Federal pact
The Swiss federal pact or pact of 1291 was selected in 1891 like pact founder of the Suisse. Like this pact goes back to August 1291, the Swiss national Festival was placed it. This pact devotes by no means the independence of the Swiss Confédération, even if the Suisses chose it at the end of the 19th century like founding document of the Confederation. While increasing, this one will continue to form integral part of the Empire, in fact until the Traité of Basle in 1499 and of right until the Traité of Westphalia in 1648.
Contents of the pact
This pact goes back to August 1291. Its exact date is unknown. It is double, legal and defensive. He swears an eternal alliance between his signatories against any attacker. He was concluded by the representatives from the three primitive cantons: Uri, Schwytz, Nidwald. The original version is in Latin.This pact records an agreement which is not the first, since paragraph 3 states clearly that it is about the renewal of a former agreement - the originating pact today is lost - which one does not know large thing, concluded some time before between same the three cantons: “renewing by this treaty the text of the old pact. ”
Historical context
It seems that it is the death of Rodolphe I {{er}} of Habsbourg the July 15th 1291 which was the engine of this pact.Such defensive pacts were not rare at that time. On the current Swiss territory, the oldest case of populations being combined against their prince goes back to 1182 where, at the time of the Patto di Torre , the communities of the Val Blenio and the Léventine, in the current Tessin, are allied to fight against the lords di Torre.
One can also announce other confederations which appeared at the 13th century on the territory of current Switzerland: most known Burgundian Confédération is the , centered on Bern, which will gather a good part of Western in a network of heterogeneous alliances and not-perpetual Switzerland (Freiburg, Soleure, Neuchâtel, the Pays of Vaud, the Valais, etc).
This alliance of the three cantons, controlling the road of the collar of Saint-Gotthard, lately arranged: Uri, Schwytz, which will give its name to the country, and Unterwald will be implemented fifteen years later. These cantons confirmed their desires of freedom at the time of the Bataille of Morgarten, the November 15th 1315, in the south of Zurich, where some: 1500 Swiss mountain dwellers (with troops of the valley of Dompierre-Ducry) pushed back the troops (between: 3000 and: 5000 professional soldiers) of the duke Léopold Ier of Austria, lord of Habsbourg.
It was one of the rare occasions, with the Moyen-âge, where one could see country communities arriving to émanciper of their feudal Suzerain . The victory of Morgarten reinforced the cohesion of the three alpine cantons, which tightened their alliance the December 9th 1315 by the adoption of the Pacte of Brunnen, written this time in German. It rejoined the surrounding cantons and especially the towns to them of Zurich, Basle and Bern.
Contemporary range
Found in 1758, one did not give to this pact a value founder before the end of the 19th century. Johann Heinrich Gleser published its original Latin version in 1760. The pact is preserved at the files of Schwytz.
In a speech made at the time of the Swiss national Festival of 2005, for the 714e birthday of the pact, the Federal adviser Christoph Blocher stressed the importance of this refusal of any foreign domination proclaimed in the pact of 1291:
The essential idea of this historical document relates on the recognition of our own responsibility and to the refusal for any foreign domination. At the time the put question was simple. It was a question of knowing which should decide internal relations of the localities around the Lac of the Four cantons? The answer given to the State of the Habsbourg, apparently organized, harmonized and unified was an end not-to receive clear and nette.