The Occupation of the Thurgau 13
However feeble the military resistance they encountered, the Swiss soon
discovered that they had become ensnared in a web of legal entanglements and
territorial disputes. Although by the terms of the peace treaty signed the following
year Sigismund formally surrendered his overlordship of the Thurgau to the Swiss,
that encompassed only the territorial bailiwick (Landvogtei), not control of the
territorial court (Landgericht), which had been restored to Konstanz as an imperial
mortgage in 1417 by Emperor Sigismund in the wake of the events at the Council
of Konstanz two years previously.20 The Landgericht exercised capital jurisdiction
over the Thurgau, a privilege which Konstanz jealously guarded up to the Swiss
War, and which even thereafter it struggled to uphold. While the VII cantons
governed the Thurgau as a common lordship, as a reward for their military assist-
ance Bern and Schaffhausen were granted a share in the administration of
Diessenhofen.21 The double supervision of the administration of justice, split
between the Swiss and Konstanz, and the overlapping responsibilities of different
groups of cantons were to lead to continuous wrangling up to the end of the
century (see Map 2).22
The major obstacle to turning the Thurgau into a consolidated territory, how-
ever, was the presence of lords with lower jurisdictional rights (Gerichtsherren).
Even in Frauenfeld, the seat of government, the Swiss did not exercise undisputed
authority.23 There were over 130 such lordships in the Thurgau, the majority in the
hands of ecclesiastical lords or institutions, but some were held by citizens of
Zürich, St Gallen, Stein am Rhein, and not least Konstanz itself, especially after
1460.24 Over against the Swiss territorial bailiff these lords had limited authority
though on their own estates they might hold serfs.25 While they therefore had no
prospect of converting their lordships into miniature principalities, they remained
relentless defenders of their privileges, manifest above all in their refusal to swear
an oath of loyalty to the Swiss.26 That obligation was not successfully enforced
until 1521.27 For the Swiss the refusal was all the more irritating since swearing
20 Bruno Meyer, ‘Die Durchsetzung eidgenössischen Rechts im Thurgau. Studie zum
Verfassungsrecht der Eidgenossenschaft des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in Festschrift Hans Nabholz zum siebzig
sten Geburtstag (Aarau, 1944), 139–69, here at 141; Peter F. Kramml, ‘Die Reichsstadt Konstanz, der
Bund der Bodenseestädte und die Eidgenossen’, in Rück, Eidgenossen, 295–328, here at 308. Konstanz
had also regained the bailiwick of Frauenfeld, but at some unspecified point it reverted to Austria, so
that in 1460 it fell to the Swiss. Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 8.
21 Meyer, ‘Durchsetzung’, 152; Schib, ‘1291–1501’, 13.
22 Bruno Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren, Gerichtsherrschaften, Gerichtsherrenstand im Thurgau vom
Ausgang des Spätmittelalters bis in die frühe Neuzeit’, Thurgauer Beiträge zur Geschichte, 130 (1993),
5–216, here at 17.
23 Frauenfeld received a diploma of protection in November 1460 [EA II, 310–11 (no. 487)], but
its castle remained in the hands of Sigmund von Hohenlandenberg, who was compelled to grant the
Swiss right of access. Meyer, ‘Durchsetzung’, 144. To make matters yet more complicated, the baili-
wick of Frauenfeld, a judicial immunity in its own right, did not include the town! Ulrich Dikenmann,
‘Die Stellung der Stadt Konstanz in der Landgrafschaft Thurgau von 1417–1499 und die daraus
hervorgehenden Beziehungen der Stadt zu Österreich und den Eidgenossen’ (Diss. phil. Zürich,
1910), 25–6.
24 Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren’, 127. Around 1475 just under half of the lordships considered by Giger
were in the hands of Konstanz citizens.
25 Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren’, 21–2. 26 Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren’, 26–7.
27 Meyer, ‘Durchsetzung’, 147.