Bad covenant
The evil covenant was concluded on May 2, 1445 during the rural community in Aeschi near Spiez , in the Bernese Oberland . It was the largest peasant revolt of the 15th century in the Bernese Oberland.
The communities involved were Aeschi, Obersimmental , Niedersimmental , Saanen , which is allied with Bern , the city of Unterseen and the Interlaken Monastery . The Böser Bund was called the Böser Bund by the Bernese rule.
The federal government was directed against the war services demanded by Bern with campaigns against Zurich that were sometimes costly and war costs imposed. At that time, Bern was dependent on financial and human resources because of its involvement in the Old Zurich War . The covenant should be valid for 21 years. An annual rural community in Aeschi should serve as an arbitration tribunal and control body between the authorities and the municipalities affiliated to the federal government. The reaction from Bern was not long in coming. On June 17, 1445, it bought the “trouble spot ”, the lordship of Ringgenberg , from the Interlaken monastery for 7,800 Rhenish guilders . Bern decided not to take military action, but instead appealed to the federal arbitration tribunal , consisting of Waldstätten , Zug and Glarus .
At the same time the uprising of the Interlaken monastery took place. As in 1348, the damming of Lake Brienz near Unterseen played a role, with a new Aare threshold from 1434.
In 1446 the Federal Arbitration Court declared the Bad Bund dissolved, but the conflict was not yet resolved. In Hasli , which was not involved in the federal government, in Brienz and in Bödeli , unrest threatened again, which the Bernese mayor Rudolf Hofmeister was able to appease through his presence ( Brienz Conspiracy 1446-1451). The ringleader Hänsli Schumacher from Brienz was sentenced to death in absentia, after his capture in Entlebuch he was taken to Lucerne and executed there at Bern's request.
1451 Bern could with the county Greyerz and since 1403 with Bern verburgrechteten close a comparison Saanen. On January 10, 1457, Bern sold most of the Ringgenberg estate back to the Interlaken monastery for the same amount, with some smaller goods such as the mill in Ringgenberg being retained.
literature
- Peter Bierbrauer: Freedom and community in the Bernese Oberland 1300–1700 . Historischer Verein des Kantons Bern, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-85731-0013-1 , ( Archive of the Historischer Verein des Kantons Bern 74), (At the same time: Saarbrücken, Univ., Diss., 1984).