In the year 1375, Wischard of Tawell was bishop of Sion, and had governed the republic of the Upper Valais, under circumstances of difficulty, during thirty-three years. This prelate had so well merited the affection of the people, and the confidence of the neighbouring districts, that he was named the Count of Savoy’s lieutenant-general in the Lower Valais. He had attained extreme old age, when one day while celebrating mass in his castle of Seyon, arrived with his suite his nephew Baron Anthony of Thurn Gestelenbourg,—whom his high alliance and extensive domains rendered one of the most important of the nobles. He had some difference with his uncle respecting the hereditary fief of the mayoralty of Sion, purchased by the bishop, and to whose rights and revenues he put forth claims which the old man would not acknowledge. The dispute grew warm and loud: whether the baron of Thurn was, in his own person, guilty of what followed, is a fact disputed. Those who excuse him assert that his furious vassals, uninstigated by his example, laid violent hands upon the bishop: even while he held his breviary, despite his feeble resistance and prayers for mercy, he was thrust forth to the abyss from a window of his rock-founded castle. His subjects, who loved, rose to avenge him at the news of his murder.
Peter, baron of Raron, his brother and other nobles, either did not partake in the general opinion of Anthony’s guilt, or allowed party spirit to deafen them to the claims of country and the cry of nature. Brieg, Leuk, Sierre and Sion vowed to avenge their lost lord; and, first taking several castles, met the assembled nobles near the bridge of St. Leonard, and gained a signal victory. The baron of Thurn vainly sold to Savoy his domain of Gestelenbourg. The Valaisans became its masters. The baron of Brandis, a powerful noble of the Simmenthal, through his mother, who was a Weissembourg, marched his vassals to aid Anthony. His ill-placed friendship cost him his life, and his dispersed troops sped homeward by the mountain passes. It was then that the village of An der Leuk, in the upper Simmenthal, left without defence, as its men had marched to battle, was entered by a detachment of the Valaisans, who threatened pillage. The mountain women, bred to hardships and danger, having their children and their children’s property to guard, seized on what arms had been left behind, and with the energy of roused lionesses rushed forth and drove back the enemy.
Anthony of Thurn, forced to quit the country, lived the remainder of his days at the court of Savoy. About the year 1416, the Valaisans complained that no account had been rendered of his male fiefs, (he died without heirs in 1404), and expressed fears that these also would fall into the hands of the all-grasping Rarons. These barons of Raron, as the nobles of most ancient date and largest possessions, were the sole persons whose power counterbalanced that of the bishops of Sion, till the heir of the house was named to the bishopric at the time his father held a post of importance, and the opposition ceased to exist as soon as its cessation placed the whole authority in the hands of son and father.
The jealousy thus excited was increased by Raron’s character and the personal dislike it roused. By no means a hard or bad man, his chief offence towards his country seems to have been his contempt for their coarse habits and lack of culture, and a predilection for the house of Savoy. What these habits were may be inferred from a list of laws passed by the nobles, magistrates, and citizens in council, when his power was at its zenith. They commanded “that men should be stationed to enforce the cleansing of the sewers, to prevent their overflow; that no foul linen should thenceforth be washed in water destined for the town’s consumption, nor manure allowed to accumulate before the habitations, and that the high street should be swept at least once a week.”
The dislike to Raron increased from a report which spread, that, after the invasion and conquest of the valley of Ossola by the Swiss troops, the baron had been heard to say, that “had he been opposed to them there, not one would have returned.”
Offended by this speech, they dispatched to Berne, of which city he was burgess, the landamman of Unterwald, to demand full satisfaction for words which, as they affected their honour, could not be passed by unnoticed. Berne replied, that since she had vainly demanded the baron of Baron’s aid in an expedition to Oltingen, she had abandoned him to his own guidance.
The resentment of the Valais gave henceforth its own colouring to every action of the Raron family, and in particular to its alliance with Savoy. On a day when the inhabitants of Brieg had assembled, to give loose to their ever-increasing discontent, a few Savoyard soldiers arrived in the village from the Simplon pass. They seized their arms, maltreated and drove them forth, exclaiming that their presence would be no longer borne with in the Valais.
The authors of this outrage, for their own protection, raised the country by means of an expedient derived perhaps from some gone-by custom. Assembling friends and comrades, they bare at evening a large log to a place where grew a young birch tree which they rooted up. They carved the stump into the rude semblance of a human figure, and placed it in the centre of the branches, entangling them with thorns and brambles, to represent suffering justice encompassed by the trammels of tyranny; and in proof of their determination to free her, each drove a nail deep into the stem of the birch tree. They bound the figure, thus encircled, to a tree on the high road (it was called La Mazza), and lingered near the spot to mark what might follow. Those who came that way at dawn stopped also, and there soon gathered a multitude, as yet in expectant silence and passive. At last one advanced and unbound the “Mazza,” and placed himself at its side in the centre of the crowd. Several voices next apostrophized her, demanding what injuries brought her thither, and treating her silence as the effect of fear caused by an unjust power.
“If,” they said, “there be in this assembly one man who loves his country sufficiently to be the Mazza’s questioner, let him advance!”
An instigator of the scene stepped forth:—