112 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
Eidguenots bought up Mammelu property at bargain prices,362 after the latter
had fled the city in droves.363
The bishop, Pierre de la Baume, espied a chance to shore up his authority by
adding his signature to the Burgrecht which the city had concluded with Bern and
Fribourg.364 This démarche met a cool response. Bern pondered the matter before
rejecting the request,365 while the Eidguenot council flatly refused to entertain the
idea.366 Rather, it obliged the bishop to hand over civil justice to the city, and then
abolished the office of justiciar (vidomne), once the bishop’s prerogative, replacing
it in 1529 with a civic court of justice.367
Nevertheless, the bishop did act in concert with the Eidguenot council to
distrain the refugees’ possessions,368 whereupon, as Bern informed its envoys a
week later, Savoyard nobles and refugees were plotting in retaliation to arrest
the bishop, drag him off to Chambéry and there possibly execute him, a fate
which they certainly intended to inflict upon members of the Great and Small
Councils.369 Caught between a rock and a hard place, Pierre de la Baume decided
to cut and run.370 On the night of 1st August the bishop clandestinely took ship,
accompanied by Besançon Hugues (who was hoping to turn the bishop’s feeble-
ness to the city’s advantage),371 and headed for the abbey of Condat in the Jura,
where he was abbot in commendam.372 In 1533 he was finally expelled and with-
drew to Annecy.
Despite its break with Savoy, Bern—or rather, the Small Council—did not
change its policy, which was to steer a middle course between the competing claims
of Savoy and Geneva,373 to avoid war at all costs, and to forbid its subjects rallying
362 Caesar, Pouvoir, 75.
363 Negotiations over their fate dragged on for years. For 1527 see SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch
19 Q, fo. 182v (March 1527); EA IV, 1a, 1132–4 (no. 463) (July 1527); 1135–7 (no. 467); 1150–2
(no. 475: 6; 8) (Aug. 1527) gives a list of the refugees who were banned from returning, 18 of whom
were named, with a further 36 permitted to return if Bern and Fribourg agreed; 1189–93 (no. 489:
2; 14; 15) (Nov. 1527). The fines imposed on the refugees were dismissed by the duke as far too
steep. AEF, Diplomatische Korrespondenz a) Bern: 48 (Sept. 1527); SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch
19 Q (Sept. 1527).
364 EA IV, 1a, 1100 (no. 448: I) (May 1527). In January the bishop had secretly indicated that he
would not oppose the Burgrecht if it served to maintain the city’s liberties. RCG, vol. X, p. 209;
Cuendet, Traités, 22–3.
365 EA IV, 1a, 1110–11 (no. 456: a) (June 1527). Fribourg’s response does not survive.
366 Monter, ‘De l’Évêché’, 132.
367 Caesar, Pouvoir, 113, 118–19; Monter, ‘De l’Evêché’, 132; Michael W. Bruening, Calvinism’s
First Battleground. Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528–1559 (Studies in Early Modern
Religious Reforms, 4) (Dordrecht, 2005), 38.
368 SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch 19 Q, fo. 220r–v (11 July 1527).
369 EA IV, 1a, 1133 (no. 463: 6, 1) (19 July 1527).
370 See Segre’s mordant verdict: ma il vescovo che non ebbe mai un esatto concetto di quel che gli
convenisse fare nelle diverse circonstanze di sua vita... Documenti di Storia Sabauda, 33.
371 Hugues’s relations with the bishop were cordial, but distant; his famous clarion ‘destruyre
l’Esglise’ was a call to cancel episcopal jurisdiction, not a commitment to Reforming doctrines.
Naef, Bezanson Hugues, 64–5.
372 Documenti di Storia Sabauda, 38–9, 184–5, nos 22, 23. He was not safe even from his own chapter:
les chanoynes ou aultmains le plus grosse partie avoyent desliberez le fère tuer.
373 Its preferred option was for arbitration at Payerne, but Savoy refused. SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch
19 Q, fo. 427v–428r, 450r (Aug. 1527).