The Peace of Basel and Its Aftermath 43
direct ruling from the emperor himself—another sign of Swiss loyalty to the
Empire in principle!236 After the peace, of course, his quarrel shifted to the VII
cantons. In 1500 and 1501 he protested repeatedly at attempts to force his Thurgau
subjects, both nobles and commoners, to swear fealty to the cantons. Though an
agreement determining the boundary between the Thurgau landgraviate and the
so-called ‘old territory’ of the abbey was reached in 1501, it did not hold.237
In 1508 the Swiss territorial bailiff declared that the abbot, the bishop of Konstanz,
and several jurisdictional lords (Gerichtsherren) were still refusing to allow their
subjects to acknowledge Swiss overlordship.238 The dispute with the abbot dragged
on until 1512 when it finally seems to have been settled.239
The legal status of the jurisdictional lords was resolved in an unusual manner.
In 1509 it was agreed that their rights of lower jurisdiction be respected.240 Then
in the following year they agreed to take a newly worded oath to the territorial
bailiff on his assuming office or else at the annual Confederal oath-taking.241 This
oath replaced an act of homage (Huldigungseid) (considered unconscionable)
with an oath to preserve the public peace (Landfriedenseid) and to acknowledge
Confederal law as supreme.242 Thereafter the Gerichtsherren were recast as an Estate
of the Thurgau, with representation in the territorial diet.243 The Thurgau, con-
trary to common misconception, remained a landscape of nobles and castles until
the modern era.244
With the bishopric of Konstanz matters should have been more straightforward
since the bishops had so few secular possessions, either in the Thurgau or in the
Hegau. Nevertheless, the Swiss had asserted supremacy over Arbon and Horn in
1499,245 and in the first decade of the sixteenth century the bishop repeatedly
found himself at odds with the territorial bailiff over the latter’s infringement of his
rights in the Thurgau.246 A final deed of arbitration was not sealed until 1520.247
Furthermore, in 1510 Bishop Hugo was obliged to accept a Swiss garrison in
Gottlieben castle.248 There it stayed for two years until the question of cost and the
signing of the Hereditary Agreement in 1511 persuaded the Swiss to withdraw
their troops and replace them with a Swiss bailiff, Hans von Landenberg.249 The
236 StAKN, Ratsbuch I, 19, pp. 2, 6 (12/23 Jan. 1499).
237 EA III, 2, 80–2 (no. 37: e) (1500); 86–9 (no. 41: r) (1501); Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 108.
238 EA III, 2, 437–9 (no. 312: h) (1508).
239 EA III, 2, 595–9 (no. 428) (1512); Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren’, 27.
240 EA III, 2, 460–2 (no. 331: a) (1509); Giger, ‘Gerichtsherren’, 27.
241 EA III, 2, 481–4 (no. 352: c) (1510).
242 Meyer, ‘Durchsetzung’, 154, 165. 243 Meyer, ‘Durchsetzung’, 153.
244 See Peter Niederhäuser, ‘Rückzugsorte des Adels? Freisitze in der Ostschweiz’, Mittelalter–
Moyen Âge–Medioevo–Temp medieval, 19 (2014), 98–112, here at 107–8.
245 Guy P. Marchal, ‘Die Eidgenossen, das Bistum Konstanz und die Rheingrenze im 15.
Jahrhundert. Einladung zu einem Perspektivenwechsel’, in Brigitte Degler-Spengler (ed.), Der
schweizerische Teil der ehemaligen Diözese Konstanz (Basel, 1994), 74–89, here at 88.
246 EA III, 2, 381–4 (no. 278: e) (1507); 430–3 (no. 307: t) (1508); 437–9 (no. 312: h) (1508).
247 EA III, 2, 1182–3 (no. 789) (1519); 1239–40 (no. 821) (1520). The cathedral chapter was able
to gain exemption from the territorial and military taxes imposed by the Swiss bailiff of the Thurgau:
EA III, 2, 608–9 (no. 435: a).
248 EA III, 2, 593–5 (no. 427: r) (1512).
249 EA III, 2, 522 (no. 383: a) (1510); 608–10 (no. 435: g) (1512).