Confederation (legal term)
The Confederation as an abstract legal concept is the combination of equal comrades by a certain time or for all eternity with God sworn oath as the highest form of commitment of man. In this sense, the Swiss Confederation stands in contrast to feudal rule with its hierarchical, asymmetrical organization.
In the Middle Ages it was above all the cities that, in contradiction to the prevailing feudalism, wrested more and more rights and privileges from the respective sovereigns and city lords and thus increasingly received the possibility of self-administration . They too set themselves apart from classic feudal rule by installing so-called confederates . A confederate in this sense was a jury or city lay judge who could be assigned to the mayor or a city judge. Correspondingly, a journeyman was someone who was under the same oath, especially a fellow judge. The term “confederate” was used with a similar meaning for a journeyman, a sworn friend or one's own wife.
In the course of the 16th century, the word "confederate" was borrowed into French in the form of eiguenot or enguenos , where it became huguenot (cf. Huguenots ) based on the name of the Geneva mayor Besançon Hugues , leader of the Protestants .