Germany in the Later Middle Ages, 1200-1500 - William Stubbs

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...governed their states in common, and, by happy marriages, so greatly increased the bulk of them as to become far the most important house in Germany. The Luxemburg people also had the wisdom to keep their estates together. It should also be mentioned that the house of Hohenzollern, which had begun with the burggraviate of Nuremberg, by strict attachment to Lewis of Bavaria, in whose hereditary estates that imperial city was situated, made a great step towards the acquisition of both territory and dignity, although it was nearly a century still before they were to attain the electorate of Brandenburg. Switzerland.--Another point to be noticed is the attitude of the Swiss. I have already mentioned the original league formed against the Hapsburg supremacy, and the recognition of the freedom of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden by Henry VII. Fortunately for them the interests of Lewis led him to repeat the favour to protect the cantons as imperial dependencies against their common enemies, the dukes of Austria. Encouraged by his approval, if not strengthened with his assistance, the cantons overthrew Duke Leopold at Morgarten in 1315, the result of the victory being the change of a temporary alliance into a perpetual federation. For many years the Austrian dukes had other work than the subjugation of the Swiss: a truce for six years was concluded in 1318; when that expired, they fought for Lewis against Leopold until 1326. In 1332 the three cantons received Lucerne into the federation, to the manifest loss of Austria, which had rights in Lucerne that she had not elsewhere. Later on, in the reign of Lewis, in 1335 and 1338, quite independently of the Forest Cantons, another centre of freedom was created in two other parts of what now is...