66 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
circumstances, above all when Savoy fell victim to manifold vicissitudes after 1460.
In 1467, for instance, Bern’s long-standing Burgrecht with Savoy was extended to
embrace Fribourg, even though the latter was now a Savoy subject!21 There had
previously been a three-way alliance in 1412, but that was at a time when Fribourg
belonged to Austria.22 In 1477, in the wake of the Burgundian Wars which had
witnessed the cities’ occupation of the Vaud and much bitter wrangling over its
future, Duke Philibert was prepared to restore Savoy’s treaty of friendship with
Bern and Fribourg which not only described the boundaries within which mutual
help was to be provided but also required each party to allow military access to the
other’s fortresses and towns in an emergency (known as Öffnungsrecht) within
those boundaries. This alliance was to be reviewed every ten years.23 That such alli-
ances, ostensibly between equals, might conceal a palpable tilt in the balance of
forces was to become plain after the accession of Duke Charles II in 1504. The
ruler of Savoy immediately sought to cement his relationship with Bern and
Fribourg and extend it to embrace Solothurn in the face of France’s expansionism
in Italy.24 Savoy was then plunged into financial chaos in the Dufour affair after
1508, which led Duke Charles II to confirm his Burgrecht with Bern, Fribourg,
and Solothurn in 1509.25 Even though—or rather because—his duchy had been
brought to the brink of bankruptcy, in the aftermath of the Dufour affair Charles
was obliged to seek shelter under the protective carapace of the two cities in 1514:
in Gaston Castella’s words, he needed peace at any price.26
Yet these Burgrechte failed to resolve what was to become a mounting source of
friction between Savoy and the cities, namely Bern and Fribourg’s acceptance (lat-
terly joined by Solothurn) of Savoy subjects as citizens. The 1509 Burgrechte had
contained an additional clause prohibiting the duke’s subjects from seeking the pro-
tection which citizenship afforded and in turn forbidding the cities from buying
lands or estates in the Vaud.27 When the treaties came up for renewal in 1517,
Fribourg refused to sign,28 since it had by then become the preferred destination for
many refugee Genevan citizens. Four years later the story was repeated, though by
then Solothurn was willing to ratify.29 Savoy’s obsession with this issue became a
King Charles’s head; relations with the cities were further soured after Geneva sought
to conclude a Burgrecht with the cities in the face of repeated Savoy harassment, both
military and commercial, though defiant Fribourg was much more eager to proceed
than cautious Bern. The stage had been set for the showdown of 1536.
21 EA II, 363 (no. 574). 22 Stadtrecht von Bern, III, 473–8.
23 EA II, 695–6 (no. 909). It was renewed in 1498 and 1509.
24 EA III, 2, 299 (no. 197); Richard Paquier, Le Pays de Vaud des origines à la conquête bernoise,
2 vols, new edn (Lausanne, 1979), 2, 229.
25 EA III, 2, 448 (no. 323); 449 (no. 325); Paquier, Pays de Vaud, 2, 230.
26 Gaston Castella, Histoire du Canton de Fribourg (Fribourg, 1922), 213.
27 EA III, 2, 448 (no. 323) and 1323–5 (Appendix 13) (Bern and Fribourg): 1324: deinde nec volmus
nec debebimus nos sepefati vrbium Bernensis et Friburgensis deinceps aliquem extraneum et extra marchas
et limites ducatus Sabaudie, etiam extra lige Alamanie superioris partes residentem in ciuem ac burgensem
suscipere.. .; 449 (no. 325) and 1325–7 (Appendix 14) (Solothurn); Paquier, Pays de Vaud, 2, 230.
28 The Latin text is contained in EA III, 2, 3 (no. 2) (1 Feb. 1521).
29 EA III, 2, 3 (no. 2); Cuendet, Traités, 23.