22 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
dragged their feet in signing it.80 Nevertheless, three years later it was transformed
into a Perpetual Union.81
The success of the Perpetual Accord can be gauged both internally and externally.
Within the Confederation it offered a framework in which lingering disputes—
over the fate of Toggenburg or between Zürich and Luzern—could at last be
resolved.82 Beyond Switzerland it rapidly attracted applications for co-signature
from Montbéliard (encouraged by Bern) and from several Alsatian cities, including
Kaysersberg and Obernai, all of whom saw it as an insurance policy against Charles
the Bold.83 But most importantly, in 1475 it was ratified by King Louis of France,
who held the key to its successful conclusion, for only his promise of an annual
pension of 10,000 francs had persuaded Sigismund to resile from his determin-
ation to retain the Forest Towns. It was Louis who had overseen the signing of the
treaty the previous year in an effort to thwart Burgundian expansion, though only
latterly did he play an active role in its conclusion.84 The decks had been cleared
for a showdown in the west.
80 Even in 1477 Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, and Glarus were still reluctant to sign. EA II, 699–700
(no. 915: a); Claudius Sieber-Lehmann, ‘Schwierige Nachbarn. Basel, Vorderösterreich und die
Eidgenossen im ausgehenden 15. Jahrhundert’, in Franz Quartal and Gerhard Faix (eds), Die
Habsburger im deutschen Südwesten. Neue Forschungen zur Geschichte Vorderösterreichs (Stuttgart,
2000), 273–86, here at 279.
81 Robert Janeschitz-Kriegl, ʻGeschichte der ewigen Richtung von 1474ʼ, Zeitschrift für die
Geschichte des Oberrheins, 105 (1957), 150–224, 409–55, here at 449; EA II, 701 (no. 916); 944–6:
Appendix 66.
82 Stettler, Eidgenossenschaft, 230. 83 EA II, 492–3 (no. 750); 496–500 (no. 755: n).
84 Baum, Habsburger, 597–600; Braun, ‘Habsburger und Eidgenossen’, 142; Sieber-Lehmann,
‘Schwierige Nachbarn’, 278. On King Louis’s long-term plans to forge an alliance with the Swiss and
to reconcile them to the Habsburgs in order to thwart Burgundian expansion see Karl Bittmann,
Ludwig XI. und Karl der Kühne. Die Memoiren des Philippe de Commynes als historische Quelle
(Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte, 9) (Göttingen, 1970), II/2, 273–609.
Bittmann is, however, dismissive of the role played by Louis in bringing about the Perpetual Accord,
for which he was much lauded by Commynes. Ibid. 592–609.