Chapter 9 THE REIGN OF THE HOUSE OF ZAERINGEN.

(1050-1218.)

The rule of the Dukes of Zaeringen ushered in a long period of comparative peace (1100-1218), which improved the social and material condition of the people. Yet this time of peace was every now and again interrupted in the west by feuds with the Burgundian nobles. This Swabian family took their name from the ancestral manor of Zaeringen, near Freiburg, in the Breisgau (Black Forest). The vast estates they had derived from the House of Rheinfelden on its extinction reached from Lake Geneva to the rivers Aare and Emme, and gave them a dominant position in the country at the opening of the twelfth century.

Burgundy had been slowly falling away from the empire during its internal dissensions and its conflicts with the Papacy. But on the death of Count William IV., who was assassinated by his own people in 1127, the Emperor Lothair drew that province more closely to his realm, by bestowing the regency of it on his adherent, Conrad of Zaeringen. Conrad's position was, however, violently contested by Rainald III., a relative of the murdered count. The Burgundian nobles rallied round him, and made a desperate stand against German interference, and he maintained his independence in the Franche Comté, as the district was subsequently called. When Frederick Barbarossa married Beatrix, the daughter and heiress of Rainald, he claimed the Burgundian territory, and came into conflict with the Zaeringer. Berchtold IV. obtained the position of suzerain over the sees of Geneva, Lausanne, and Sion, and by this division Swiss Burgundy was being lopped off from its appendage beyond Mount Jura. The insubordinate prelates joined with secular princes to upset the German rule. To guard against these protracted struggles, and to increase their own influence in the country, the Zaeringer resorted to a means which does them great credit, and which won for them the affection of the people. They began to found towns, as they had done in Germany, or to raise settlements into fortified cities, and granted them extensive liberties. The lesser nobles and the common people found shelter in these walled towns against the over-bearing amongst the high nobility; trade and industry began to thrive, and these city commonwealths rose to a flourishing condition, and became a source of wealth as well as a staunch support to their founders.

Bertold or Berchtold IV. (1152-1186) planned a whole strategical line of strongholds in the west, as a check on the nobles; and in 1177 he founded the free city of Freiburg on his own estates. The situation, on a high plateau above the Saane, was on the line of demarcation between the French and German tongues. To this new town he granted a charter of liberties similar to that granted to its sister foundation of the same name in the Breisgau.

Berchtold V. (1186-1218) followed in the steps of his father. He founded and fortified Burgdorf, Moudon, Yverdon, Laupen, Murten, Gümminen, Thun. These towns he founded to be not only places of military strength, but also centres of industry and trade, which should increase the prosperity of his people. But he had, however, to stand against the heavy opposition of the Burgundian nobles. As he was preparing to set out on a crusade with Frederick Barbarossa they rose in arms. Hastening back, he defeated the refractory rebels, both at Avenches and in the Grindelwald valley, in 1191, and immediately after his victories he resumed his strategical projects. On a promontory washed by the Aare, and on imperial crown lands, he raised a new citadel, to which he gave the name of Bern, in memory of Dietrich of Berne (Verona), a favourite hero of Alamannic medi?val poetry.[21] The lesser nobles of the neighbourhood, as well as the humbler people, poured into Bern for shelter, and, receiving a most liberal charter, these burgesses rapidly rose to wealth and power. Being built on imperial land, Bern took from the first a higher standing than the sister town, Freiburg.

These city foundations form a chief corner-stone in the fabric of Swiss liberties. Attaining political independence, the towns held their own against aggressors. To effect their deliverance from oppression, they united with kindred communities or with powerful princes, and thus began the system of offensive and defensive alliances.

A new enemy arose in the West, and Berchtold V. was defeated by Count Thomas of Savoy (1211), who encroached on Vaud, and seized Moudon. Yet the Zaeringer steadily and successfully strengthened their hold over the country, and obtained the most complete independence. And, indeed, the moment seemed drawing near when Switzerland was to be shaped into a durable monarchical state. However, she was spared that fate-from which no patriotic act of any national hero could probably have rescued her-by a natural, yet providential, event, the extinction of the ducal family. For in 1218 Berchtold V. died, leaving no issue.

This century is eminently an age of religious movements. And, although our space will not permit us to enter into full details, yet it is impossible to pass over the great religious revival which centred in the Crusades, that is, so far as that movement touches Switzerland.

On the 10th of December, in the year 1146, a most touching scene might have been witnessed in the minster of Schaffhausen. The Alamannic people were thronging the church to listen to a glowing sermon from a French Cistercian monk, Bernard de Clairvaux. Vividly depicting the distress of the Christians in Palestine, he invited his hearers to join the second crusade. France was ready, he said, but the House of Hohenstaufen was still wavering. His captivating manner, his noble earnestness, and the elegance and flow of his language-though it was but half understood by the masses-stirred the audience to bursts of enthusiasm. "Your land is fertile," were the concluding words of the monk, "and the world is filled with the reputation of your valour. Ye soldiers of Christ, arise! and hurl down the enemies of the Cross!" Laying his hands on the blind and lame, says the half-legendary story, he restored to them eyesight or the use of limbs, and, strewing crosses amongst the crowds, left the church. The people, in a state of ecstatic fervour, beat their breasts, and, shedding tears, broke into a shout of "Kyrie eleison, the saints are with us!"[22] On the 15th of the same month Bernard preached at Zurich, and on Christmas Day at Speyer, before Conrad III., whom he won for the crusade. His fervent exhortations seem to have found willing ears, too, in the country. Schaffhausen and Einsiedeln took an active share in the work. We hear of almost countless numbers of spiritual and secular princes, nobles, knights, and lesser people who joined in the crusade. The counts of Montfort, Kyburg, Habsburg, Zaeringen, and Neuchatel, and bishops and abbots started for the East. Contemporary writers bewail the loss of so many of the best and bravest of South Germany who died in Palestine. The holy orders of the Knights of St. John, of the Teutonic order, and the Knights-Templars raised their aristocratic institutions in this country; new orders of monastic foundations sprang up, which we cannot here dwell upon. Amongst these new orders were that of Mendicant Friars, though it is worthy of note that these played no such part in Switzerland as they did in England.

Yet the Burgundian or western portion of the country plunged more deeply into the movement than did the eastern part. German enthusiasm was but slowly won by French religious ecstasy, which had to a great extent started the Crusades. Still the age was filled with religious and romantic frenzy. Not the mere practical aims of conquest or gain it was that stirred men's minds, but the mystical elements of the movement, and the grand, novel, and indeed fabulous sights that were to be witnessed; and the old love of wandering and adventure revived, and drove men to the East. By a happy coincidence the effect of Bernard's sermons was lessened to some extent in this country by the previous teachings of another enthusiast of a far different stamp. The intrepid Italian reformer, Arnold of Brescia, had for some time preached at Zurich and Constance, sowing the seeds of heresy. Boldly attacking the abuses of the Church, and advocating the return to the simplicity of the apostolic teaching, he invited people to no longer lavish wealth on Church institutions. Arnold fell a victim to his advanced religious and political views, but his teachings took hold of the people of the Alpine districts. To his influence may safely be attributed the staunch resistance to Papal aggressiveness shown in the thirteenth century by the people of Zurich and of the Forest Cantons.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] See Nibelungen.

[22] Prof. B?chtold, "Sermon Literature in Switzerland."

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