1. Two stanzas from “Pasquill Herren Landtvogts zu Baden Caspar von Graffenriedt von Bern, so Jme zu Baden angeschlagen worden,” published by Rochholz, E.L. in Aargovia 9 (1876): 181–87.Google Scholar Graffenried was Landvogt in the Grafschaft Baden (Aargau) from 1616–17. The original is now found at Staatsarchiv Aargau [henceforth STAAr] 2815/1/3.6; it was in the archive of Lucerne when originally published.

2. The Grafschaft Baden was in the territory of the modern canton Aargau. The term Grafschaft in this context is interesting: the region was a creation of its Swiss conquerors, who added various lesser lordships to those formerly ruled by the Habsburgs from the town of Baden. It was not a historical unit in feudal terms, and there had never been any Grafen of Baden. See Seiler, Christophe and Steigmeier, Andreas, Geschichte des Aargaus (Aarau, 1991).Google Scholar

3. “Canton” is a modern rather than contemporary term for the full members of the Swiss Confederation, who were known at the time only as Orte. Since the latter translates only ambiguously, I will use the more modern French term, applied only since the seventeenth century, throughout this paper.

4. Comparative literature on the Vögte in the Gemeine Herrschaften is scarce. Bächtold, Kurt, “Die Schaffhauser Landvögte im Tessin,” Schaffhauser Beiträge zur Geschichte 71 (1994): 73–95,Google Scholar is primarily narrative but provides a concise overview of major issues. Dütsch's, Hans-RudolfDie Zürcher Landvögte von 1402–1798 (Zurich, 1994)Google Scholar only covers the Vögte in Zurich's own territory, but provides useful social background, as do two studies of Graubünden: Grimm, Paul, Die Anfänge der Bünder Aristokratie im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Zurich, 1981),Google Scholar and Färber, Silvio, Der bündnerische Herrenstand im 17. Jahrhundert: Politische, soziale, und wirtschaftliche Aspekte seiner Vorherrschaft (Zurich, 1983).Google ScholarKälin, Urs, Die Urner Magistraten-Familien (Zurich, 1991)Google Scholar says little about the Urner Vogteien either in the Ticino or in other regions. The tendency of Swiss studies to take a cantonal framework, while beneficial for understanding the social structure and the complex webs of clientage that helped the Swiss patriciates maintain their preeminence, has often caused the subject territories to be treated primarily as external sources of wealth and prestige, without considering how the interaction of officers and subjects shaped the political culture of both.

5. For a recent overview of Swiss historiography on this subject, see Robinson, Philip, Die Fürstabtei St. Gallen und ihr Territorium 1463–1529 (St. Gallen, 1995), 22–28.Google Scholar Robinson's conclusion that most of the literature is “einseitig verfassungs-und institutionsgeschichtlich” applies equally to most of the local historical studies.

6. Such work has grown out of interest in peasant resistance during the 1970s and 1980s. For an overview based on Württemberg, see Sabean, David, Power in the Blood (Cambridge, 1984), 12–20.Google Scholar For specifically Swiss examples of this approach, see: Elsener, Ferdinand, “Das bäuerliche Patritziat im Gaster: Zur Verfassungsgeschichte einer schwyzerischen Vogtei,” Geschichtsfreund 104 (1951): 71–94;Google Scholar Robinson, Fürstabtei, 299–314.

7. A recent critique of this unilinear model even in Renaissance France is found in Major, J. Russel, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles and Estates (Baltimore, 1994).Google Scholar

8. For example, the Swiss Peasants'War of 1653 erupted almost entirely within villages subject to Lucerne or to Bern exclusively. Such unrest as developed in the Aargau was put to rest when the ruling cantons organized the collection of grievances from their joint subjects. Although Andreas Suter's magisterial new study argues that the 1653 rebellion effectively blocked the full development of absolutist dominion in Switzerland, the relative quiescence of the Gemeine Herrschaften suggests that communes did not become centers of action in the very regions that had experienced the most systematic effort to create such dominion during the sixteenth century—in sharp contrast to the situation within Lucerne and Bern. Suter, Andreas, Der schweizerische Bauernkrieg on 1653: Politische Sozialgeschichte—Sozialgeschichte eines politischen Ereignisses (Tübingen, 1997).Google Scholar

9. The expression here is my attempt to capture Jon Mathieu's suggestion that “flachendeckende Institutionsverdichtung” provides a powerful analytical framework for studying early modern Switzerland (in personal correspondence). Identifying the features of this process and placing it in geographical and theoretical perspective is the central goal of my ongoing research on the Gemeine Herrschaften. Current Swiss historiography has developed a sophisticated view of Herrschaftsintensivierung as the dominant tendency in the late medieval and early modern periods; further research should encompass local and regional efforts to shape institutions in a way that responded to needs at all levels of society. A balanced assessment of Swiss views in Sablonier, Roger, “Innerschweizer Gesellschaft im 14. Jahrhundert: Sozialstruktur und Wirtschaft,” in Hansjakob Achermann et al., Innerschweiz und frühe Eidgenossenschaft (Olten, 1990) esp. 2: 214–23.Google Scholar

10. The so-called achtortische Eidgenossenschaft consisted of Zurich, Bern, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zun, and Glarus.

11. For example, Zurich's own subject territories were documented in an entirely different section of the city archive than were the Gemeine Herrschaften that the city helped rule. See Staatsarchiv Zürich, “Blaues Register” (Archivkataloge 102–150), as well as the older archive catalogs.

12. The best overview of the constitutional formation of the confederation in this period is Peyer, Hans Conrad, Verfassungsgeschichte der alten Schweiz (Zurich, 1978).Google Scholar The eccentric chapter on the late Middle Ages in the Handbuch der Schweizer Geschichte, 2nd ed. (Zurich, 1980), 1: 239–389, by Schaufelberger, Walter is not particularly illuminating on the political and ideological dimensions of Swiss expansion, but summarizes the joint acquisitions, 1: 280–92, 309–12. On the role of the subject territories, esp. Baden, in the evolution of the Swiss Diet or Tagsatzung (a subject urgently in need of modern research),Google Scholar see Joos, Robert, Die Entstehung und rechtliche Ausgestaltung der eidgenössischen Tagsatzung bis zur Reformation (Schaffhausen, 1925);Google Scholar and Bütikofer, Niklaus, “Zur Funktion und Arbeitsweise der eidgenössischen Tagsatzung zu Beginn der frühen Neuzeit,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 13, No. 1 (1986): 15–41.Google Scholar

13. In the Bündner case, the condominium was that of the three separate leagues, and eventually of the 51 1/2 communes that formed them. The Valais, another rural confederation, also briefly obtained a cisalpine domain in the Val d'Ossola, but lost it in 1515. See Tanner, Karl, Der Kampf ums Eschental und der Verrat von Domodossola (Zurich, 1917).Google Scholar

14. For a recent review of the historiography, see Scaramellini, Guglielmo, “Nuov: Anche in Valchiavenna un patto coi Grigioni,” Clavenna 34 (1995): 149–73.Google Scholar The first governor there was not appointed until 1515; see Salic, Tarciso, “Rodolfo Marmorera, primo governatore di Valtellina (1515),” Bollettino della Società Storica Valtellinese 36 (1983): 169–84.Google Scholar

15. The term Vogt has a long and complex history since its beginnings from “advocatus.” Cf.Jacob, and Grimm, Wilhelm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, (Leipzig, 1962–1970, vol. 12, pt. 2, cols. 437–445.Google Scholar In general, its meaning became broader rather than more narrow over time, and the initial sense of agent (at first specifically of an ecclesiastical institution, then of any lord) soon added strong overtones of “protector” and eventually “lord,” at least to a mind thinking in late medieval categories. See esp. Sablonier, Roger, Adel im Wandel (Göttingen, 1979)Google Scholar on the role of Vogtei in the construction of regional lordship in thirteenth and fourteenth century Switzerland.

16. On Swiss political culture at this time, see esp. the work of Marchal, Guy, e.g., “Die ‘Alten Eidgenossen’ im Wandel der Zeiten: Das Bild der frühen Eidgenossen im Traditionsbewusstsein und in der Identitätsvorstellung der Schweizer vom 15. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert,” in Innerschweiz und frühe Eidgenossenschaft, ed. Achermann, Hansjakob, Brülisauer, Josef, and Hoppe, Peter (Olten, 1990), 309–406.Google Scholar A greater emphasis on antiaristocratic tendencies in Head, R., “William Tell and his Comrades: Association and Fraternity in the Propaganda of Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Switzerland,” Journal of Modern History 67, No. 3 (1995): 527–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Both Bern and Lucerne received parts of the Aargau outright after 1415, with Bern relinquishing its shares in the “Grafschaft Baden” and “Freie Ämter” that were created out of the remainder of the Swiss acquisitions. See Seiler and Steigmeier, Geschichte des Aargaus, 38–43, for a lucid and well-illustrated overview of the conquest and partitions.

18. For a discussion of the role of rotation and partition in late medieval Swiss political practice, see Head, , Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons, (Cambridge, 1995), 73–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar To my knowledge, the first formal document ordaining a two-year rotation cycle is published in Ämtliche Sammlung der älteren Eidgenössischen Abschiede 1245–1798, (various publishers, 1856–1886), [henceforth EA] 2:103 (no. 157, 15 July 1435), but further investigation into to the origins of this practice is needed.

19. In some Landvogteien, the Vogt enjoyed the right to pardon; in others, such as the Ticino, this was reserved for the ruling cantons themselves. Cf.Weiss, Otto, Die Tessinischen Landvogteien der XII. Orte im 18. Jahrhundert (Zurich, 1914, repr. Ascona, 1984), 12.Google Scholar

20. See the lucid summary in Sigg, Otto, “Bevölkerung, Landbau, Versorgung und Krieg vor und zur Zeit der Reformation,” in Zwingli's Zürich 1484–1531 (Zurich, 1984), 1–13.Google Scholar

21. Bader, Karl S., Das Schiedsverfahren in Schwaben vom 12. Bis zum ausgehenden 16. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1929) gives an overview of the origins and use of arbitration in southern Germany and Switzerland in the late Middle Ages.Google Scholar

22. A valuable view of a Landvogt of Baden's regular judicial activity is contained in the surviving “Urteilbücher” of a series of Vögte from the late sixteenth century. In them are recorded the cases where the Vogt ruled, usually on appeal but evidently in some cases as the first instance. Debts and inheritances made up the bulk of the Vogt's business, with occasional more serious cases concerning breaches of the peace. STAAr 2605/1/1–7. The boundary between the Vogt's jurisdication was determined primarily by the size of the possible fines, leading to repeated accusations that the agents of lesser lords intentionally underrated cases so as to draw the fines and court proceeds to the local lord's court.

23. An excellent overview of this aspect in Seiler and Steigmeier, Geschichte des Aargaus, 31–33, 38–43. On the Thurgau, see esp. Hasenfratz, Helene, Die Landgrafschaft Thurgau vor der Revolution von 1798 (Frauenfeld, 1908), 52–99.Google Scholar

24. Documented in Staatsarchiv Zürich [henceforth STAZh], B VIII 336.

25. The depositions are collected in STAZh B VIII 336. Eight cantons shared lordship in this region, together with the abbot of St. Gall.

26. The anger of the ruling cantons, to judge from the collected depositions, was directed against Dietschi mostly because he had abused a safe-conduct issued to bring him to trial after he had fled, in order to spirit away his accumulated hoard of silver and gold out of reach of the Swiss investigators. STAZh B VIII 336, pp. 1–14.

27. Although the question of who possessed what kind of “sovereignty” (Landeshoheit) could be tangled, the key features of sovereignty in late medieval terms were relatively clear for this region: most important was the power to exercise capital justice, as well as regalian rights such as taxation, coinage, and military service from the population. Any of these could be weakened by privileges and immunities. Still, such sovereignty was recognized and sought after (if differently defined than the modern version), and it would go too far to claim that the very concept of sovereignty is anachronistic at this time. See Quaritsch, Helmut, Souveränität, Entstehung und Entwicklung des Begriffs in Frankreich und Deutschland vom 13. Jahrhundert bis 1806 (Berlin, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a specifically continental European perspective on this issue.

28. That von Roll was from Uri is revealing: despite the bishop of Constance's claims, the region was in the sphere of interest of the Swiss patriciate. Strictly speaking, Walther von Roll was administering the Vogtei on behalf of his son, who was ill. This became significant because one of the townspeople's accusations was that Walther refused to swear to respect their liberties;he responded that as administrator he was not obliged to, since his son actually held the office of Vogt. More details in Mittler, Otto, Geschichte der Stadt Klingnau, 2nd ed. (Aarau, 1967), 118–21.Google Scholar

29. STAAr 2605/2.3, f2v, contains a resolution from 1587 between von Roll and three debtors. Unfortunatly the Urteilsmanuale of the Landvögte in Baden do not survive for the relevant years, so we cannot see how many other debt cases von Roll might have been involved in.

30. The agreement that ended this dispute in STAAr 2791/5.7, dated 20 July 1585. The contractor in the agreement was himself from Uri, suggesting that his employment represented a from of patronage. (Uri is nowhere near Baden or Klingnau.)

31. The accusation, from before the fire, in STAAr 2791/5.6: “Zum Dritten. Das sich herr Ritter Roll ein Oberuogt zu Clingnouw schriben unnd Nambssen lasse, Da aber mine herren Lanndtuogt zuo Baden daselbst Oberuogt sye.” The long pathetic letter, appealing to the Swiss as “gnedig herren unnd Vätter” is at STAAr 2791/5.9. The Klingnauers also complained in Article 6 that von Roll had been subverting the Swiss administrator: “Zum Sechßten. So gefallen zu zyten etlich Buoßen. So minen gn. Herren zugehören möchten. Da aber dieselben für khleinfüeg gemacht. Und also minen herren entzogen werden. “The Zurich city council picked up these complaints (no doubt in part because they saw an opportunity to support the partly Protestant Klingnauers against their Catholic immediate lord), cf. STAZh A 319, documents from 1584.

32. The relevant documents are all in STAAr 2791/5. The threat reads: “Dann so er unns nit abgenommen werden sölte musten wir besorgen daß Im etwann von den unsern (diewyl mengklichen über Inn ganntz verhetzt unnd erzurnedt) ein schaden möchte zugefuegt werden.”

33. See Peter Bierbrauer, “Bäuerliche Revolten im Alten Reich: Ein Forschungsbericht,” in Blickle, Peter, et al. , Aufruhr und Empörung? Studien zum bäuerlichen Widerstand im Alten Reich (Munich, 1980), 1–68.Google Scholar

34. See e.g., Mäder, Kurt, “Bauernunruhen in der Eidgenossenschaft vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert,” in Aufstände, Revolten, Prozesse: Beiträgre zu bäuerlichen Widerstandsbewegungen im frühneuzeitlichen Europa, ed. Schulze, W. (Bochum, 1983), 76–88;Google ScholarClavadetscher, Otto, “Die Bauernunruhen im Gebiet der heutigen Eidgenossenschaft: Mit einem Excurs über die Beziehungen Gaismairs zur Schweiz,” in Die Bauernkriege und Michael Gaismair, ed. Dörrer, Fridolin (Innsbruck, 1982), 153–60.Google Scholar

35. An overview of the scholarship in Suter, Andreas, “Der schweizerische Bauernkrieg 1653: Ein Forschungsbericht,” in Die Bauern in der Geschichte der Schweiz, ed. Tanner, Albert and Head-König, Anne-Lise (Zurich, 1992), 69–103.Google Scholar

36. The articles, with a summation and a summary of responses by the Tagsatzung, are found at STAAr 2600/3.

37. STAAr 2600/3, article JJ.: “Bechlagen sy sich wegen der Streitlöhen wan die Oberkeit uff ein augenschein berueffen wirdt, mit begeren man welle ein gewüssen Tax hierinnen machen.”

38. STAAr 2600/3, article VV.: “Klagt ein gemeindt sich das mit der oberkheitlichen Straffen gar zue hoch gefahren werde, ouch In geringen sachen, so gar allein umb füstrich widly, massen das sich oftermahlen weib und kinder übell entgelten müessen…”

39. STAAr 2600/3, article NNN.:“beklagt sich das Ire Gemeindtsgnossen 3 fach gestrafft worden. Erstens straffet die gemeindt selbsten, hernach der H. Prior von Syonen, und Endtlich der Hn. Landtuogt. Pitten also man welle erleüterung Thun, wem darein und andern sachen die bschaffung zuegehörn.” [the reading of the last few words is uncertain).

40. Since these complaints were collected after the larger peasant uprising had been suppressed, one would not expect to find strong critiques of the established sociopolitical framework. Nevertheless, the local and practical focus is striking throughout. Privileges and tradition appear in some articles, but the overall tone is not as deeply defensive as for example, the rhetoric of Bernese communes in the same period. See for comparison the later chapters of Bierbrauer, Peter, Freiheit und Gemeinde im Berner Oberland, 1300–1700 (Bern, 1991).Google Scholar

41. Robisheaux, Thomas, Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1989), 258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. For comparisons, see Robisheaux, Rural Society; Theibault, John, “Community and Herrschaft in the Seventeenth-Century German Village,” Journal of Modern History 64, No. 1 (1992): 1–21;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and idem, , German Villages in Crisis: Rural Life in Hesse-Kassel and the Thirty Years’ War, 1580–1720 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1995).Google Scholar To my knowledge, no systematic comparison of the rural order in the Swiss lordships in Italy (Tre Valli, lower Ticino, Valtelline, Chiavenna, Bormio) and the neighboring Milanese and Comogasc regions has been undertaken, and literature comparable to that on German village life is relatively scarce.

43. The older view, which certainly contains elements of truth, found its classic expression in such works as Carstens, F., Princes and Parliaments in Germany from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1959),Google Scholar and especially in Gerhard Oestreich's work; it has enjoyed a renaissance throught the latter in current work on the idea of “social discipline” and “confessionalization.” See Oestreich, Gerhard, Strukturprobleme der frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1980).Google Scholar For an example of how important a centralizing and implicitly modernizing state is to the “confessionalization” model, see e.g., Schilling, Heinz, “Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich: Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620,” Historische Zeitschrift 246, No. 1 (1988): 1–45,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who on p. 6 defines his subject as follows: “‘Confessionalization’ means a fundamental social process that profoundly transformed public and private lives in Europe, in close connection, or frequently in mutual interaction with the emergence of the early modern state and the formation of a modern disciplined society of subjects (Untertanengesellschaft)…” (my translation).

44. For a suggestive early analysis of the multiple roles of Vögte in the Bernese Aargau, see Bucher, Ernst, “Die bernischen Landvogteien im Aargau,” Argovia 56 (1944): 1–191,Google Scholar esp. 79–87, where Bucher distinguishes between “Der Landvogt als Vertreter der Obrigkeit,” “Der Landvogt als selbständiger Beamter,” and “Der Landvogt als Vertreter der Untertanen.” Clearly, the mediating role of the office was evident in older studies.

45. See esp. Hofmann, Hasso, Repräsentation: Studien zur Wort und Begriffsgeschichte von der Antike bis ins 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1974)Google Scholar on early modern interpretations of representation.

46. The distinction between legitimate collection by a Vogt of fees from justice and other perquisites of his office, and the illegitimate extraction of bribes and unjust demands, was extremely hard to draw in practice, although contemporaries had strong feelings that such a distinction existed. This problem and the administrative means undertaken to limit the “corrupt” actions of Vögte are discussed at length from a Bündner perspective in Head, , “Social Order, Politics and Political Language in the Rhaetian Freestate (Graubünden) 1470–1620” (Ph.D.diss., University of Virginia, 1992), chap. 8.Google Scholar

47. As David Sabean points out, the fact that this aspect of dominion or Herrschaft was ultimately personal—a relationship between persons—does not imply that it was in any sense “face-to-face.” (Power in the Blood, 21–22.) Indeed, it was precisely the insertion of the Vogt into this personal framework that allowed the “personal” or “feudal” dimension of power not only to survive, but in fact to intensify during the early modern period.

48. The constitutive nature of oaths of fealty during the ancien régime is demonstrated by Holenstein, André, Die Huldigung der Untertanen: Rechtskultur und Herrschaftsordnung (800–1800) (Stuttgart and New York, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the texts and forms of oaths in various Swiss territories see e.g., Weiss, , Tessinische Landvogteien, 23–30; “Die Huldigung in der Landgraffschaft Thurgau seit dem Jahre 1712,” Thurgauische Beiträge zur vaterländischen Geschichte 33 (1893): 19–33;Google Scholar Hasenfratz, Landgrafschaft Thurgau, 34–47; Kreis, Hans, Die Grafschaft Baden im 18. Jahrhundert (Zürich, 1909), 26–31.Google Scholar

49. The expenses are noted in detail in STAAR 2815/1/3.4.

50. EA II: 449–50 (no. 711, 9 June 1473). The conflict had been swelling for several years before this.

51. In 1577. Archivio di Stato, Sondrio [henceforth ASSondrio], D I 3/2, fol. 192v, 193r, among other expenses: “Per pagar alli S^ri Commissari la condennatione fatta per loro contra della squadra, per causa che la sq^ra non ha fatto far le insegne delli tre leghe gui al Gesiolo di Piante o della scalottola:£227 ß 10.”

52. Seminal for the large number of recent studies on this topic was Muir, Edward, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton, 1981).Google Scholar

53. Extensive examples in “Urbar der Grafschaft Baden,” ed. Welti, E., Argovia 3 (1862–1863): 160–268,Google Scholar e.g., 172, 193, 201, 227–28, etc.

54. For a related discussion of how the abbot of St. Gallen put increasing weight on his role as Lehensherr, denying regular lower courts the right to hear such cases and creating a special court at his residence instead, see Robinson, Fürstabtei St. Gallen, 114–17. Robinson argues that “Dabei handelte es sich allerdings nicht in erster Linie um eine Festigung der ökonomischen Basis der Abtei, die Bedeutung der geschilderten Systematisierung und Zentralisierung des Lehenwesens muss vielmehr auf der herrschaftsymbolischen Ebene gesucht werden.” Feudal ties played a much less prominent role in the Italian-speaking territories, however.

55. Cf.Kalin, Urner Magistratenfamilien, 74, where a chart indicates that tolls provided sixty-seven and seventy-one percent of Uri's income in 1761 and 1793 respectively. For Graubünden, see Head, Early Modern Democracy, 114–17. Extensive financial records documenting the assignment of expenses to the Valtelline survive in ASSondrio D I 3/7.

56. The earliest surviving Jahresrechnung from the Grafschaft Baden dates to 21 (EA II: 7, no. 8, 5 November 1421). The first clue as to the amounts flowing to the individual cantons comes from 1428, when the Lucerne city council records the receipt of £138—an extremely modest yield, but in line with later documents as well. EA II: 70, no. 104 (2 May 1425). Weiss for the Ticino (Die Tessinische Landvogteien, 162–67) reports similarly modest amounts of direct payments; an accounting for the Thurgau for 1617 (see EAV.I.II, p. 1325) suggests total income to the collective lords of 1200 gl., with expenses of 369 gl. For the years 1587–1613, the highest net income per ruling canton was 152 gl., the lowest was zero. These sums do not include any legal or illegal fees charged by the Landvogt and his agents for their own benefit.

57. These revisions documented in the Consigli del Valle of the Valtelline. For example, Berbenno's assessment was adjusted by 14 crowns in 1534; a copy of that decision in Staatsarchiv Graubünden, [henceforth STAGr] AB IV 8a/1, p. 69.

58. Thus, the fiscal administration of the Valtelline was far more coherent and sophisticated than that of Graubünden itself. The Estim and the rates established there provided a comprehensive procedure for assessing public burdens on property, and the account books of Morbegno, which have survived in part, make routine use of the Estim for distributing financial burdens. See ASSondrio D I 3/7, “Aestimum Salar. Decret. et alia pro Squadra Morbenij ac pro Valletellina.”

59. EA II: 61 (86, 25 May 1426). “…das da Jederman, da er denn wunn und weid nüsset, mitsinen nachgeburen stüren, reisen und mit allen andern diensten, klein und groß, gehorsam sin und die tun sol. Were aber, das Jemant in den vogtyen, so also gemeinen Eidgnossen zugehörent, gesessen oder hinnanthin Jemer mer darin zugent, und der ober die eigen Herren, nachjagende Empter oder burger in Stetten weren, den sol alles ir recht zu Ir allen ober Ir allen ober Ir Jeklichem insunder behalten sin nach dem und man Recht zu Im hat und sol doch mit sinem weidgenoß nicht dester minder gebunden noch gehorsam sin, in allen sachen zu dienen, als vorstat.” The remainder of the document provides for legal enforcement of this ordinance by making any subject who refused to comply liable for the legal costs that his neighbors might incur in obtaining the services in question—a powerful threat, since it was his neighbors who used the same “wunn und weid” who would be doing the collecting. See also EA II: 80–81 (no. 119), in which the subjects of the cloister Muri are constrained to pay dues to the Grafschaft like all others (only the abbot's servant and cook are excepted), and the abbot's jurisdiction is limited to the actual ground of the monastery itself. The inspiration for these statutes may relate to the privilege that King Sigismund had given Bern during the initial conquest of the Aargau in 1415, that allowed Bern to create territorial assemblies, to demand military service, and to tax everyone who enjoyed economic rights within the new Bernese territories (regardless of who possessed immediate jurisdiction there). Cf.Bucher, “Die bernischen Landvogteien,” 25.

60. STAGr AB IV 8a/1, pp. 53–195 is a compilation of all the Consigli della Valle, (that is, of the meetings of the general assembly of the Valtelline). The following discussion rests primarily on this source, unless other records are indicated. The originals of many of these records (or drafts that preceded the original), are found not in the ASSondrio but rather in a private archive now deposited in Chur, with the signature STAGr A Sp III 11a/III B1. This is another example illustrating that the administrative structure of the Valtelline was relatively sophisticated, whereas that of Graubünden remained primitive and included almost no systematic efforts to create an archive. Consequently, many important documents ended up in the private archives of families who provided Capitanei and Podestàs for the Valtelline.

61. On the consolidation of the Three Leagues, see Head, Early Modern Democracy, 65–116.

62. On the statuti see Besta, Enrico, “Gli Statuti delle Valli dell'Adda e della Mera,” Archivo Storico della Svizzera Italiana 12, nos. 3–4 (1937): 129–56.Google Scholar Teglio, which was a fief of the archbishop of Milan rather than of the dukes, was exempt from the previous Statuti, and sought (unsuccessfully) to maintain this exemption from the new code of 1548. STAGr AB IV 8a/1, p. 57 (from 1531).

63. STAGr AB IV 8a/1, p. 56. After listening to the Consiglio, “mutatis aliquibus ex e dictis statutis, additisque, & diminutis in multis locis prout sibi consonum & juridicum visum fuit” by the commissioners.

64. STAGr AB IV 8a/1, pp. 79, 81 (property), pp. 97–98 (children, blasphemy).

65. STAGr AB IV 8a/1, pp. 133–57 passim. One hundred printed copies were distributed to parts of the Valtelline; presumably the printer delivered copies to the Three Leagues directly, since none are mentioned in the Valtelline records.

66. EA II: 103 (no. 157, 15 July, 1435). The salary also included wood, straw, hay and all Fastnachtshühner, the chickens that each unfree subject had to give once a year. Further restrictions on the Vogt contained in EA II: 323 (508, 5 July 1462); EA II: 341 (534, 6 October 1464).

67. See Kreis, Die Grafschaft Baden, 11–31.

68. Bächtold discusses various reforms of appointments to office in Schaffhausen, many of which are strikingly similar to the measures described below in the Three Leagues. “Schaffhauser Landvögte,” 81–83.

69. Full text of the reform in Jecklin, Constanz, ed., Urkunden zur Verfassungsgeschichte Graubündens (Chur, 1883), 119–29.Google Scholar The assembly, a so-called Strafgericht, assembled some 650 men from all the communes to deliberate on reforms and to “punish the guilty.” The assembly's hostility to the office-holding patricians led to a large collective fine against all who had acted as officers in the past decade. A contemporary description in Juvalta, Fortunat, Denkwürdigkeiten des Fortunat von Juvalta, ed. and trans. Moor, Conradin von (Chur, 1848), 14–15.Google Scholar

70. Discussion of the “Reformation” of 1603, as well as of the popular reform movement that preceded it, in Head, “Social Order,” chap. 9, esp. 399–408. There, the reforms are considered primarily in terms of their consequences within the Three Leagues. The salaries of officers were tripled, rising to between 600 and 3000 gl. To balance this gain, their share of civil penalties was lowered from twenty per cent to five per cent, and all Conventions-gelt (that is, fees for holding court) was assigned to the ruling communes directly. Cf.Jecklin, Urkunden, 125–26.

71. The shift in officeholding is documented in Färber, Der bündnerische Herrenstand, 131–33, who notes that the patrician families quickly regained their near-monopoly on the offices.

72. While the offices of Landvogt in all the Gemeine Herrschaften rotated among the possessors, many of the lesser offices in the territories did in fact become hereditary, officially or unofficially. The von Beroldingen family of Uri and the Kellers of Lucerne gained permanent ownership of the offices of Landschreiber or Landscriba in the lower Ticino (Weiss, Tessinische Landvogteien, 44), while the Büeler family of Schwyz managed to monopolize the office of Landschreiber in Baden, and the Schnorff family the office of Untervogt, throughout most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See esp. STAAr 2815/1/4, 2815/1/5 for documents relating to these two offices.

73. In Schaffhausen, for example, the Small Council steadily increased its monopoly over the appointment process, despite pressure from the guilds to make the process more open, even by the use of the lot. Bächtold, “Schaffhauser Landvögte,” 77–83. For Zurich's exclusive possessions, the Large Council selected among its own membership in choosing Vögte; a similar process may well have been used for appointments to the Gemeine Herrschaften, but I have not yet researched this question in detail. See Dtitsch, Zürcher Landvögte, 20–26.

74. This issue is discussed in many recent studies, e.g., Stauffacher, Hans Rudolf, Herrschaft und Landsgemeinde: Die Machtelite in Evangelisch-Glarus vor und nach der helvetischen Revolution (Glarus, 1989), 53–155;Google ScholarGrimm, , Die Anfänge; Färber Der bündnerische Herrenstand Lüdi, “Praktizieren und Trölen: Wahlkorruption und Ämterkauf in den Landsgemeinde-Orten der alten Schweiz,” (Unpublished TMs, Bern, 1990);Google Scholar Head, Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons, 115–16 and at greater length in “Social Order,” chap. 7. A comprehensive comparative view is not yet available.

75. E.g., Weiss, Tessinische Landvogteien, 14: “Die Korruption herrschte in den Vogteien, wurzelte aber in den Orten selbst. Was war von den Landvögten zu erwarten, die ihren Oberigkeiten oder Landsleuten exorbitante Summen für ihr Amt bezahlen mußten? Einige Orte bildeten zwar eine rühmliche Ausnahme, nämlich Zürich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, wohl auch Freiburg und Solothurn…” Few of the older authors consider the underlying structures leading to this distinction, or inquire about how the structure of power in these cantons shaped the behavior of their officers in this or other contexts.

76. The editor of the pamphlet surmises confessional issues at work, a view supported by some of the other verses. E. Rochhol, “Pasquillen,” 185–87.

77. The operation of this system for domestic offices is described in Kälin, Urner Magistratenfamilien, 26–59. The pervasiveness of the notion of office as “benefice” is illustrated by the fact that new offices intended to oversee the actions of Landvögte and Podestàs (such as the Syndicatori and Commissari sent to the Ticino and the Valtelline) were rapidly included in the mechanisms by which offices were sold or rotated as Nutzungen, despite efforts to the contrary. Cf. Head, “Social Order,” 241.

78. Swiss attitudes toward public goods, while comparable to the tendency of dynastic rulers to sell offices, rested on different assumptions that were the result of Switzerland's peculiar political evolution. See Head, Early Modern Democracy, 73–89, for an overview of this issue.

79. One way to capture this perspective is to think of much Swiss historiography as proposing a “Sonderweg within the German Sonderweg”—thus accepting both the view that German history revolved around the struggle for a state, as well as the notion that the Swiss case was exceptional because the state so clearly failed to emerge there.

80. This is essentially the perspective found in Peyer, Verfassungsgeschichte, e.g., 84–89. On p. 89 he summarizes: “Die Einheit des Glaubens in seiner nachreformatorischen, intensivierten Form hätte zweifellos die Entwicklung des eidgenössischen Bundesgeflechts zu stärkerer Staatlichkeit im Sinne des sogenannten modernen Staates wesentlich gefördert.” Elsewhere, Peyer points to a slowdown in centralizing tendencies by 1481, well before the Reformation.

81. The work of Edgar Bonjour best represents this tendency, as does that of American political scientist Benjamin Barber. Cf. The Death of Communal Liberty: A History of Freedom in a Swiss Mountain Canton (Princeton, 1974).Google Scholar

82. Schmidt, Heinrich R., for example, critiques tendencies toward “Staatsüberschätzung” in studying religious discipline (Dorf und Religion: Reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinden der Frühen Neuzeit [Stuttgart, 1995], 371)CrossRefGoogle Scholar while Sabean, David describes the intense institutional transformation of Württemberg after 1600 in terms of interlocking and partly compatible motivations at the local and regional level (Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870 [Cambridge, 1990], chaps. 1–2, 38–87).Google Scholar

83. Robisheaux, Rural Society, 9.