The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460-1560. Between Accommodation and Aggression

Note on Usage

Place-names are given according to contemporary linguistic usage: Konstanz and Basel, not

Constance and Basle; bilingual places have been reconciled to Fribourg (instead of Freiburg

im Üchtland), Morat (instead of Murten), Neuchâtel (instead of Neuenburg), and Sion

(instead of Sitten). The names of dynastic rulers are given in English; other nobles are

rendered according to the language they spoke.

To avoid confusion, Estates (social corporations, political associations) are distinguished

from estates (lands) by the use of an initial capital for the former.

The cantons (see Glossary) of the Swiss Confederation when described as a collective

polity are customarily given in Roman numerals: the VIII cantons (up to 1481); the XIII

cantons of the Old Confederation; the V Catholic cantons.

It is hazardous to give monetary equivalents, since exchange rates varied widely over

time, while different authorities struck eponymous coins at differing rates. As a rough guide

in our period a florin was worth anywhere between 0.67 and 0.8 of a Sonnenkrone (écu

d’or), while the ducat was worth around 1.75 florins. Rates in the Vaud in the Bernese

period after 1536 were calculated on the basis of the Batzen. See Part II at note 159.

The term Burgrecht (see Glossary) has deliberately not been translated, since there is no

equivalent in English.