Here then we have a respectable historian, the author of a learned work on the antiquities of Switzerland, confessing himself obliged to admit an error because it is popular! Perhaps also, in his own interest, it was safer to do so, for a few years later (in 1760) Uriel Freudenberger created a terrible disturbance in Bern by publishing a small volume in Latin entitled William Tell, a Danish Fable, which was by many attributed to Emmanuel Haller. The canton of Uri condemned the author to be burned with his book, and on the 14th of June in the same year it addressed a very urgent letter to the other cantons, advising them to pass a like sentence.
The work of Freudenberger having been burnt, the copies became extremely scarce, but it was reprinted in Breyer’s Historical Magazine, Vol. I. p. 325. The same text was also reproduced—but only in order to be partially refuted—in the work of Hisely, published at Delft in 1826 under the title: “Of William Tell and the Swiss Revolution of 1307; or the history of the early cantons up to the treaty of Brunnen in 1315.”
In the latter half of the 17th century, a writer as eminent as Guilliman, J. H. Rahn, after recording in his chronicle the history of Tell according to the tradition, explains his reasons for regarding it as fabulous, or at least as open to suspicion.
Later still, another writer, Isaac Christ. Iselin, in his large historical dictionary (Historisches und geographisches allgemeines Lexicon, Basel 1727, in folio) says, that although several authors cite this story, it is nevertheless open to doubt, because 1) the ancient annalists are silent on the subject, and 2) because Olaus Magnus has related the same adventure of a certain Toko, in the reign of Harold king of Denmark. There is so great a similarity between the two stories that it is impossible to avoid supposing that one has been copied from the other.
Two important publications express themselves in a still more positive manner. In the chronicle of Melchior Russ, edited by Schneller of Lucerne, the editor, in learned notes, conveys serious doubts upon the story and even upon the very existence of William Tell. These doubts acquire a fresh importance from the collection of documents published in 1835 by Kopp, a man of letters, who shows how slight is the foundation for the tradition which makes Tell the avenger of oppressed liberty. It will be seen that the Swiss writers of the 15th and 16th centuries, far from being agreed as to the time at which Tell is said to have signalised himself by an act of heroism, refer this event, on the contrary, to different periods, and separate the two extremes of the dates by a space of forty years. Kopp renders the story of the apple still more doubtful, by the positive assurance that the administration of Küssenach was never in the hands of a Gessler. This assertion is founded on the charters, which denote the uninterrupted succession of the administrators of Küssenach during the century in which the incident in question is said to have taken place. The notes of M. Kopp contain precise indications which shake the basis upon which rests the history of William Tell, and threaten to overthrow it.
Thus, in resuming, we see that the most ancient work which makes any mention of the adventures of William Tell is the chronicle of Melchior Russ junior, written at the end of the 15th century. Hence it follows that this story was not known until two centuries after the event (1296 to 1482), and that the chronicles of the middle ages, so eager after extraordinary facts and interesting news, were entirely ignorant of it. Indeed, Hammerlin and Faber, writers of the 15th century, and Mutius a chronicler at the beginning of the 16th century, narrate in detail the tyrannical conduct of Austria, which they consider as the principal cause of the insurrection of the Swiss people; but not one of them speaks of a Tell or of a William, neither of the story of the apple, nor of the tragical end of Gessler. Moreover, we possess the work of a contemporary of William Tell, Jean de Winterthür, whose chronicle is one of the best of the 14th century. He recounts the details of the war which the herdsmen of the Alps waged against Austria. He describes with remarkable precision the battle of Morgarten, the particulars of which he had gathered from the lips of his father, an eye-witness of it. He says, that on the evening of that day so fatal to Austria, he saw the Duke Leopold arrive in flight, pallid and half-dead with fright. Jean de Winterthür also tells us that the heroes of Morgarten instituted, on the very day of their victory, a solemn festival to perpetuate the remembrance of it. But this chronicler, who knew so much, and who was so fond of relating even fabulous histories, has made no mention whatever of the deeds of William Tell! How is it possible to conceive that the above-named authors could unanimously pass over in silence the historical fact attributed to William Tell, a fact accompanied by circumstances so remarkable that they must have made a strong impression on every mind? The love of the marvellous is a characteristic trait of the middle-ages, and yet the poetical story of William Tell has left no vestige in the annals of his cotemporaries! It does not appear in the chronicle of Zürich of 1479, where even the name of William Tell is not cited. What must be inferred from this silence?
If we proceed to examine the circumstances as they are related by those who have written of William Tell, we shall find the authors at variance in their details; contradicting themselves in their chronology and in the names of the places where they assert the facts to have occurred.
In 1836 the professors of philosophy at the university of Heidelberg proposed the following subject for literary composition: “To examine with greater care than Messieurs Kopp and Ideler have done, into the origin of the Swiss confederation and into the details given respecting Gessler and Tell, and to estimate the sources whence these details have come down to us.” The university received in answer to this proposition a memoir which obtained a prize, and which was published by the author, Ludwig Häusser, in 1840.
Of all the works that have appeared on this subject this is the most complete and the most valuable. To a great acquaintance with the historical literature of Switzerland, M. Häusser unites that spirit of criticism without which it is impossible to distinguish truth from fiction. The following are the conclusions arrived at by M. Häusser from his researches. 1) There is nothing to justify the historical importance that is commonly attached to William Tell. He has no right to the title of deliverer of Switzerland, seeing that he took no active part in the freedom of the Waldstätter. 2) The existence of a Swiss named William Tell is without doubt. It is probable that this man made himself remarkable by some bold exploit, but one not in any way connected with the history of the confederation. 3) As for the tradition as it is preserved in ballads and chronicles, it is only supported by such evidence as is unworthy of credit. It is easy to demonstrate that the particulars related in this tradition are not authentic, and that they are pure inventions of the imagination. In short, the story of the apple shot from the head of the child is of Scandinavian origin.
Monsieur J. Hisely has summed up the whole discussion on the subject of William Tell in his Recherches Critiques, published at Lausanne in 1843.