were the Carolinger. Louis the German had raised the Grand Abbey and
Church of Our Lady (Fraumunsterabtei) in 853, to provide his saintly
daughters, Hildegarde and Bertha, with positions and incomes equal to
their rank. His ancestors, Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, had founded
or enlarged the minster, with its vast establishment of prebends, and
the Carolinum, or clerical colleges. Both institutions were richly
endowed with land, and granted many prerogatives, especially the
_immunity_, most precious of all, viz., the severance from the county or
local administration of Zurich. They thus came again under the immediate
control of the empire, and there were developed, two distinct centres of
feudal life. Yet a third nucleus was formed by the dependants of
royalty, the _fiscalini_, and followers of the monarch and of the
Swabian dukes. These were grouped around the imperial palace (Pfalz) on
the Lindenhof, a fortified stronghold on the site of the Roman
_castrum_, and a favourite residence of the German sovereigns, who were
attracted thither by the natural beauty of the place. The houses of the
Alamannic free peasantry were scattered over the slopes of Zurichberg,
and reached down to the Limmat river. Gradually these four distinct
settlements approached each other, and in the tenth century the inner
core at the mouth of the lovely lake was girt with strong walls with
towers, and the _tout ensemble_ now looked like a picturesque mediaeval
city with its suburbs. The rights of high jurisdiction over the whole
were exercised by a royal governor, or representative of the sovereign.
This was the so-called _Reichsvogtei_, or Advocacia in imperio.
The noble counts of Lenzburg were imperial governors from about 970 to
1098, but when the Zaerings became the governors of the Swiss lands the
Lenzburgs became their holders till their death. Then the
_Reichsvogtei_, that is, the city and its vicinity, fell back into the
hands of the Zaerings, and was held by them directly till the extinction
of the dynasty, 1218. From that time the charge was entrusted to the
city-board, as Voegte. In Zurich the Lady Abbess acknowledged as her
superior none but the governing Zaeringen duke, and later on, that is,
after the dynasty had come to an end, took the foremost position. Indeed
Frederick and the Hohenstaufer created his _Reichsfuerstin_, Princess
Abbess, and thus the office became one of very special dignity, and was
bestowed generally on ladies of noble birth. By the acquisition of
territory--reaching into Alsacia and to the St. Gothard--by privileges
acquired under successive monarchs, by monopolies (coinage, fees, and
tolls on markets and fairs, &c.), the institution rose to an eminence
and splendour truly royal. Dukes and counts visited the abbey to pay
court to its illustrious abbess--_die Hohe Frau von Zurich_, as she was
styled--and entrusted their daughters to her care. Yet it was for
court-life these high-born damsels were to be prepared rather than for
the religious vows. The inner life of this great monastery, though
highly interesting in itself, cannot enter into a short sketch like the
present. Not only was the Abbess Lady Paramount over her clergy and vast
abbatial household, with its staff of officers and its law-court, but
she also bore sway over the city itself. When the administration began
to require increased attention she enlarged its council, and presided at
its meetings. This curious state of things continued till the thirteenth
century, which saw the rise of a general political emancipation in
German cities. Though apparently under a thraldom, yet the citizens
really grew beneath the mild and equitable female rule into a powerful
and thriving body, and at length began to contest with their mistress
for self-rule.
To Frederick II. they owed their emancipation. By him Zurich became a
free imperial city, governed by its own council. Council and citizens
gradually becoming alive to their own civic interests, step by step
wrested the civil power from the hands of the Lady Abbess, and emerged
into the condition of an independent commonwealth. By this time society
within the city had arranged itself into three distinct classes. (1) The
clergy, headed by the abbess and the provost. (2) The knights, owing
military service to emperor and abbess, and the burghers, or chiefly
free landowners, and important commercial men. This second order was the
governing class, and out of it came the members of the council. (3) The
craftsmen, who exercised their trades only with the permission of their
masters, the governing class. The workers were excluded from all share
in the government, and were even prohibited from forming guilds. The
majority of the artisans and serfs lived without the gates, in the outer
city or walled-in suburbs. These political inequalities at length met
with violent opposition, and in 1336 there broke out a revolution.
The industry of the thrifty and energetic population increased the
material wealth of the city, and commercial treaties were entered into
with neighbouring countries, with Italy particularly, and Italian
influence made itself felt ever since the twelfth century, through four
hundred years, not only in trade, but also in architecture. Zurich
became an emporium for silk, and the silk manufacture, introduced from
Italy, became a speciality, and was found in no other German town.[29]
The activity displayed in building churches and monasteries was simply
astonishing. The present minster, in the Lombard style, on the type of
San Michele at Pavia, was built in the twelfth century, and the abbey
was restored by the noble ladies in the thirteenth. The frequent visits
of kings and emperors, who held their diets here, naturally increased
the importance of the city. Taking it altogether, Zurich must have been,
even in the thirteenth century, a fine specimen of a mediaeval town, for
Barbarossa's biographer, Otto von Freysing, calls it the noblest city of
Swabia ("Turegum nobilissimum Sueviae oppidum").[30] Her policy of
entering into alliances with the Swabian and Rhenish towns, and with the
vast South-German coalition, and the friendly political and commercial
relations she maintained, show that she fully grasped the situation,
and gave her that security which promoted her trade and industry, and
allowed her to develop freely.
The thirteenth century spread enlightenment amongst the benighted people
of the Middle Ages, and increased the growth of political freedom in the
cities, thanks to the struggles between the Papacy and the Hohenstaufen.
Zurich had early emancipated herself from the spiritual sway and
influence of her abbess mistress. Already, in 1146, the people had
listened with keen interest to the advanced religious teaching of Arnold
of Brescia, and in the ensuing quarrels sided with the freethinking
Frederick II. During the interdict of 1247-49 Frederick's staunch
adherents boldly drove from the town those clergy who refused to perform
their spiritual functions. On a second expulsion from the town the
friars took sides with the citizens, and obeyed the order literally, for
they went out by one gate of the town, and re-entered by another, and
resumed their offices. That the Zurcher had grown strong and
self-reliant is shown by their alliance with Rudolf of Habsburg, in the
feuds against their common foes, the neighbouring nobles, whose raids
they checked, and by openly resisting the heavy taxation imposed by the
monarch on the city. On one occasion--it was at a drinking-bout--the
chief magistrate denounced this oppressive policy most wrathfully in the
very presence of the queen and her daughters.
The Staufen epoch, seething with social and political movements, was
also full of the spirit of romanticism. The English and French met the
Germans in the Crusades, and quickened in the Fatherland the love of
poetry and romance. Then the great religious wars themselves opened out
a whole new world of thought and fancy. The glorification of the
brilliant exploits of the Staufen sovereigns, themselves poets, inspired
many a grand or lovely song, the highest flights producing the
Nibelungen and the _Minnelieder_. In Swiss lands also minstrelsy flowed
richly, and Zurich stands out as a "Poets' Corner" in the thirteenth
century. At the hospitable manor of Roger Manesse, a famous knight and
magistrate of the city, or at the great Abbey Hall, a brilliant company
of singers clustered round the Princess Abbess Elizabeth, an eminent
woman, and her relatives, the Prince Bishop of Constance, Henry of
Klingenberg, and his brother Albrecht, the famous chevalier. Then the
Prince Abbots of Einsiedeln, and the abbots of Petershausen (Constance),
the counts of Toggenburg, the barons of Regensberg, of Eschenbach, and
Von Wart, together with many other lords, spiritual and temporal, and
many a fair and illustrious lady--all these thronged the courtly circle
to listen to the recital of the _Minnelieder_, or perchance to produce
their own. The famous Codex Manesse, lately at Paris, and now in
Germany,[31] bears witness to the romantic character of the age. It
contains the songs of some hundred and fifty German and Swiss minstrels,
who sang between the years 1200 and 1350. Manesse and his son, a canon
at the minster, undertook the collection out of pure enthusiasm. Their
amanuensis was a comely young fellow named Hadloub, the son of a
freeman farmer from the Zurichberg. A pretty story is told how during
his mechanical labour of copying there grew strong in him the love of
poetry, and he became himself a poet. For he fell in love with a
high-born lady at Manesse's court, who however noticed him not. Then he
told his grief in love songs which Manesse added to his collection.
Indeed these songs close the series of Swiss poems in the Codex Manesse.
Gottfried Keller, of Zurich, one of the greatest German novelists of the
present day, has treated of the period in his exquisite novel "Hadloub"
(_Zurcher Novellen_). Space does not permit us to give any account of
the story, and the reader must be referred to the fascinating tale as it
stands. Hadloub was indeed the last Swiss minstrel belonging to that
fertile age. The love and beauty of woman is the theme of his songs, and
in depicting these he particularly excels--the real _Minnegesang_.
Uhland, the great lyric poet says of him, "In the clear soul of this
poet the parting minstrelsy has once more reflected its own lovely
image."
But whilst poetry was rejoicing the hearts of the nobles, political
clouds were fast gathering over the city, to break at length into a wild
hurricane. As a matter of fact, a few distinguished families had
established an oligarchy in the place of the city council in process of
time. The craftsmen, excluded from any share in the administration, and
moreover finding fault with the financial management of the state, and
galled by the domineering conduct of the aristocracy, rose in fierce
opposition. Rudolf Brun, an ambitious ruler, but a clever statesman,
being at variance with his own patrician party, suddenly placed himself
at the head of the malcontents. Overthrowing the government before it
had time to bestir itself, Rudolf had himself elected burgomaster, an
official in whom all power was to centre. In 1336 he presented a new
constitution, making the whole assembly swear to it. To insure its
validity this code (_Geschworne Brief_) was submitted to the sanction of
the abbess and the provost, and was also approved by the emperor. This
new constitution was quite in keeping with the political views of the
age, and remained in its chief points the leading constitutional guide
of the commonwealth down to the revolution of 1798. It was a curious
blending of democratic with aristocratic and monarchical elements. The
craftsmen, who up to the present had counted for nothing in politics,
were now formed into thirteen corporations, each selecting its own
guildmaster, who represented its members in the governing council. The
nobility and the wealthy burghers who practised no profession, or the
Geschlechter (patricians), and rentiers formed a highly aristocratic
body known as the Constafel (Constables), and were likewise represented
in the state council by thirteen members, six of whom Brun named
himself. The position of the burgomaster was the most striking of all,
and was, in fact, that of a Roman dictator of old, or resembling the
Italian tyrannies of the Visconti or Medici. Elected for life, vested
with absolute power, the burgomaster was responsible to none, whilst to
him fealty was to be sworn by all on pain of losing the rights of
citizenship. The idol of the people to whom he had granted political
power, Brun was regarded as the true pilot and saviour in stormy times.
The fallen councillors brooded revenge, and being banished the town,
resorted to Rapperswyl, the Zurich _extra muros_, and at the other end
of the lake. There they made _chose commune_ with Count John of that
place, who was desirous of evading payment of the debts he had
contracted in Zurich. Feuds and encounters followed, and John was slain
in battle in 1337. The emperor tried to restore peace, but the exiled
councillors were bent on bringing back the old state of things, and on
regaining their seats. They plotted against Brun's life, and those of
his associates, and fixed upon the 23rd of February, 1350, for making an
attack by night on the city, with the intention of seizing it by a
single _coup-de-main_. They relied on the help of sympathisers within
the town. The burgomaster, being apprized of the plot, summoned his
faithful burghers to arms by the ringing of the tocsin. A bloody
hand-to-hand fight in the streets took place, thence called the _Zurcher
Mordnacht_. The conspiracy was crushed by the majority, and Count John
of Rapperswyl, son of the above-mentioned count, was thrown into the
tower of Wellenberg, a famous state prison. There he passed his time in
the composition of _Minnelieder_.
Brun made a bad use of his victory. His cruelties to the prisoners and
to Rapperswyl, which he burnt, are unjustifiable, and seem inexplicable
in so far-sighted a statesman. He was ambitious, and desired not only
his own advancement, but also that of his native city. He had depended
on Austria, hoping to rise through her alliance and aid, but, suddenly
forgetting all moderation, and disregarding all traditional _liaisons_
with her, he laid waste the territory of the counts of Rapperswyl,
cousins to the Habsburgs. This of course entangled Zurich in a war with
Austria, who threatened to level her with the ground. Having estranged
the neighbouring states by her cruel proceedings, or rather by those of
Brun, Zurich stood alone, and was compelled to look around for aid and
countenance. Though by no means friendly towards the bold Forest men,
the dictator Brun concluded an alliance with them. The Waldstaetten were
quite ready to receive into their league a commonwealth so powerful and
well-organized as Zurich, a state likely to be at once their bulwark and
their emporium. They therefore willingly agreed to Brun's stipulations
(May 1, 1351), and, further acquiesced in the proviso that Zurich should
be allowed to conclude separate treaties. These treaties or alliances
were very common at that time, and changeable as they were, they
nevertheless gave additional security for the time being.
But though Brun had introduced a _regime_ of force, he yet made
concessions to the masses, giving them a share of political power. And
his constitutional system answered the wants of the city, to a great
degree, for some four centuries and a half.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] White silk veils in the guise of bonnets were exported to Vienna,
and even as far as Poland. This silk-making, of course, increased the
prosperity of the town. It declined, and was reintroduced in the
sixteenth century in a far more advanced condition, by the persecuted
Protestants from Locarno.
[30] He also reports that one of its gates bore the inscription,
"_Nobile Turegum multarum copia rerum_."
[31] It happened to be in the possession of the Elector of the
Palatinate, and was carried off to France when Louis XIV. laid waste the
province.
XIV.
BERN CRUSHES THE NOBILITY: GREAT VICTORY OF LAUPEN, 1339.
The alliance of Bern was a great acquisition to the federal league. She
formed the corner-stone of the Burgundian states, and brought them into
connection with, and finally into the pale of, the Swiss Confederation.
Her early history has been touched upon in previous chapters. True to
her original position as a check on the nobility, and forming a natural
stronghold, this proud Zaeringen town shows a singularly martial, and
indeed dominant spirit, and runs a military and political career of
importance. Bern had effectively resisted the encroachments of the old
house of Kyburg (1243-55), and stoutly opposed the oppressive tax of 40
per cent, imposed by Rudolf of Habsburg. And, though she had suffered a
severe defeat at Schosshalde, in 1289, the disaster was more than
compensated by a great victory at Dornbuehl, in 1298, and she had carried
over her rival, Freiburg and the nobles of the highlands, partners of
the latter. It was always a most usual thing in the fourteenth century
for states to enter into leagues, with the view of better safeguarding
themselves against neighbouring and powerful foes. And thus Bern
gathered all the kindred elements of West Switzerland into a Burgundian
Confederation--the free imperial valley Hasle, the rich monastery of
Interlaken, the house of Savoy, the new house of Kyburg-Burgdorf, the
bishops of Sion, the cities of Bienne, Solothurn, Freiburg,--all these
were at one time or another in union with Bern. The friendship with
Freiburg, however, was often disturbed by feelings of jealousy that at
times grew into feuds, but that for Solothurn was lasting. It was, in
fact, based on similarity of political views and aims, both agreeing in
refusing to acknowledge the rival kings, Louis of Bavaria and Frederick
the Handsome. In consequence of their obstinacy, Leopold, who had been
defeated at Morgarten, and wished to reassert the authority of his
brother, laid siege to Solothurn in 1318. The Bernese came to the help
of the sister city. A memorable scene was witnessed during the course of
the assault. The river Aare was much swollen at the time, and a bridge
that the beleaguering forces had thrown across was carried away by the
flood, and their men were being drowned in numbers. Then the
Solothurner, forgetting all injuries, rushed out with boats to save
their enemies. Leopold was so touched by such magnanimity that he at
once raised the siege, and presented the town with a beautiful banner.
[Illustration: THE STANDARD-BEARERS OF SCHWYZ, URI, UNTERWALDEN AND
ZUeRICH.]
Bern's strong bent for territorial extension was quite a match for the
encroaching tendencies of the Habsburgs. To get a footing in the canton
the latter made use of a crime committed amongst the Kyburger. That
illustrious house, well-nigh ruined morally and financially, had been
compelled by its adverse fortunes to place in the Church a younger son,
Eberhard. The young man submitted with great reluctance. Happening to
fall to a quarrel with Hartmann, at the castle of Thun, high words arose
and were succeeded by blows, and Hartmann was slain. This was in 1332.
On the plea of avenging the murder, the Habsburgs set up a claim to the
Kyburg property. Bern however confirmed the count in his possessions,
and purchasing Thun from him, returned it as a fief, requiring him to
give an undertaking that Burgdorf should never be mortgaged without her
knowledge and consent. But Eberhard gradually forgot the services Bern
had rendered his house, and, fearing her power, veered round to
Freiburg, and became a citizen of that town. The differences then
swelled into an outbreak, which had been for some time impending. Bern,
it is to be noted, had in many ways got the start of the sister city;
for instance, she had become an imperial free city in the year 1218, on
the extinction of the Zaeringer, and this had given her a considerable
lift. Then, in 1324, Bern had secured the mortgage of Laupen, an
excellent stronghold on the Saane, and had driven the Freiburger from
the district. And in 1331, after the house of Kyburg had joined its
fortunes with those of Freiburg, the strong fortress of Guemminen had
been demolished, as well as many Kyburg castles. Guemminen belonged to
her rival, and was a place of singular strategical importance.