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This article is part of the History of Switzerland series and covers the history on the territory of modern-day Switzerland from the earliest settlements up to the beginning of the Habsburg rule, which in 1291 gave rise to the independence movement in the central cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden.
Prehistory
Archeological evidence (e.g. from the Wildkirchli cave in Appenzell) suggests that hunter-gatherers settled in the lowlands north of the Alps already in the late Paleolithic. In the Neolithic period, the area was relatively densely populated, as is attested to by the many archeological findings from that period. Remains of pile dwellings have been found in the shallow areas of many lakes.
Around 1500 BC, celtic tribes settled in the area. The Raetians lived in the eastern regions, while the west was occupied by the Helvetii.
Roman era
In 58 BC, the Helvetii tried to evade migratory pressure from Germanic tribes by moving into Gaul, but were stopped and defeated at Bibracte (near modern-day Autun) by Julius Caesar's armies and then sent back. In 15 BC, Tiberius and Drusus conquered the Alps, and the region became integrated into the Roman empire: the Helvetii settlement area became part first of Gallia Belgica and later of the province of Germania Superior, while the eastern part was integrated into the Roman province of Raetia.
The following three hundred years saw extensive Roman settlement, including the construction of a road network and the founding of many settlements and cities. The center of Roman occupation was at Aventicum (Avenches), other cities were founded at Arbor Felix (Arbon), Augusta Raurica (near Basel),Basilea (Basel), Curia (Chur), Genava (Geneve), Lousanna (Lausanne), Octodurum (Martigny, controlling the pass of the Great St. Bernard), Salodurum (Solothurn), Turicum (Zurich) and other places. Military garrisons existed at Tenedo (Zurzach) and Vindonissa (Windisch).
The Romans also developed the Great St. Bernard Pass beginning in the year 47, and in 69 part of the legions of Vitellius used it to traverse the Alps. (It is doubtful whether Hannibal, in the Second Punic War some 300 years earlier, had crossed the alps over the Great St. Bernhard. Historians believe today that he had traveled over a lower and more southerly pass in the Alps between Lake Geneva and the Mediterranean Sea.)
In 259, Alamanni tribes overran the Limes and caused widespread devastation of Roman cities and settlements. The Roman empire managed to reestablish the Rhine as the border, and the cities on Swiss territory were rebuilt. However, it was now a frontier province, and consequently the new Roman cities were smaller and much more fortified.
Christianization and Post-roman era
Also in the late Roman period in the 3rd and 4th century, the christianization of the region began. Legends of Christian martyrs such as Felix and Regula in Zurich probably are based on events that occurred during the persecution of Christians under emperor Diocletian around 298.
The first bishoprics were founded in the 4th and 5th century in Basel (documented in 346), Martigny (doc. 381, moved to Sion in 585), Geneva (doc. 441), and Chur (doc. 451). There is evidence from the 6th century for a bishopric in Lausanne, which maybe had been moved from Avenches.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, germanic tribes moved in. Burgundians settled in the Jura, the Rhone valley and the Alps south of Lake Geneva; while in the north, Alamanni settlers slowly made the earlier celto-roman population retreat into the mountains. Burgundy became a part of the kingdom of the Franks in 534; two years later, the dukedom of the Alamans followed suit.
The Burgundy kings furthered the Christianization through newly founded monasteries, e.g. at Romanmôtier or St. Maurice in the Valais in 515. In the Alaman part, only isolated Christian communities continued to exist; the germanic faith including the worship of Wotan was prevalent. The irish monks Columbanus and Gallus re-introduced Christian faith in the early 7th century. The bishopric of Constance also was founded at that time.
Middle ages
Under the Carolingian kings, the feudal system proliferated, and monasteries and bishopries were important bases for maintaining the rule. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 assigned the western part of what is today Switzerland to Lotharingia, the eastern part to the eastern kingdom of Louis the German that would become the Holy Roman Empire. He assigned in 853 an already existing small monastery in Zurich as the Fraumünster to his daughter Hildegard.
In the 10th century, the rule of the Carolingians waned: Magyars destroyed Basel in 917 and St. Gallen in 926, and Saracenes ravaged the Valais after 920 and sacked the monastery of St. Maurice in 939. Only after the victory of king Otto I over the Magyars in 955 in the Battle of Lechfeld, the Swiss territories were reintegrated into the empire.
King Rudolph III of Upper Burgundy (r. 993 - 1032) gave the Valais as his fiefdom to the Bishop of Sion in 999, and when Burgundy and thus also the Valais became part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1032, the bishop was also appointed count of the Valais, but was dominated by the 12th century by the Duchy of Savoy.
Also in the 12th century, the dukes of Zähringen were given authority over part of the Burgundy territories, covering the western part of modern Switzerland. They founded many cities, the most important being Freiburg in 1120, Fribourg in 1157, and Berne in 1191. The Zähringer dynasty ended with the death of Berchtold V in 1218, and their cities subsequently thus became reichsfrei, while the dukes of Kyburg competed with the house of Habsburg over control of the rural regions of the former Zähringer territory.
Under the Hohenstaufen rule, the alpine passes in Raetia and the St. Gotthard pass gained importance. Especially the latter became an important direct route through the mountains. The construction of the "devil's bridge" (Teufelsbrücke) across the Schöllenenschlucht in 1198 led to a marked increase in traffic on the mule treck over the pass. Frederick II accorded the Reichsfreiheit to Schwyz in 1240 in the Freibrief von Faenza in an attempt to place the important pass under his direct control, and his son and for some time co-regent Henry VII had already given the same privileges to the valley of Uri in 1231 (the Freibrief von Hagenau). Unterwalden was de facto reichsfrei, since most of its territory belonged to monasteries, which had become reichsfrei even earlier in 1173 under Frederick I "Barbarossa" and in 1213 under Frederick II.
The city of Zurich also achieved Reichsfreiheit in 1218.
The rise of the Habsburg dynasty gained momentum when their main local competitor, the Kyburg dynasty, died out and they could thus bring much of the territory south of the Rhine under their control. Subsequently, they managed within only a few generations to extend their influence through Swabia in south-eastern Germany to Austria. Rudolph I of Habsburg, who became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1273, instituted a strict rule in his homelands and effectively revoked the status of Reichsfreiheit granted to the "Forest Communities" (Waldstätten, i.e. Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden), which thus lost their independent status and now were governed by reeves.
In the Valais, increasing tensions between the bishops of Sion and the Counts of Savoy led to a war beginning in 1260. The war ended after the Battle at the Scheuchzermatte near Leuk in 1296, where the Savoy forces were crushed by the bishop's army, supported by forces from Berne. After the peace of 1301, Savoy kept only the lower part of the Valais, while the bishop controlled the upper Valais.
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Literature
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