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 Old Swiss Confederacy or Swiss Confederacy (German language, Modern German: ; historically , after the Swiss Reformation, Reformation also , "Confederation of the Swiss") was a loose confederation of independent small states (, German or ...
.
The treaty restored the
status quo ante territorially. Eight out of the ten members in the
League of the Ten Jurisdictions were confirmed as nominally subject to the
Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
, but their membership in the league and their alliance with the Swiss Confederacy was to remain in place.
Jurisdiction over
Thurgau, previously an
Imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* Imperial, Texas
...
loan to the city of
Constance, was to pass to the Swiss Confederacy. The
imperial ban and all embargoes against the Swiss cantons were to be discontinued.
In 19th-century
Swiss historiography, the treaty was presented as an important step towards ''de facto'' independence of the Swiss Confederacy from the Holy Roman Empire. In the words of
Wilhelm Oechsli (1890), the treaty represented "the recognition of Swiss independence by Germany".
This view has come to be viewed as untenable in 20th-century literature (Sigrist 1949, Mommsen 1958), as there is no indication that the leaders of the Confederacy at the time had any desire to distance themselves from the Empire. Nevertheless, the Confederacy was substantially strengthened as a polity within the Empire by the treaty, and an immediate consequence of this was the accession of
Basel and
Schaffhausen in 1501, as part of the expansion (1481–1513) from the late medieval
Eight Cantons to the early modern
Thirteen Cantons.
[
"Obwohl weder die Wormser Beschlüsse von 1495 noch die Weigerung der Eidgenossen, diesen nachzukommen, erw. sind, sah die ältere schweiz. Historiografie im Frieden von B. einen Wendepunkt im Verhältnis zwischen Eidgenossenschaft und Reich; nach Wilhelm Oechsli wurde damals die "Unabhängigkeit der Schweiz von Seiten Deutschlands" (1890) anerkannt. Diese Meinung gilt heute als widerlegt. Die Berichte des Gesandten Solothurns von den Verhandlungen in B. zeigen vielmehr, dass die Eidgenossen wünschten, "gnedeclich wider zum Rich" gelassen zu werden. Bis ins 17. Jh. hielten die eidg. Orte an ihrer Zugehörigkeit zum Reich fest und waren z.B. bereit, für die Türkenkriege Truppen zu stellen oder Geld für den gleichen Zweck zu bezahlen. Die Konflikte mit dem Haus Österreich und der eidg. Widerstand gegen eine wachsende "Verdichtung" der "offenen" Reichsverfassung (Peter Moraw) schmälerten in der Eidgenossenschaft noch bis weit in die Frühneuzeit nicht das Ansehen des Reichs als oberster Schutzmacht der Christenheit.]
See also
*
List of treaties
References
*H. Sigrist, "Zur Interpretation des Basler Friedens von 1499", ''Schweizer Beiträge zur Allgemeinen Geschichte'' 7, 1949, 153–155.
*K. Mommsen, ''Eidgenossen, Kaiser und Reich'', 1958, 11–16.
*P. Moraw, "Reich, König und Eidgenossen im späten MA", in ''Jahrbuch der Historischen Gesellschaft Luzern'' 4, 1986, 15–33.
{{Authority control
1490s treaties
Treaties of the Old Swiss Confederacy
Basel
Swabian War
1490s in the Holy Roman Empire
1499 in Europe
1499