Raids and Retaliation 35
lay next door. It might seem that here was an opportunity missed by a small
city-state which had spent much of the previous half-century buzzing like an angry
hornet around the north-western fringes of the Confederation, infuriating both
Basel and its bishop, whilst waging a war of attrition against its powerful aristo-
cratic rivals, the counts of Thierstein, with whom it was supposedly allied!168 Yet
behind this we may discern the deterrent hand of Bern, which had no desire to see
Solothurn become too big for its boots.169
The first Hegau campaign encountered mostly women and children in the villages;
the men had been withdrawn to the nobles’ castles, which the Swiss set on fire.170
What alarmed Konstanz, however, was that in this sortie the majority of the Thurgau
nobility had closed ranks with the Swiss, not the city or its allies.171 Simultaneously,
news reached the Swiss camp that the counts of Lupfen as Austrian partisans were
planning to attack the county of Klettgau from the west, whose lords, the counts of
Sulz, had a long-standing Burgrecht with Zürich.172 Count Rudolf vacillated, hoping
to remain neutral, but finally placed a garrison in the town of Tiengen and Küssaburg
castle, claiming that he was acting as a count of the Empire.173
That situation did not last long. By the beginning of April Swabian troops had
taken Tiengen, Küssaberg, and also Stühlingen, the seat of the counts of Lupfen.174
Before a fresh Swiss campaign into the Hegau and the Baar could be mounted, the
Swabian League had struck. A league army of over 5000 men, infantry and cavalry,
crossed the Rhine, inflicting severe casualties on the Swiss troops in their encamp-
ment at Schwaderloh, but were subsequently outmanoeuvred and put to flight.
This, too, proved to be more an opportunistic raid than a planned battle. Thereafter
both sides were largely caught in a stalemate.175
For the Swiss forces in the Thurgau recapture of those towns in the Klettgau
seized by the league—a platform from which to launch strikes across the Rhine—
was an immediate priority. Already some Klettgauers had sought refuge in Eglisau
castle, Zürich’s one stronghold north of the Rhine, which it had acquired three
years previously.176 In its march into the Wutach valley in mid-April an army
168 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 43–4; Christ, Zwischen Kooperation und Konkurrenz, 258, 322. In 1487
counts Oswald and Wilhelm von Thierstein had concluded a perpetual Burgrecht with Solothurn.
169 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 29. Solothurn did occupy Thierstein castles, but otherwise claimed that it
was more interested in the Sundgau or else that it was hemmed in by Austria! Bruno Amiet, ‘Die
solothurnische Territorialpolitik von 1344-1532’ (Diss. phil. Basel, 1929), 78–9.
170 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 33; Carl, ‘ “Schwabenkrieg” ’, 120.
171 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 36; Maurer, Konstanz im Mittelalter, 231. Some were from old Konstanz
families and others from the personnel of the bishop of Konstanz!
172 Niederhäuser, ‘Zwischen Konkurrenz’, 93; Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 15.
The Burgrecht, initially signed in 1478, was renewed ten years later.
173 Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 20–2. Zürich had troops ready to intervene if Count
Rudolf failed. The latter had only acquired Tiengen as a mortgage from the bishop of Konstanz in
1482, largely thanks to Zürich’s support. Niederhäuser, ‘Zwischen Konkurrenz’, 89.
174 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 46; Niederhäuser, ‘ “Kriegs”-Geschichte’, 174.
175 Meyer, ‘Thurgau’, 45–57; Carl, ‘ “Schwabenkrieg” ’, 121.
176 Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 24. The city’s bailiff demanded that they swear afresh
an oath of loyalty. Eglisau had originally been acquired by a patrician family, the Gradner, in 1460
from the counts of Tengen, before Baron Johann Gradner sold out to the city for 10,500 fl in 1496.
Niederhäuser, ‘Zwischen Konkurrenz’, 79; Niederhäuser, ‘Kampf ums Überleben’, 15.