As the Middle Ages began to decline, the most significant development within the German monarchy was the rise of small independent territories. In Switzerland, this development was already in full swing in the fourteenth century. Among a multitude of competing rulers, nobles, ecclesiastics and cities, the leading duchies had already clearly emerged. Since about 1250 Savoy, to the west, had been striving successfully to create a modern, and to a large extent self-contained, territory which was efficiently governed, even after the shift of Savoyard interests towards Piedmont. In what is now southern Switzerland, the Visconti dukes of Milan had become the dominant influence. In the east and north, from their hereditary territories as far as the Swiss midlands, the Habsburgs, despite setbacks, still enjoyed remarkable success. In between, and for the time being, some middle-ranking domestic nobility — for example, the counts of Toggenburg, Greyerz and Neuenburg, and the lords of Hallwil and Landenberg (local families owing service to the Habsburgs) — held their ground well. A substantial share of the variegated number of small and middle-sized domains and of fragmented and scattered sovereign rights belonged to ecclesiastical rulers such as the bishops of Chur, Basle and Sitten. About 1370, the small states of the Confederation, whose territorial expansion had scarcely begun, were no more than isolated dots on the multi-coloured political map of what is now Switzerland.
The rise of the Confederation at the turn of the fifteenth century was influenced very significantly, though not exclusively, by events in the Austro-Habsburg sphere of influence. The political activity of the Habsburgs, over and above their imperial responsibilities, focused mainly on the possessions which they had inherited in the thirteenth century in what is now Austria. But in the years about 1360, in particular, and again after 1380, they strove, sometimes with great success, to extend and consolidate their power in the west. In 1363, for example, the Austrian Habsburgs gained possession of the Tyrol. Between 1375 and 1413 they took over almost all the territories of the counts of Montfort as well as those of the Werdenbergs in the Rhine valley, in particular the town and domain of Sargans.
The greatest contributor to this process was Duke Leopold III of Austria (1351—86), who turned his attention westwards after inheriting the Austrian Habsburg possessions in 1379, showing himself everywhere in his new territories as an ambitious, though not particularly skilful, local politician. His political clashes with the cities were further complicated by the ambiguity of his positions during the Great Schism. As a result, the cities to the south of the German Empire formed themselves into leagues which constituted a powerful opposition. Such leagues came into being in Swabia in 1376, in Alsace in 1379, and in the central Rhineland in 1381, while Zurich, Berne, Solothurn and Zug joined together with fifty-one other towns in the region to form the League of Constance in 1385. In the area of the river Aare, Leopold had to reckon with the imperial city of Berne, while in the alpine foothills he came up against the territorial and political interests of Lucerne. In 1386 localised conflicts over Lucerne’s attempts to dominate her hinterland and the Entlebuch, where the Austrian duke also had rights, culminated in a threat of war on both sides. Leopold attempted a show of force with an army made up of nobles, mercenaries and contingents from the cities. It ended in disaster. At Sempach, on 3 July 1386, Leopold lost both battle and life when he met an army from Lucerne, reinforced by men from central Switzerland.
The defeat of the Austrian army of feudal nobles by the Swiss infantry has been set down as a remarkable event of military history. The great victory of Sempach, and the antagonists, Leopold and the legendary Arnold Winkelried, bulked large in Swiss historiography and national consciousness from the fifteenth century onwards. However, the impact of this single event on politically conducted territorial development should not be overestimated. Dramatic clashes between opposing forces make up only a small part of the long series of changes which occurred in the years after 1380. Changes in social and economic structures played a part, as did military action in advancing political ends; so, too, did widespread, but initially submerged, unrest among the rural population. The difficulties faced by the cities in restricting the scope of the unrest among the rural population is revealed by the Sempacherbrief, a treaty sealed in 1393 in which the confederate partners, acting under the pressure of events, agreed to suppress the waging of all feuds and wars uncontrolled and unsanctioned by their own governments.
Only later did it become clear that the heavy blow to the prestige of the Austrian monarchy had also involved a real loss of power. At first it seemed that the peace agreed in 1389 between Duke Albert I (1349/50—95) and the Confederation (which was replaced by a treaty in 1394 and, in 1412, by a peace which was to last fifty years) had guaranteed the continuation of Habsburg power. However, the de facto absence of Austria from political and military affairs after 1395, which could not have been foreseen, had far-reaching consequences, especially for the lesser nobility which was politically and economically dependent on the Habsburgs. In fact, the sovereign’s absence from politics was due much less to military misfortunes than to quarrels which divided the house of Habsburg after the death of Albert in 1395.
However, it was not long before an event occurred which really did weaken the position of the Austrian monarchy. This was the dispute between Sigismund of Luxemburg and Bohemia (1368—1437), crowned king of Germany in 1410, and his Habsburg rival. At the opening of the Council of Constance, Sigismund published a decree outlawing Frederick IV of Austria (1382/3—1439), who had received the Tyrol and the old western domains (Vorlande) as his portion of the 1400 inheritance. In 1415 the Confederation, headed by Berne, was summoned to make war on Sigismund’s behalf; it seized the opportunity to occupy the Austrian Aargau with the minimum of military effort. Subsequently, the Confederation bought the Aargau as an imperial pledge, and thus legalised its de facto exercise of power. Only after 1440 did this lead in part to a new internal order within these territories, and the conquerors continued to quarrel over the captured lands for decades. While part of the land eventually became a common lordship of all the confederates, it was Berne, which acquired all Austria’s rights in by far the largest part of the Aargau, which emerged as the real winner. In vain did Austria, for years to come, repeatedly demand the return of the Habsburg pledge. Not until 1474, in the peculiar political atmosphere engendered by the diplomatic manoeuvring prior to the Burgundian war, did Duke Sigmund finally renounce all former Austrian rights in the Confederation to the eight confederate Orte. This Austro-Swiss treaty (11 June 1474) is known as the Perpetual Accord (Ewige Richtung). Even this did not end the political and propagandist polemics over the legitimacy of confederate rule in the region, a fact which explains (among other things) why contemporary chroniclers placed such heavy emphasis on the enmity of the confederates towards their Habsburg rivals.
The events in the Aargau underline the importance of relations with the Empire for the ambitions of the political elite within the Confederation. They profited from Habsburg—Luxemburg rivalry then, as they had already done in the fourteenth century. Evidently Sigismund hoped to harness the Confederation to his own enterprises in Italy and against the Hussites; he was therefore more generous in granting it privileges than his predecessors, Charles IV (1316—78) and Wenceslas (1361—1419), had been. He also pursued a distinctly friendly policy towards the cities. For example, Wenceslas had granted Zurich the right to elect its own imperial governor (Reichsvogt) and through him to exercise high justice; in 1415 Sigismund converted the Austrian pledges into imperial fiefs, and in 1433 he sanctioned subinfeudation. At that time Zurich, temporarily at least, played the leading part in the Confederation’s relationship with the Empire, although the city still felt a closer affinity with the towns on Lake Constance than with its confederates in central Switzerland. Moreover, during the years of the ecclesiastical council, Constance was to an extent the centre of the Empire’s diplomacy. In this sense the relationship with the crown was of some importance, not only as the central source of legitimation but also, to the individual territories of the Confederation, as a political reality. Only at the end of the fifteenth century did such territories really begin to cut loose from the Empire.
The overlord and the urban communes were keen competitors in their political pursuit of territorial aggrandisement and consolidation, but they did not compete only against one another. They shared the political aim, already pursued with considerable success throughout the fourteenth century, of ousting or controlling the lesser dynastic nobility. These nobles had traditionally based their independent rule on landed estates and bailiwicks, but by the end of the thirteenth century they were already demonstrably lacking in competitive power. Only the minor regional nobility, such as the lords of Hallwil, Landenberg and Klingenberg, who had risen in the service of the overlord, were able to strengthen their position thanks to their lucrative careers. When, in the first half of the fifteenth century, the house of Habsburg ran into difficulties, this posed enormous problems for those who depended upon Austrian support. Whether through loss of political position and social standing, extinction of the family line or migration, they rapidly disappeared from the scene. A number were to find their way into non-noble groups within the political elite of the Confederation.
This elimination of the nobility is a specifically local development found in no other region of the Empire. In the disappearance of the traditional forms of aristocratic rule, political factors were of great importance. This can be shown through a comparison with the still intact position of the nobility under Savoyard rule.
There were also economic and social problems behind this disappearance of the nobility, problems which had nothing to do with the hostility towards the nobility of which the Confederation would be later accused. Their difficulties arose in part from the lack of profitable career opportunities in royal service. Moreover, the income of the lesser nobility must have been sharply reduced by the crisis which undoubtedly afflicted the agricultural economy, particularly at the beginning of the century. Nor did the limited development of traditional feudal authority in the forest cantons help to maintain the influence of the nobility, whose ranks were also exposed to the burghers of the confederate cities who were all ready to step into their political shoes.