The system of alliances among imperial provinces and cities known as the Swiss Confederation, emerged as a distinct political unit within the German Empire. About 1370, the small states of the Confederation, whose territorial expansion had scarcely begun, were no more than isolated dots on the multi-coloured political map of what is now Switzerland. The rise of the Confederation at the fifteenth century was influenced very significantly, though not exclusively, by events in the Austro-Habsburg sphere of influence. The events in the Aargau underline the importance of relations with the Empire for the ambitions of the political elite within the Confederation. The transformation and decline of the political order built up by the Austrian dynasty and nobility were counterbalanced by the decisive progress in the constitution of urban territorial rule. The drive towards political independence and territorial expansion in the cities and rural cantons of the Confederation advanced alongside the beginnings of an institutional inner consolidation of the state.