114 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
to Bern, only to be told that they must as a consequence accept the city’s
Reformation mandate.386 Bern hoped that its allies Fribourg and Solothurn would
step in as arbiters, but they declined, though they offered to act independently.387
Wild allegations followed: the Oberlanders claimed that Fribourg was backing the
men of Unterwalden who had joined the fray, a charge which Fribourg indignantly
denied.388 Even more bizarre was the accusation that Fribourg had sent troops to
Solothurn to be used against Bern.389 In the end the Oberlanders had to knuckle
under. Their ringleaders were put to death; the communes were stripped of their
liberties and forced to surrender their banners and seals. The new faith became
mandatory.390 In the midst of these harsh reprisals it is no wonder that Bern declared
itself unable to offer Geneva any assistance, military or otherwise, citing the old saw
that ‘the shirt is closer than the coat’ (that is, its own concerns took precedence).391
Negotiations over Geneva finally got under way at Payerne in May 1528.
Had they been bilateral, a satisfactory outcome might have been reached sooner.
The omens were not inauspicious: Duke Charles had begun to pay Bern and
Fribourg 7000 écus in annual instalments of 1000 écus as an indemnity for the
costs they had incurred in the 1519 campaign.392 But because the negotiations
involved three parties, Savoy, Geneva, and its two Swiss allies, they went round in
circles. The carousel lasted the best part of three years, with Bern and Fribourg
as often at odds with Geneva as Savoy over financial compensation, deliberate
foot-dragging, and intransigent demands. The envoys must have been exasperated,
and the details are bound to tax the patience of modern readers. Let the first round
of negotiations give a flavour.
The two Swiss cities and Geneva reaffirmed their Burgrecht; Duke Charles’s
coat of arms on the watchtower on the bridge over the Rhône (Tour de l’Île) had
been torn down, but the city was refusing to reinstate it; Fribourg and Geneva
offered to do so at their own expense; Duke Charles insisted on the restoration to
him of the office of justiciar (vidomne); the eighteen named Mammelu ‘bandits’
(refugees) should remain outlawed and their property forfeit; the other 150 refugees
386 André Holenstein, ‘Religion, Macht und Politik: Die gewaltsame Durchsetzung der
Reformation im Berner Oberland 1528)’, in André Holenstein (ed.), Berns mächtige Zeit. Das 16. und
- Jahrhundert neu entdeckt (Bern, 2006), 164–7.
387 EA IV, 1a, 1308 (525: 9; 10) (April 1528); 1429 (no. 589) (Oct. 1528).
388 EA IV, 1a, 1430 (no. 590: 2) (Oct. 1528); 1432 (no. 592) (Oct. 1528). For its part, Fribourg
was outraged that Bern had asked—and received—help from Lausanne to suppress the rising in the
Oberland! Poudret, Maison de Savoie, 175.
389 EA IV, 1a, 1443–4 (no. 599: a) (Nov. 1528).
390 Holenstein, ‘Religion, Macht und Politik’, 167.
391 EA IV, 1a, 1416 (no. 584: 8) (Oct. 1528). The difficulties over Unterwalden continued into
1529, with Bern still at pains to keep Fribourg and Solothurn onside. EA IV, 1b, 20–2 (no. 7: a, 4)
(Jan. 1529); 22–3 (no. 8: a, 4) (Jan. 1529); 30–1 (no. 11) (Jan. 1529); 31–2 (no. 12) (Jan. 1529).
392 Documenti di Storia Sabauda, 57. Estavayer, Cudrefin, and Châtel-St-Denis were pledged in
case of default. Fribourg regarded an offer of compensation of 800 écus as miserly (but was this simply
a first instalment?). AEF, Missivale 9, fo. 47v (Feb. 1529). In a note in May 1529 Pierre de Longecombe,
governor of Vercelli and Duke Charles’s ambassador to the Confederation, recorded that envoys had
been sent to Solothurn and Basel to raise loans up to 20,000 écus, which would include the 7000 écus
already owed. BA, Abschriftensammlung XIX Torino, Archivio di Stato: Lettere Ministri Esteri:
Svizzera, vol. 1, no. 23.