Gingerbread War
As Gingerbread war be social unrest in December 1515 in the city of Zurich referred, which related to the causes of peasant uprisings and the mercenary services can be viewed in the early 16th century.
Starting position
In the middle of the 15th century, around 25,000 people lived in what is now the Canton of Zurich , and between six and ten thousand in the city of Zurich . There was enough land to supply the population, but climatic fluctuations regularly resulted in bad harvests . The rural population had neither sufficient labor, nor capital or reserves ( stockpiling ) - the natural economy dominated compared to the money economy - or sufficient possibilities to cope with such poor years as a precautionary measure. The crop yields of the peasantry were sufficient for self-sufficiency; the extensive taxes ( tithes ) to the landlords and the authorities in Zurich to supply the city population devoured the remaining income. In the vicinity of the city, the market and the accumulation of capital ensured a certain intensification and specialization in agriculture : around Zurich, viticulture in particular was intensified, and increasingly fruit and vegetable growing; For centuries, viticulture was considered an important source of the city's wealth and, significantly, was already subject to protection against acts of war in the letter of judgment , in advance of the territorial expansion of the city republic, and in the protective alliance after the death of Rudolf von Habsburg with Uri and Schwyz in October 1291. In the last decades of the 15th century a massive population growth set in, so that the rural population should have doubled by the beginning of the 16th century.
Riots in December 1515
Towards the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, territorial expansion and the claim to control over all aspects of the daily life of rural subjects intensified the social and economic conflicts between urban and rural populations. Thus, especially after the Waldmann trade of 1489, there was an increasing number of expressions of discontent among the rural population, also in other regions of Switzerland, such as the Köniz uprising , the Lucerne onion war and the gingerbread war .
Following the battle of Marignano on 13/14 In September 1515, the conflicts with the citizen's patriarchy broke out , and social unrest broke out in the Zurich area. The poor supply situation of the socially and economically disadvantaged majority of the population as a result of the Milan wars may have contributed to this . Another cause was probably the fact that most of the victims of the Swiss great power aspirations in Italy were probably among the rural population , mostly the sons of poor country people, with no chance of making a living in their homeland ( traveling ).
What is certain is that residents of the Zurich countryside angry about the outcome of the Battle of Marignano, including those who had returned from northern Italy, invaded the city in the days leading up to Christmas 1515. Incited they were by rumors that the authorities for money payments ( pensions ) treason committed by military contingents had retired prior to the battle. The angry crowd looted the shops and market stalls "under the Tilinen (arch)" (at today's Hotel Storchen ) opposite the Zurich City Hall , in which, among other things, sweets and gingerbread were sold, and occupied the market square.
The unrest came to some of the Council for the loss in Marignano to only by the exemplary execution scapegoats stamped mercenary leader and concessions Mailänderbrief be suppressed for a few years before because of the increasing mass poverty of the rural population in advance of the Reformation broke out again.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The document of this alliance is the second oldest in German in the State Archives. For a copy of the original text and illustration, see: Zurich Documents, pp. 20f.
- ^ Otto Sigg : Population, Agriculture, Supply and War before and at the time of the Zurich Reformation . In: Zwinglis Zurich 1484–1531 , State Archives of the Canton of Zurich , Zurich 1984.
- ^ Philippe Della Casa, André Holenstein, Thomas Hildbrand, Matthias Weishaupt, Werner Baumann, Peter Moser: Bauern. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ^ Gerhard Müller et al .: Theologische Realenzyklopädie . Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2004. ISBN 3-11-017842-7