These city foundations form a chief corner-stone in the fabric of Swiss liberties. Attaining political independence, the towns held their own against aggressors. To effect their deliverance from oppression, they united with kindred communities or with powerful princes, and thus began the system of offensive and defensive alliances.
A new enemy arose in the West, and Berchtold V. was defeated by Count Thomas of Savoy (1211), who encroached on Vaud, and seized Moudon. Yet the Zaeringer steadily and successfully strengthened their hold over the country, and obtained the most complete independence. And, indeed, the moment seemed drawing near when Switzerland was to be shaped into a durable monarchical state. However, she was spared that fate—from which no patriotic act of any national hero could probably have rescued her—by a natural, yet providential, event, the extinction of the ducal family. For in 1218 Berchtold V. died, leaving no issue.
This century is eminently an age of religious movements. And, although our space will not permit us to enter into full details, yet it is impossible to pass over the great religious revival which centred in the Crusades, that is, so far as that movement touches Switzerland.
On the 10th of December, in the year 1146, a most touching scene might have been witnessed in the minster of Schaffhausen. The Alamannic people were thronging the church to listen to a glowing sermon from a French Cistercian monk, Bernard de Clairvaux. Vividly depicting the distress of the Christians in Palestine, he invited his hearers to join the second crusade. France was ready, he said, but the House of Hohenstaufen was still wavering. His captivating manner, his noble earnestness, and the elegance and flow of his language—though it was but half understood by the masses—stirred the audience to bursts of enthusiasm. "Your land is fertile," were the concluding words of the monk, "and the world is filled with the reputation of your valour. Ye soldiers of Christ, arise! and hurl down the enemies of the Cross!" Laying his hands on the blind and lame, says the half-legendary story, he restored to them eyesight or the use of limbs, and, strewing crosses amongst the crowds, left the church. The people, in a state of ecstatic fervour, beat their breasts, and, shedding tears, broke into a shout of "Kyrie eleison, the saints are with us!"[22] On the 15th of the same month Bernard preached at Zurich, and on Christmas Day at Speyer, before Conrad III., whom he won for the crusade. His fervent exhortations seem to have found willing ears, too, in the country. Schaffhausen and Einsiedeln took an active share in the work. We hear of almost countless numbers of spiritual and secular princes, nobles, knights, and lesser people who joined in the crusade. The counts of Montfort, Kyburg, Habsburg, Zaeringen, and Neuchâtel, and bishops and abbots started for the East. Contemporary writers bewail the loss of so many of the best and bravest of South Germany who died in Palestine. The holy orders of the Knights of St. John, of the Teutonic order, and the Knights-Templars raised their aristocratic institutions in this country; new orders of monastic foundations sprang up, which we cannot here dwell upon. Amongst these new orders were that of Mendicant Friars, though it is worthy of note that these played no such part in Switzerland as they did in England.
Yet the Burgundian or western portion of the country plunged more deeply into the movement than did the eastern part. German enthusiasm was but slowly won by French religious ecstasy, which had to a great extent started the Crusades. Still the age was filled with religious and romantic frenzy. Not the mere practical aims of conquest or gain it was that stirred men's minds, but the mystical elements of the movement, and the grand, novel, and indeed fabulous sights that were to be witnessed; and the old love of wandering and adventure revived, and drove men to the East. By a happy coincidence the effect of Bernard's sermons was lessened to some extent in this country by the previous teachings of another enthusiast of a far different stamp. The intrepid Italian reformer, Arnold of Brescia, had for some time preached at Zurich and Constance, sowing the seeds of heresy. Boldly attacking the abuses of the Church, and advocating the return to the simplicity of the apostolic teaching, he invited people to no longer lavish wealth on Church institutions. Arnold fell a victim to his advanced religious and political views, but his teachings took hold of the people of the Alpine districts. To his influence may safely be attributed the staunch resistance to Papal aggressiveness shown in the thirteenth century by the people of Zurich and of the Forest Cantons.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] See Nibelungen.
[22] Prof. Bächtold, "Sermon Literature in Switzerland."
