Erasmian humanism paved the way for the spread of the Protestant Reformation in the Swiss Confederation. Basel’s printing houses played a major role in the diffusion of Luther’s ideas, which were then further disseminated by preachers in other cities. Supported by Zurich’s ruling council, Huldrych Zwingli played a key role in spreading the Evangelical movement in Switzerland. Anabaptism also attracted many adherents, but persecution effectively marginalised the movement and limited it to rural areas. Central Switzerland remained staunchly Catholic, and a brief war broke out between Catholic and Protestant Confederates in 1531. The resulting Peace of Kappel rolled back the progress of reform and created a bi-confessional structure within the Confederation. The Catholic cantons formed a majority but they were countered by the powerful Reformed cities of Zurich, Basel, Bern and Schaffhausen. Through the second half of the century these cities allied with Geneva and developed a strong Swiss Reformed identity in response to both German Lutherans and the Tridentine Catholicism that spread from Italy. Confessional tensions were particularly marked in areas jointly governed by Protestant and Catholic members of the Confederation, but competing religious loyalties were never strong enough to overcome their shared political identity as Swiss.

Both local agency and French intervention created the Helvetic Republic. The events of 1789 in France affected the debate elsewhere in Europe, and the presence of French troops in the Pays de Vaud had a coercive effect, but fundamental political changes were also made according to traditional cantonal norms and responded to ongoing Swiss debates and repertoires of action. Local Swiss patriotic elites’ shaping of a hybrid or blended republicanism adds to the wider discussion on the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Political actors in the old Swiss Confederation had debated concepts of (Swiss) freedom, individual and collective liberty and liberties since the late seventeenth century. Many who were excluded from the Old Regime hoped to be welcomed with an expansion of a conception of liberty. When this entry was rejected, these spurned local elites often sought to overturn the Old Regime in the Swiss Confederation and elsewhere.

The chapter concentrates on two late medieval archives. The first preserves “act-books” or logs of daily court activity and annual fiscal information from the archdeaconry of Xanten on the Lower Rhine. The second keeps registers of sentences and the dossiers of complete suits or “cause papers” assembled by the bishop’s tribunal of Basel in Switzerland. Their examination establishes what Christians from both regions expected canonical adjudication to deliver in disputes over the validity of marriages. The ordinary judges of Basel and Xanten were heavily involved in inquests that did not exceed preliminaries from a legal standpoint. Decisions emanating from their activities found with greatest frequency that a supposed spousal union failed to rise to the level of lawful proof. Many of the defeated plaintiffs at Xanten were ready to take advantage of the outcome by bringing another suit in the same venue. Women who lost their claim to a spouse often returned to sue the winner for alimony, bridal money, or to compensate for the loss of their virginity.

This chapter sets forth conciliarist ideas in the church and those of its papalist opponents, from the time of the Council of Constance to that of the Council of Basel. Its focus is on three writers: Jean Gerson, Panormitanus and Nicholas of Cusa. The work of Jean Gerson summed up the early stage of conciliarism up to Constance. Panormitanus, the leading canonist of his day, and Nicholas of Cusa, theologian and polymath, exemplified the fluidity of approaches in the fifteenth century because they both exhibited changes of mind as regards conciliarism and papalism

Perhaps no other twentieth-century composer can match Igor Stravinsky in the sheer complexity of the legal and material sides of his oeuvre and posthumous estate. Given the political turmoil in the first half of the century and the chequered histories of his publishers, even the safeguarding of his author’s rights was a nerve-racking affair. Then came the gifts, loans and sales of his manuscripts, his multiple emigrations and his tortuous family situation. All these factors, taken together, make a complete overview of the sources and far-flung documents wholly impossible, though in some cases they provide material for exciting stories.

Sets out what central banks can and must contribute to the sustainability agenda, especially on climate change, given their existing mandates and objectives. That includes monetary policy, financial stability, prudential regulation, balance sheet-management and even bank notes. Central banks do not need and should not wait for changes to their legal duties, because climate change is a material influence on all their existing responsibilities. Meanwhile, macroeconomic stability is a pre-requisite for the wider sustainability agenda and so there needs to be a continuing priority focus on monetary and financial stability.