free from all obligations. No negotiations, so long as the “Lander” have no lord, are to be entered on with outside powers, save by common agreement of all. Louis solemnly recognized and confirmed the new league in 1316, and in 1318 a truce was concluded between the Confederates and the Habsburgs, who treat with them on equal terms. The lands and rights annexed belonging to the Habsburgs in the Forest districts are fully recognized as they existed in the days of Henry of Luxemburg, and freedom of commerce is granted. But there is not one word about the political rights of the Habsburgs as counts of the Zürichgau and Aargau. This distinction gives the key to the whole history of the relations between the Confederates and Habsburgs; the rights of the latter as landowners are fully allowed, and till 1801 they possessed estates within the Confederation; it is their political rights which were always contested by the Swiss, who desired to rule themselves.
As early as 1320 we find the name “Switzerland” (Sweicz)
(derived from Schwyz, which had always been the leader in the
struggle) applied to the three Forest cantons, and in
1352 extended to the Confederation as a whole.
But it was not till after Sempach (1386) that it
The League of
Eight Members.
came into popular use, the historian J. von Muller (1785) fixing
the distinction between “Schweiz” (for the country) and
“Schwyz” (for the Canton), and it did not form the official name
of the Confederation till 1803. (Officially in the middle ages and
later the Confederation was named “les Ligues de la Haute
Allemagne,” or, as Commines, late in the 15th century, puts it,
“les vieilles Ligues d'Allemagne qu'on appelle Suisses,” while
from c. 1452 onwards the people were called “Swiss”). This is in
itself a proof of the great renown which the League won by its
victory at Morgarten. Another is that as years go by we find
other members admitted to the privileges of the original alliance
of the three Forest districts. First to join the League (1332) was
the neighbouring town of Lucerne, which had grown up round
the monastery of St Leodegar or Leger (whence the place took
its name), perhaps a colony, certainly a cell of the great house of
Murbach in Alsace, under the rule of which the town remained
till its sale in 1291 to the Habsburgs. This act of Lucerne was
opposed by the house of Austria, but, despite the decision of
certain chosen arbitrators in favour of the Habsburg claims, the
town clung to the League with which it was connected by its
natural position, and thus brought a new element into the pastoral
association of the Forest districts, which now surrounded the
entire Lake of Lucerne. Next, in 1351, came the ancient town of
Zürich, which in 1218, on the extinction of the house of Zäringen,
had become a free imperial city in which the abbess of the
Fraumunster (the lady of Uri) had great influence, while in 1336
there had been a great civic revolution, headed by Rudolph Brun,
which had raised the members of the craft gilds to a position in
the municipal government of equal power with that of the
patricians, who, however, did not cease intriguing to regain their
lost privileges, so that Brun, after long hesitation, decided to
throw in the lot of the town with the League rather than with
Austria. In this way the League now advanced from the hilly
country to the plains, though the terms of the treaty with Zürich
did not bind it so closely to the Confederates as in the other cases
(the right of making alliances apart from the League being reserved
though the League was to rank before these), and hence rendered
it possible for Zürich now and again to incline towards Austria
in a fashion which did great hurt to its allies. In 1352 the League
was enlarged by the admission of Glarus and Zug. Glarus
belonged to the monastery of Säckingen on the Rhine (founded
by the Irish monk Fridolin), of which the Habsburgs were
“advocates,” claiming therefore many rights over the valley,
which refused to admit them, and joyfully received the Confederates
who came to its aid; but it was placed on a lower footing
than the other members of the League, being bound to obey their
orders. Three weeks later the town and district of Zug, attacked
by the League and abandoned by their Habsburg masters, joined
the Confederation, forming a transition link between the civic
and rural members of the League. The immediate occasion of
the union of these two districts was the war begun by the
Austrian duke against Zürich, which was ended by the Brandenburg
peace of 1352, by which Glarus and Zug were to be restored
to the Habsburgs, who also regained their rights over Lucerne.
Zug was won for good by a bold stroke of the men of Schwyz in
1364, but it was not till the day of Nafels (1388) that Glarus
recovered its lost freedom. These temporary losses and the
treaty made by Brun of Zürich with Austria in 1356 were, however,
far outweighed by the entrance into the League in 1353 of
the famous town of Bern, which, founded in 1191 by Berthold V.
of Zäringen, and endowed with great privileges, had become a
free imperial city in 1218 on the extinction of the Zaringen
dynasty. Founded for the purpose of bridling the turbulent
feudal nobles around, many of whom had become citizens, Bern
beat them back at Dornbuhl (1298), and made a treaty with the
Forest districts as early as 1323. In 1339, at the bloody fight of
Laupen, she had broken the power of the nobles for ever, and in
1352 had been forced by a treaty with Austria to take part in the
war against Zürich, but soon after the conclusion of peace entered
the League as the ally of the three Forest districts, being thus
only indirectly joined to Lucerne and Zürich. The special
importance of the accession of Bern was that the League now
began to spread to the west, and was thus brought into Connexion
for the first time with the French-speaking land of Savoy. The
League thus numbered eight members, the fruits of Morgarten,
and no further members were admitted till 1481, after the
Burgundian War. But, in order thoroughly to understand the
nature of the League, it must be remembered that, while each of
the five new members was allied with the original nucleus-the
three Forest districts—these five were not directly allied to
one another: Lucerne was allied with Zürich and Zug; Zürich
with Lucerne, Zug and Glarus; Glarus with Zürich; Zug with
Lucerne and Zürich; Bern with no one except the three original
members. The circumstances under which each entered the
League can alone explain these very intricate relations.
After a short interval of peace the quarrels with Austria broke out afresh; all the members of the League, save the three Forest districts and Glarus, joined (1385) the great union of the south German cities; but their attention was soon called to events nearer home. Lucerne fretted much under Sempach. the Austrian rule, received many Austrian subjects among her citizens, and refused to pay custom duties to the Austrian bailiff at Rothenburg, on the ground that she had the right of free traffic. An attack on the custom-house at Rothenburg, and the gift of the privileges of burgher ship to the discontented inhabitants of the little town of Sempach a short way off, so irritated Leopold III. (who then held all the possessions of his house outside Austria) that he collected an army, with the intention of crushing his rebellious town. Lucerne meanwhile had summoned the other members of the League to her aid, and, though Leopold’s feint of attacking Zürich caused the troops of the League to march at first in that direction, they discovered their mistake in time to turn back and check his advance on Lucerne. From 1500 to 1600 men of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, and Lucerne opposed the 6000 which made up the Austrian army. The decisive fight took place on the 9th of July 1386, near Sempach, on a bit of sloping meadow-land, cut up by streams and hedges, which forced the Austrian knights to dismount. The great heat of the day, which rendered it impossible to fight in armour, and the furious attacks of the Confederates, finally broke the Austrian line after more than one repulse and turned the day (see Winkelried). Leopold, with a large number of his followers, was slain, and the Habsburg power within the borders of the Confederation finally broken. Glarus at once rose in arms against Austria, but it was not till the expiration of the truce made after Sempach that Leopold's brother, Albert of Austria, brought an army against Glarus, and was defeated at Nafels (not far from Glarus) on the 9th of April 1388, by a handful of Glarus and Schwyz men.
In 1389 a peace for seven years was made, the Confederates being secured in all their conquests; an attempt made in 1393 by Austria by means of Schöno, the chief magistrate of Zürich and leader of the patrician party, to stir up a fresh attack
