbund. It resulted in the emergence of Switzerland as a federal state, concluding the period of political "restoration and regeneration" in Switzerland.
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate, Mark Reust, and the population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Seven cantons remained Catholic, however, which led to intercantonal wars known as the Wars of Kappel. After the victory of the Catholic cantons in 1531, they proceeded to institute Counter-Reformation policies in some regions. The schism and distrust between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons defined their interior politics and paralysed any common foreign policy until well into the 18th century.
The rise of Switzerland as a federal state began on 12 September 1848, with the creation of a federal constitution in response to a 27-day civil war, the Sonderbundskrieg. The constitution, which was heavily influenced by the United States Constitution and the ideas of the French Revolution, was modified several times during the following decades and wholly replaced in 1999. The 1848 constitution represented the first time, other than when the short-lived Helvetic Republic had been imposed, that the Swiss had a central government instead of being simply a collection of autonomous cantons bound by treaties.
The First War of Kappel was an armed conflict in 1529 between the Protestant and the Catholic cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland. It ended, without any single battle having been fought, with the first peace of Kappel.
The Second War of Kappel was an armed conflict in 1531 between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.
The Old Swiss Confederacy, also known as Switzerland, or the Swiss Confederacy was a loose confederation of independent small states, initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.
The Battle of Arbedo was fought on 30 June 1422 between the Duchy of Milan and the Swiss Confederation, and ended with a Milanese victory.
The Freiamt or Freie Ämter is a region in Switzerland and is located in the southeast of Canton of Aargau. It comprises the area between the Lindenberg and Heitersberg and from the terminal moraine at Othmarsingen to Reuss river in Dietwil. Today the area of the Bremgarten and Muri Districts are called the Freiamt. Previously, the area around Affoltern District in the canton of Zurich was called the (Zurich) Freiamt.
Vogtei Rheintal was a condominium of the Old Swiss Confederacy from the 15th century until 1798. Its territory corresponded to the left banks of the Alpine Rhine between Hoher Kasten and Lake Constance, including the towns of Altstätten and Rheineck.
The Raron affair was a 15th-century rebellion in the Valais against the power of a local noble family, the Raron family. The rebellion brought several cantons of the Swiss Confederation into conflict with each other and threatened a civil war in the Confederation. While Bern was initially successful, they were eventually forced to surrender most of their gains.
The Toggenburg War, also known as the Second War of Villmergen or the Swiss Civil War of 1712, was a Swiss civil war during the Old Swiss Confederacy from 12 April to 11 August 1712. The Catholic "inner cantons" and the Imperial Abbey of Saint Gall fought the Protestant cantons of Bern and Zürich as well as the abbatial subjects of Toggenburg. The conflict was a religious war, a war for hegemony in the Confederacy and an uprising of subjects. The war ended in a Protestant victory and upset the balance of political power within the Confederacy.
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.
The Second Battle of Ulrichen was a battle fought in 1419 between the Old Swiss Confederacy led by Bern and rebels from Valais near Ulrichen in the district of Goms in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Negotiations after the battle led to the end of the Raron affair and self-determination for Valais.
