The Hereditary Agreement of 1511 47
The significance of the Hereditary Agreement has been overshadowed by the
Confederal peace treaty with France in 1516,277 transformed into a formal alliance
(though not without some dissent) in 1521.278 Unlike the latter accord, the Swiss
were quite clear that it was a pact of convenience, not an alliance of solidarity.279
While the agreement forswore any promise of mutual military assistance in an
emergency (unlike 1474),280 it did contain a non-aggression clause in any future
conflict, and sought to discountenance the polemics and invective which had
soured the previous half-century. Moreover, it provided that neither side should
attempt to admit subjects of the other into its Burgrecht.281 In short, it placed a
capstone on a long history of inimical relations: its very durability is testimony of
how necessary that settlement had become.
277 EA III, 2, 997 (no. 673) (1516).
278 EA IV, 1a, 17–25 (no. 8: a; k) (1521); 39–40 (no. 16) (1521). France’s bait was to increase its
pension payments, but Zürich took the view that the Confederation already had a perfectly good
alliance with France, alongside the Hereditary Agreement, and saw no need for a new treaty. The
associated members were excluded. Braun, Eidgenossen, 270. By autumn 1522 Zürich had still not
signed up. EA IV, 1a, 228–9 (no. 102: a).
279 Braun, Eidgenossen, 263.
280 Instead it enjoined both parties to give loyal consideration to each other (getrew aufsehen).
Braun, Eidgenossen, 247.
281 Braun, Eidgenossen, 241–4.