BAILLIAGE, a French term equiva lent with bailiwick, a district or portion of territory under the jurisdiction of an officer called a bailiff. This term was more especially appropriated to certain sub-governments of Switzerland, which at the time Coxe wrote his travels were of two sorts: the one consisting of certain districts into which all the aristocratical cantons were divided, and over which a particular officer called a bailiff was ap pointed by the government, to which he was accountable for his administration ; the other composed of territories whioh did not belong to the cantons, but were subject to two or more of them, who by turns appointed a bailiff. The officer of this last sort of bailliage, when not re strained by the peculiar privileges of certain districts, had the care of the police, and under certain limitations the jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes. He also enjoyed a stated revenue, arising in different places from various duties and taxes. In case of exaction or mal administration an appeal lay to the can tons to which the particular bailliage belonged. (Coxe's Tray. in Switz. 4to. Lond. 1774, vol. i. p. 30.) These latter bailliages anciently formed part of the Milanese. Their names were—Mendrisio, Balerna, Locarno, Lugano, and Val Maggia. Uri, Schweitz, and Underwalden the three bailliages, Bellinzona, Val-Brenna, all which had also been dismembered from the Milanese.
The chief of these bailliages were ceded to the cantons, in 1512, by Maximilian Sforza, who was raised to the ducal throne by the Swiss, after they had expelled the troops of Louis XII. and taken possession of the duchy. Francis I., successor of Louis, having recovered the Milanese, and secured his conquest by the victory of Marignano, purchased the friendship of the cantons by confirming their right to the ceded territory ; a right which the subsequent dukes of Milan were too pru dent to dispute. They were finally con firmed by the house of Austria. (Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 170, 418.) In 1727 the Italian bailiwicks were surrendered, with the cantons of Switzerland, to the French. (Planta's Hist. of the Helvet. Confederacy, 8vo. edit. vol lit. p. 300.) In 1802, when Bonaparte, as First CODn sul of France, remodelled the constitution of Switzerland, and increased the ancient number of its cantons to eighteen, that of Tessin was formed out of the Italian bailiwicks; an arrangement which was afterwards confirmed by the treaty o Paris, 30th of May, 1814, and recognised in the Helvetic Diet of 19th of March, 1815. (See the Moniteur for the 20th of February, 1803, and 22nd of May, 1815.)