SWISS WARS, 1315-1529. When the central organization of the Holy Roman Empire broke down in the thirteenth century, there were certain communities which had not yet slipped into subordination to the feudal states which were to replace the em peror as the practical governing authority in Germany. The origin of Switzerland in its modern sense lies in the fact that the men of Uri and Schwyz obtained in 1231 and 1240 respectively Freiheitsbriefe, or charters of liberty from Frederic II., declaring them to be free from comital authority and direct vassals of the crown. How Unterwalden, the third original member of the Old Swiss union, got its claim to a similar immunity is not clear. But in 1291 these "Three Original Cantons" formed the so-called "Eternal Alliance" which bound them to mutual support, and pledged them to submit to no external authority.
The danger to the primitive Swiss lay in the House of Habs burg; not because two of its members achieved the Imperial crown in the late 13th century, but because its heads (whether crowned or uncrowned) were the holders of the largest feudal accumulation of land in what is now Switzerland. From first to last the Habsburgs were great at land-grabbing: hence it was not strange that the "Three Cantons" supported all claimants to the imperial crown outside the Habsburg family—such as Henry VII. of Luxemburg and Louis of Bavaria.
As nominal partisans of Louis of Bavaria against his rival for the crown, Frederic of Habsburg, the Schwyzers had sacked the abbey of Einsiedeln in 1314, on the pretext that the abbot held to the other allegiance. It was this casual raid which was destined to bring the name of Schwyz into general knowledge for the first time. The counter-emperor Frederic directed his brother Duke Leopold to chastise this nucleus of Bavarian parti sans in a region close to the main Habsburg holding in south Swabia. Hence came the battle of Morgarten (1315). Leopold of Austria with the knighthood of the Hapsburg lands in Swabia, and some town-levies of infantry from Zurich and Zug, started and ranks as a naturalist and scholar rather than as an author.
The realm of imaginative prose is scantily represented by Wil helm Ziely (d. c. 1542), who translated French romances, and Johann Wetzel, who published oriental tales, after an Italian model.
Albrecht von Haller (q.v.), though specially distinguished as a scientific writer, is a notable figure in pure literature, both for his contemporary influence (in Germany as well as in Switzer land) and as one of the first of the early authors who is still read with appreciation. His long poem on the Alps (Die Alpen, 1732) did much to stimulate Swiss patriotism and interest in Swiss scenery ; and his friend Goethe called him "the father of national poetry." His son, Gottlieb Emanuel von Haller 86), produced, in his Bibliothek der Schweizergeschichte, a work that is still indispensable to the historical student. Among Hal ler's followers are the poets J. K. Peyer of Sachshausen (1707 68), Samuel Grimm of Burgdorf (1733-94) and Vinzenz von Tscharner of Berne (1728-78).
A prominent literary figure of Basle in this period was Isaac Iselin (1728-83), the chief begetter of the Helvetic Society (see below), whose treatises on the philosophy of history (Geschichte der Menschheit, 1764) and ideal philosophy (Philosophische and Patriotische Triiume eines Menschenfreundes, 1775) were elo quent expositions of the idealistic and patriotic movement of his day. Otherwise Basle was more prominent as a scientific centre, notably with the eminent mathematicians, Leonard Euler (q.v.) and the Bernoullis (q.v.).