Raids and Retaliation 37
Konstanz’s lordships of Hallau and Neunkirch, which had been occupied by
the Swiss in April that year,187 in the teeth of the cantons’ opposition.188
Schaffhausen’s success in incorporating these lordships into its city-state had to
wait until the 1520s.189
Given the undeniable differences over strategy between the cantons, on the one
hand, and the poorly coordinated actions of the Swabian League, on the other, it
is legitimate to ask, therefore, whether the purpose of the campaigns along the
Hochrhein was primarily plunder and revenge, rather than a concerted attempt to
seize and hold enemy territory.190 Both sides hired mercenaries alongside the
deployment of regular troops. Any delay or default in paying their wages was a
ready excuse to plunder in kind what they were owed in cash.191 The problem was
compounded by the activity of irregulars outwith the control of the field com-
manders; these were mostly bands of footloose youth whose only loyalty was to
themselves. In addition, there were spies at large: one such, Hans Önli, admitted
to being a member of a gang plotting acts of arson in the Hegau, at Radolfzell,
Überlingen, and elsewhere. Önli claimed to be acting on the instructions of a
Zürich spymaster, but it is just as likely that he and his associates—curiously
described as ‘lepers’—were marauding on their own account.192 Some Swiss even
hired themselves out to the Swabian League or the Hegau nobility, and thus found
themselves fighting their own countrymen.193
Forays for booty followed by a swift retreat became the norm. That was the case
in the various Swiss sorties into the Hegau and Klettgau, and in the retaliatory
attack by Habsburg troops on Eglisau in February 1499.194 Just how confused—
and confusing—motives might be is graphically illustrated by the capture of
Stühlingen in April 1499. Towards the end of the month Zürich’s commanders in
the field reported to the city council that their men had taken Stühlingen castle.
Because of its strategic location on Schaffhausen’s border it was agreed to install a
garrison of ten men drawn from each canton. But once a cache of wine and corn
was discovered, it was decided to loot the castle—described as ‘the pleasantest little
tower of Babel you could imagine’!—but to leave the town unscathed.195 After
fisticuffs had broken out over the correct division of the spoils, however, the mood
changed. Against their own undertaking, Zürich’s troops then set about plunder-
ing the town, which earned the city a stiff rebuke from Luzern, which insisted that
the matter be brought before the diet.196
187 SAZH, Akten 159, 90, 28 April 1499. 188 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 92.
189 Rüedi, ‘Schaffhausens Erwerbungen’, 227–31.
190 Niederhäuser, ‘ “Kriegs”-Geschichte’, 155.
191 Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 34–5.
192 GLA 123/98a, n.d. (1499). He called his associates Malentzen (Malatz is a leper): perhaps their
feigned illness allowed them to go about unmolested.
193 Niederhäuser, ‘ “Kriegs”-Geschichte’, 172.
194 Niederstätter, ‘Schwaben- oder Schweizerkrieg’, 58–60; Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 35.
195 SAZH, Akten 159, 146, 24 April 1499: das lustigest baberbuwnest Schloß, das man finden
mochte.
196 SAZH, Akten 159, 160, 28 April 1499.