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The Swiss City Canton: A POlitical Invention*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
All major Swiss cities are located north of the Alps. Their development can be understood best as part of the development of the North European cities—those of Germany, Flanders and France—and as part of the communal movement as it developed in those areas. Yet the cities that eventually became Swiss are those that accepted more of the characteristic institutions of Italian city-states than did the rest, and it is this acceptance of certain Italian practices—particularly the creation of a rural territory and thus eventually of a territorial city-state—that made those cities into city Cantons, able to take part in the formation of Switzerland.
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1965
References
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1 Gemperle, op. cit., p. 313. The Flemish developments in the 14th century resembled some of the features of the ruthlessly competitive politics of Northern Italy. The collapse of the autonomy of the Flemish cities and their disastrous defeat at Roosebeke in 1382 have been ascribed to three major factors: the bitter social and industrial conflicts within the cities, the complete passivity of the rural population, and the resentment of the lesser towns at their exploitation by the three dominant cities of Ypres, Ghent and Bruges. Gemperle, op. cit., p. 317.
10 See preceding note.
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