Acceso usuarios
Peter Bierbrauer
Traditional Swiss historiography saw the history of the cantons as a fight by burghers and peasants for freedom against feudal rule. More recently this black and white picture has been modified by showing that the urban cantons, notably Bern, Zurich and Lucerne, pursued a traditional city‐state policy of territorial expansion and subjection of the peasantry. This picture, in its turn, is now being shown as too extreme since it does not account for the development of the Swiss Confederation and for its evident attraction to communities beyond its borders. A study of the Oberland of Bern shows that, especially in the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century, village and peasant communities were able to get rid of serfdom and acquire from their local feudal lords extensive rights of self‐government and judicial authority, with a displacement of feudal law by common law (Landgesetz). The city of Bern supported these developments. While more detailed studies are required for other parts of Switzerland, it looks as if this development may well have been common.
