The Spoils of War 151
Count Jean II to submit to Bern’s overlordship. In the course of a protracted and
bitter dispute it is true that Bern made threatening noises to ravage Gruyère if the
count refused to comply.695 In fact, the situation was more complicated. For one
thing, Count Jean held burgher’s rights in both Fribourg and Bern.696 In the face of
Bern’s pressure he naturally inclined towards Fribourg and sought its protection,697
which would have safeguarded his and his territory’s Catholicism: indeed, in what
appears to be an act of desperation, he offered to sell his county to Fribourg in
March.698 Fribourg called upon the Catholic cantons for help, who promised to
intervene if hostilities between the two cities came to open warfare.699 That danger
was averted when Fribourg proposed a compromise: it would abandon its claim to
Vevey if Bern would drop its demand for Count Jean’s submission. Unfortunately,
Fribourg chose to ride its luck by claiming that the terms of its Burgrecht with Gruyère
covered several other places which were comital fiefs or else had close links with the
counts: Aubonne, Oron, Montsalvens, Palézieux, La Molière, Corbières, and Yens.
Not surprisingly, Bern baulked at this raising of the stakes.700
There, for the moment, matters rested, as Fribourg left Bern to complete the
conquest of the north shore of Lake Geneva by storming the remaining Savoy
stronghold of Château Chillon and then seizing the bishopric of Lausanne. At the
end of the year Fribourg repeated its offer to exchange Vevey for Gruyère’s inde-
pendence, but Bern again demurred.701 When negotiations resumed in January
1537 Bern was only prepared to absolve Count Jean from swearing allegiance for his
lifetime.702 In return Count Jean offered Bern the homage of all his fiefs except the
county of Gruyère itself, and undertook to sever his vassal ties to Savoy within a
month.703 By May it appeared that a compromise had at last been reached. The
obligation to swear allegiance to Bern was lifted for both the count and his successors,
and Gruyère was to remain Catholic, though there was wrangling over some of the
outlying comital possessions.704 Within a week, Count Jean took an oath of vassalage
to Bern (replacing his oath to Savoy), rather than an oath of submission.705
Just when everything seemed settled, Fribourg pulled a rabbit out of the hat.
It proposed that Bern and Fribourg should divide the county of Gruyère between
them.706 The plan might well have succeeded, but what scuppered it was that the
695 AEF, Missivale 12, fo. 39v (n.d.: mid-1536).
696 EA IV, 1c, 652 (no. 400: a) (March 1536); Gilliard, Eroberung, 109 [181].
697 Niquille, ‘Comte Jean de Gruyère’, 235–6.
698 Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, B 213. 699 EA IV, 1c, 656–7 (no. 402: a; g) (March 1536).
700 EA IV, 1c, 661–4 (no. 404: I; II; V; note 5) (March 1536). Fribourg was exercised by the inclusion
of places (such as Oron and the abbey of Hautcrêt, an episcopal foundation under Gruyère stewardship)
which were not part of the county. AEF, Missivale 11, fo. 24r–v (9 Jan. 1537); Niquille, ‘Comte Jean
de Gruyère’, 244.
701 EA IV, 1c, 804–5 (no.487: I) (Dec. 1536). 702 Niquille, ‘Comte Jean de Gruyère’, 244.
703 EA IV, 1c, 806–7 (no. 490: II; VIII). In February Bern had rejected the services of a mediator
from the Protestant cities Zürich, Basel, and Schaffhausen. SASO, Ratsmanuale 28, pp. 394–8
(23 Feb. 1536).
704 EA IV, 1c, 835–41 (no. 508: e; 4) (7–18 May 1536).
705 EA IV, 1c, 842 (no. 510) (14/17 May 1536); Niquille, ‘Comte Jean de Gruyère’, 243, 246.
706 Albert-Marie Courtray, ‘Une proposition de partage du comté de Gruyère’, Revue Historique
Vaudoise, 37 (1929), 209–14, here at 210.