156 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
Naturally, this palpable concession had strings attached. Geneva retained its
internal autonomy but had to entrust foreign affairs to Bern. Geneva was also required
to cede to Bern all revenues accruing to Savoy from charitable endowments.741
Furthermore, the administration of the conquered lands was at last settled. Geneva
undertook to shoulder outstanding debts, to cede two lordships, Gaillard and Belle
Rive, to Bern, and to hand over the goods of the fugitives (many of whom had fled
to Fribourg).742 The bargain was not all one-sided: the revenues from the abbey of
St-Victor were assigned to the city’s hospital and used to augment the preachers’
competency. Geneva’s rights over Gex were recognized, as were its rights of lower
justice in the district of Gaillard, while the revenues of bishop and chapter were
assigned to the city.743 As a result, Geneva signed a Perpetual Treaty with Bern on
7th August, and was rewarded with renewal of the Burgrecht.744 The city had in
effect become a protectorate of Bern.
Nevertheless, it was by no means plain sailing thereafter (as we have come to
expect). Bern’s alleged plan in 1538 to leave Geneva as an ‘open’ city (that is, with-
out defensive walls) aroused the curiosity of the French king, who sent his great
steward Marin de Montchenu745 to inspect the city’s defences. Montchenu also
appears to have put about the rumour that Bern intended to restore the office of
justiciar, with the unspoken hint that the king of France could be relied upon to
respect Bern’s liberties, were it to submit to the French crown. Bern’s envoys were
too astute to fall for this ploy, and assured Geneva that it would uphold the
Burgrecht.746 Montchenu did, however, point out to the French king that it would
require an army of 50,000 men to take Geneva747—a figure so high that it presup-
poses stiff resistance from Bern and its allies.
That was merely the prelude to a much more serious dispute over territorial
authority, where politics shaded into religion. In March 1539 three Genevan coun-
cillors with Bernese sympathies began secret negotiations with Bern concerning
jurisdiction over villages formerly under the abbey of St-Victor and the cathedral
741 EA IV, 1c, 732–4 (no. 451: I; III; IV) (July–Aug. 1536); Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 64;
Cameron, European Reformation, 224.
742 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 34. A few of the Peneysans fled to Bern, where they held estates
or had family connections.
743 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 22.
744 EA IV, 1c, 734 (no. 451: IV, b) (July–Aug. 1536). The treaty was regularly renewed: EA, IV, 1e,
465–6 (no. 159) (March 1551); 1004 (no. 327: I; II) (Sept. 1554). Only in 1558 was the Burgrecht
declared perpetual. Hans R. Guggisberg, ‘Westschweiz und Genf ’, in Anton Schindling and Walter
Ziegler (eds), Die Territorien des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung. Land und
Konfession 1500–1650, 5: Der Südwesten (Katholisches Leben und Kirchenreform im Zeitalter der
Glaubensspaltung, 53) (Münster, 1995), 294–7, here at 296.
745 Baron Marin de Montchenu, lord of Chaumont (1498–1543), was a powerful aristocrat who
acted as the king’s ambassador to the Swiss on several occasions, since he had estates in Savoy and the
Genevois. Dictionnaire de la noblesse... de France, ed. François-Alexandre Aubert de la Chesnaye-
Desbois, 12 vols (Paris 1770–8): online s.v. Montchenu. The Genevans arrested him on suspicion to
seeking to hand over Geneva to France, and confiscated his estates in the Genevois. The case dragged
on until a settlement was reached in late 1539. EA IV, 1c, 1148–9 (no. 701) (Nov. 1539).
746 EA IV, 1c, 942–3 (no. 570: I; II) (March 1538). Not that Bern was seeking a confrontation
with France, as an incident later that year over tithe collection in Gex indicated. EA IV, 1c, 1012–13
(no. 610: I) (Sept. 1538).
747 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 36.