The Battle of Sempach
Sempach, Lucerne, Zurich, Bern
Key figures: Rudolf Brun, Leopold III of Habsburg, Petermann von Gundoldingen, Arnold Winkelried
HLS (German): Federal charters, Sempach War
From three to eight (1332–1353). After Morgarten the alliance of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden attracted neighbouring towns and valleys. In November 1332 Lucerne joined, a town still subject to the Habsburgs. Zurich followed on 1 May 1351: in the night of 23–24 February 1350 its mayor, Rudolf Brun, had foiled an attempt by exiled nobles to retake the city, the so-called “murder night” of Zurich, and he was now looking for allies against Austria. In 1352 Glarus joined, under a protective pact rather than as an equal, and so did Zug; in 1353 Bern allied itself with Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, and through them with Lucerne and Zurich. Until 1481, when Fribourg and Solothurn joined, historians speak of the Confederation of the eight cantons, in German the “acht Orte”.
A network of alliances, not a state. The so-called federal charters were in fact many different treaties: some between equals, others of subjection or protection. Each regulated mutual aid in case of attack, arbitration of disputes and peace within a territory, but every canton remained autonomous, and Zurich and Bern also belonged to other leagues. The first elements of a common law were the Priests’ Charter of 7 October 1370, in which the expression “our Confederation” appears for the first time, and later the Sempach Covenant of 1393.
Conflict with the Habsburgs (1385–1386). Duke Leopold III of Habsburg wanted to link his lands from Tyrol to Alsace; the Confederate towns, above all Bern and Lucerne, extended their influence by admitting people from the surrounding countryside as burghers. At the end of 1385 men from Zurich, Zug and Lucerne attacked Rapperswil, Rothenburg, Wolhusen and other Habsburg strongholds without a declaration of war; in January 1386 Lucerne concluded pacts with the Entlebuch and the small town of Sempach. A truce and peace talks failed, and the duke raised an army of knights from Swabia, Alsace, Aargau, Thurgau and Tyrol, together with mercenaries.
The battle (9 July 1386). Heading for Lucerne, the Habsburg cavalry sacked Willisau and passed through Sursee; above Sempach it unexpectedly met the troops of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, while Bern had not answered the call to arms. Outnumbered and caught in an unfavourable position, the Confederates, led by Petermann von Gundoldingen of Lucerne, destroyed the enemy army. Together with Duke Leopold III, many nobles of the region were killed, from the houses of Aarberg, von Hallwil, von Reinach and others. The exact course of the battle is unknown. As early as 1387 the chapel of St James was consecrated on the battlefield, where the battle is commemorated every year.
The Winkelried legend. The chronicles of the time mention no heroic deed. A decisive act appears only around 1476, still without a name; the man from Nidwalden, Arnold Winkelried, who throws himself onto the enemy pikes to open a gap for his comrades, first appears in a song of 1533, and in the mid-16th century the chronicler Aegidius Tschudi turned him into a historical figure. His existence has never been proven. The legend served to strengthen the cohesion of a fragile Confederation; in the 19th century Winkelried became a national hero, with a memorial stone at Sempach in 1864 and Lukas Ferdinand Schlöth’s monument in Stans in 1865, and in the 20th century a symbol of the Spiritual National Defence.
After Sempach (1386–1394). The defeat weakened the Habsburgs south of the Rhine for a long time. Lucerne turned the conquered lands into its own territory, Bern expanded towards Aargau and the Oberland, and Glarus freed itself from Austrian rule with the victory of Näfels on 9 April 1388. On 10 July 1393 the Sempach Covenant banned violence between Confederates, protected merchants and laid down that plunder was allowed only after victory, sparing churches, convents and women: rules that reveal the brutality of warfare at the time. In 1394 the eight cantons and Solothurn concluded a twenty-year peace with Austria.
Ferdinand Fellner, Arnold von Winkelried nella battaglia di Sempach
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The swearing of the alliance between Lucerne and the three Forest Cantons on the Weinmarkt square in Lucerne, in the chronicle of Diebold Schilling, 1513
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Map of the territorial development of the Confederation from 1291 to 1797: in purple, the cantons’ territories up to 1385
Marco Zanoli, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Battle of Näfels on 9 April 1388, by which Glarus freed itself from the Habsburgs, in the Spiezer Chronik of Diebold Schilling, 1484
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Lukas Ferdinand Schlöth’s Winkelried monument in Stans, unveiled in 1865, in a photochrom of 1890–1905
Photochrom Print Collection, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The “murder night” of Zurich in 1350, when exiled nobles tried to retake the city, in the Bernese chronicle of Benedikt Tschachtlan, 1470
Zentralbibliothek Zürich, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Battle of Sempach in the Lucerne Chronicle of Diebold Schilling, 1513
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Robert Zünd, Schlachtkapelle von Sempach, 1866: the countryside near Sempach with the battle chapel in the background
Kunsthaus Zürich, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain