The history of Switzerland has rarely been of lively concern to foreign scholars.
Apart from Edward Gibbon in the mid-eighteenth century (whose reflections on
Switzerland and on Bern in particular were written in French), English-speaking
historians have been content to treat the country as a peripheral curiosity, since
neither its constitution nor its governance appear to fit the pattern of nations
and states emerging elsewhere in Europe. This neglect has been compounded
by Swiss historians themselves, who until recently have devoted their efforts to
burnishing the image of a heroic Swiss past which emphasized separation and
exceptionalism.
In English, the only recent treatment has been Jonathan Steinberg’s Why
Switzerland?, first published in 1976, a spirited attempt to explain the curious
character of the Swiss political system from its origins to the present day, though
its focus lies primarily in the modern era.1 With the appearance of his Turning
Swiss in 1985, however, Tom Brady eagerly took up a theme previously ignored,
namely why at the turn of the fifteenth century the Swiss exerted such a fascination
upon their urban neighbours to the north: in short, why so many imperial free
cities in southern Germany wished to ‘turn Swiss’, that is, to join the Confederation,
and why, ultimately, they failed.2 Though the narrative concentrated more on the
external impact of Switzerland rather than its inner workings, Brady’s book was
fundamental in breaking down the perception of Swiss isolation, indifferent
towards or positively hostile to the Holy Roman Empire, of which it remained a
passive member until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Since Brady’s study a new generation of Swiss historians has engaged critically
with the founding myths of Swiss exceptionalism, though their revisionism has on
occasion encountered both odium and perplexity, the principal victim being Roger
Sablonier, whose Gründungszeit ohne Eidgenossen demolished once and for all the
image of antique liberty among free peasants.4 Recent interest has turned in par-
ticular to the fifteenth century—the zenith of Swiss military prowess on the
1 Jonathan Steinberg, Why Switzerland? (Cambridge, 1976).
2 Thomas A. Brady, Jr, Turning Swiss: Cities and Empire, 1450–1550 (Cambridge, 1985).
3 On the issue of the Swiss Confederation’s relationship to, and within, the Holy Roman Empire
see the positive assessment—from a formal juridical standpoint—of Bernd Marquardt, Die alte
Eidgenossenschaft und das Heilige Römische Reich (1350–1798). Staatsbildung, Souveränität und
Sonderstatus am alteuropäischen Alpenrand (Europäische Rechts- und Regionalgeschichte, 3) (Zürich/
St Gallen/Baden-Baden, 2007).
4 Roger Sablonier, Gründungszeit ohne Eidgenossen. Politik und Gesellschaft in der Innerschweiz um
1300 (Baden (AG), 2008).
Introduction