Opening contract
Opening contract , a contract is called the on May 2, 1505 between the Baron Ludwig von Brandis and the German King Maximilian I has been completed. The treaty regulated the defense of what is now the Principality of Liechtenstein . The Habsburgs took over the defense of the County of Vaduz and the rule of Schellenberg in the Upper Rhine Valley. The treaty was a result of the Swabian or Swiss War in 1499, where large parts of the dominions of Vaduz, Schellenberg and Maienfeld were devastated by federal and Graubünden troops. The Vaduz fortress was burned down during the war. Ludwig von Brandis fell into federal captivity and was only released after the war based on a resolution of the daily statute. Ludwig's brother Sigmund also tried to conclude an opening and inheritance treaty with Habsburg. Sigmund was the ruler of Maienfeld, an area that the Barons of Brandis had acquired in 1438. But the conclusion of this contract failed due to the resistance of the Graubünden, since Maienfeld had been a member of the Ten Court Association since 1436 , one of the three leagues. After the failure of this protection agreement, the Messrs. Brandis sold Maienfeld to the people of Graubünden. Habsburg feared another war with them, and the Lords of Brandis needed money.
The treaty regulated the reconstruction of the Vaduz fortress and the provision of troops for the defense of the territories of the Barons von Brandis in the Upper Rhine Valley by Habsburg. The Lords of Brandis undertook to pay the Habsburgs 200 guilders a year. In 1510, the last representative of the Lords of Brandis, Johannes von Brandis , Vaduz, Schellenberg and Blumenegg, originally from Bern, sold to the Counts of Sulz . They took over the contract and continued to pay 200 guilders a year to the Habsburgs. In 1613 the Counts of Sulz had to sell the areas to the Counts of Hohenems due to financial difficulties . The Hohenems people planned to set up their own buffer state between Austria and Switzerland along the Rhine and stopped making payments in 1616.
The treaty stopped the federal expansion to the east. The Swiss-Liechtenstein border as we know it today was created through the treaty. After the Swabian War, the Confederates behaved neutrally. Instead, you and the Grisons expanded south and west.