René Roca has a PhD in history and is a secondary school teacher and Director of the Research Institute for Direct Democracy fidd.ch.
What happened in the Free State of the Three Leagues, in other words what is now Graubünden, plus the Italian valley communities of Valtellina, Chiavenna and Bormio from the late Middle Ages, was unique in the Alpine region: the emergence of a complex, democratic structure. All important political decisions were ratified by the will of the people in the communes. The Free State was therefore an exception in Europe at the time and – like other cantons too – played an important part in the democratisation and development of direct democracy in Switzerland.Historical map of the Free State of the Three Leagues.Wikimedia / Marco Zanoli
Pre-modern democracy in Graubünden
The mountainous and upland landscape of the Free State was broken up by some 150 valleys, dividing the settlement areas into valley communities. This allowed regional traditions to develop from the Early Middle Ages, but medieval society was also shaped by outside influences. Because of the natural environment, the Free State was divided into quite small and localised areas, which meant that inhabitants had to solve problems autonomously in alliances with small village communities and communes. The cooperatives were therefore of paramount importance, from the valley floors to the mountain pastures.
Common property (or Allmend) was ubiquitous and ensured that mountains, forests, waterways and meadows remained the property of the communes. Village mayors usually supervised the maintenance of this common property, relying on a set of village by-laws, which could be individually defined by each neighbourhood or commune. Parishes were also established on this cooperative basis, which is why from the 14th century we can talk of an evolution from church subjects to parishioners. This tendency to develop autonomous parishes soon led to a curbing of the bishop’s powers. Over time, the parishes, which were organised by neighbourhood, gained more of a say and were involved in the election of priests.The topography influenced life in the Free State and problems could only be solved by working together. Picture of Clemja bridge near Vulpers, 19th century.Swiss National MuseumIn general, it is clear that territorialisation in the Late Middle Ages was determined by communal movements, which in turn laid the foundation for political communes and subsequent democratisation. Against this backdrop, a key sociopolitical structural change took place in the 13th and 14th centuries: as the communes succeeded in securing more and more manorial rights, feudal rule over land and people diminished, and aristocratic territorial rulers increasingly had to cede power.
Noble territorial rule was quickly replaced by new social and political ruling classes, and the grouping of autonomous judicial communities led to the creation of early political entities. Over time, the communes and judicial communities formed a system of alliances that was characterised by strong decentralisation. In the 14th and 15th centuries, three Leagues thus emerged, which were based on shared values such as independence and democratic structures, and which were not genealogically defined. In many cases, the local nobility was not completely driven out, joining forces instead with the free peasants and citizens to form alliances.Noblemen like Ulysses von Salis soon became part of the League.Swiss National Museum
League of God’s House, Grey League, League of the Ten Jurisdictions
This is how the Free State of the Three Leagues came into being on the territory that is now Graubünden. The League of God’s House was founded in 1367 to resist the rising power of the sitting bishop and to stave off impending threats, such as the selling-off of basic rights to Austria. The cathedral chapter, valley communities, citizens of Chur and ministeriales therefore formed a sort of alliance of necessity and gained significant influence over the administration of the bishopric of Chur.
The League explicitly entailed the right for valley communities to have a say. These valley communities then emerged as ever clearer bearers of political power, increasingly undermining the power of the bishopric. The Upper or Grey League, formed in 1395 and re-organised in 1424, saw the abbot of Disentis, the baron of Rhäzüns and count of Sax-Misox join forces with the valley communes to safeguard peace, transport routes and therefore economic prosperity. The communes of the Grey League thus gained a significant say in decision-making over the three aforementioned senior figures.
The League of the Ten Jurisdictions, which was founded in 1436, was based on the alliance of ten judicial communities (i.e. communes that themselves are made up of several neighbourhoods/communes). The alliance brought together the Raetian territories belonging to the Toggenburg inheritance. The judicial communities pledged mutual assistance to better counter arbitrary treatment by the heirs.The coats of arms of the three leagues (from left): the Grey League, the League of God’s House and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions.Swiss National MuseumThe Free State was therefore intrinsically a very loose state structure, and each of the three leagues, which, as mentioned, varied in its origin, language and religion, was just as loose a confederation as the Free State as a whole. In each of the three leagues, different families called the shots, which repeatedly led to a lack of concerted action, particularly during the Bündner Wirren (Revolt of the Leagues) in the 17th century. But like the rest of the Old Confederacy after the first Federal Charter of 1291, in the Free State, too, people always sought concordance and consensus. To this effect, obligations to assist were defined, and arbitration courts and charters were drawn up for military and defence purposes. This organisation can be described as pre-modern democracy. Although aristocratic leanings persisted within the Leagues, they did not result in the formation of clans or isolationism.
To strengthen cohesion in the Free State, so-called Bundstage or community assemblies were introduced, which were similar to the Diet at federal level. From 1524 to 1797, the Free State was an associate member of the Confederacy and had a mercenary agreement with France. From 1512 to 1797, Valtellina and the counties of Chiavenna and Bormio also belonged to the Three Leagues as subject territories.The oath of the Grey League in Trun, where the barons of Rhäzüns called the shots. Sketch by Horace de Saussure, 1902.Swiss National Museum
Judicial communities and assemblies – Free State rather than feudalism
The ‘judicial communities’ were sovereign state entities in the Free State of the Three Leagues from the 16th to 18th centuries. They emerged from the originally manorial judicial districts (lower jurisdiction). In specific terms, this meant that the rights of the feudal nobility and subsequently also the higher justice were handed over to the people as part of communalism; in other words, there was a reconstruction of feudal society from the bottom up.
The judicial communities themselves consisted of several neighbourhoods (vicinantia), which represented autonomous economic cooperatives and were often identical to parishes. The judicial communities generally convened as Landsgemeinde (cantonal assemblies). The sheer scale of the Free State prevented a common cantonal assembly for all three Leagues. The institution of the Landsgemeinde, which had existed since the 13th and 14th centuries in the original cantons of Zug, Glarus, and the two Appenzells, was taken as a model but adapted, although the principle was the same for the judicial communities: that a sovereign assembly of men eligible to vote would take part in all elections and make the important decisions. Legislation in the Free State was largely left to judicial communities. Every attempt to standardise civil and criminal law failed.Federal Charter of 1524 in which the three Leagues officially joined forces.State Archives of Graubünden, StAGR A I/1 No. 73The modern separation of powers didn’t exist at this time. In the 16th century, the Free State comprised some 50 judicial communities, but this number fluctuated during the centuries when the Free State existed. If two or more judicial communities got into a dispute, they had to appeal to another uninvolved judicial community to act as arbitrator.
The loose alliance of the Free State as a whole had no joint authorities, no common judiciary and no joint treasury. Only war and peace, foreign policy, and the administration of subject territories were left to the Bundstag, the highest authority of the Free State. But the judicial communities always had a say on these matters through the referendum, so on the beginning and end of wars, on the drafting of men to patrol the borders, and on the number of troops to be mobilised. The judicial communities were also involved in the conclusion of treaties.No common treasury, no common currency. Taler coin from the league of God’s House, 16th century.Swiss National MuseumThe term Bundstag (assembly) only emerged in the early 16th century. On the one hand, there were Bundstage for the individual Leagues, and on the other, the general Bundstag for all three Leagues. Sovereignty was not vested in the people as such but in the judicial communities as a whole. Decisions were made by the majority of the commune votes. Bundstage were held once or twice a year. The venues rotated between Ilanz, Chur and Davos as the principal towns of the Three Leagues.
Important decisions relating to the Free State were made in Ilanz between 1524 and 1526. On 4 April 1524, a Bundstag for all three Leagues passed the First Ilanz Article, in other words the first state law passed by all three Leagues. This continued the political disempowerment of the secular and clerical feudal lords and bolstered democratic structures. This development was emphasised even more radically through the Second Ilanz Article of 1526.
The enactment of the First Ilanz Article led the Three Leagues to issue the first joint Constitution in the form of the Bundesbrief, or Federal Charter, at a Bundstag assembly in Ilanz on 23 September 1524 – 500 years ago. This year is the anniversary of that first Federal Charter. The purpose of the Federal Charter was to set out an oath that everyone had to swear by to preserve ‘peace, protection and order’ in the Free State. This also gave a significant boost to the process of internal cohesion and statehood as a sovereign, republican state. Through these radical interventions in the existing order, the Free State of the Three Leagues took on a form that endured until the Helvetic Republic of 1798 (and beyond that in a modified form until 1854).
The old referendum in Graubünden
Every decision of the Bundstag that went beyond the implementation of existing norms and directives in the communes, was subject to a federal, mandatory communal referendum, in which the individual constituent states (i.e. the judicial communities) were able to participate in the State’s opinion forming. As mentioned above, what counted was the votes of communes, not the votes of individuals. In principle, every male citizen over the age of 14 or 16 was eligible and able to vote. While there was no such thing as legal privileges for certain families, wealthy and respected families could exercise a certain degree of influence on elections. But this could not be described as aristocratisation or oligarchisation, like in other parts of the Confederacy.
Besides important fundamental matters of state, the referendums also dealt with trivial issues. But the central point was that the Free State’s foreign policy was in principle the responsibility of the entire state, and was therefore subject to the participation of the judicial communities. Internal affairs of state, such as general legislation, were usually dealt with by the judicial communities themselves within the framework of a Landsgemeinde (cantonal assembly), while the individual neighbourhoods conducted their business by means of community assemblies.Three become one: the coat of arms of the canton of Graubünden is a combination of the emblems of the three Leagues.Swiss National MuseumThe votes in a communal referendum were not counted as such but were evaluated by a judicial community or council. The authority in charge of estimating the result was the Landammann (chief magistrate) for the individual judicial communities and by the chiefs of the Three Leagues for the Bundstag. Other people were sometimes also involved. The process of evaluating the votes, which was performed by the three chiefs was difficult as even the communal vote was often an ‘estimated majority’. A fundamental problem and additional peculiarity of this political process was the fact that when it came to the responses from the judicial communities, many didn’t just say yes or no, but penned opinions of varying lengths. It was possible to accept or reject a proposal with some reservations, for example by amending individual articles. There was an explicit right to amend the proposal, so in this sense the judicial communities already had a right of initiative of sorts. It was then ultimately up to the chiefs to sort through these diverse opinions and on this basis to determine the ‘will of the majority’. It was then the responsibility of the judicial communities to enforce the decisions, as the Free State had no way of doing so.The old Graubünden referendum transferred joint responsibility for the common good to judicial communities and their populations. The extensive participation of the people in all public matters was a first-rate instrument of political education. On the whole, it is clear that decisions of great consequence and complexity were discussed at community meetings and cantonal assemblies. In this way, people acquired a basic knowledge of political and legal processes on the basis of shared values, despite gaps in their education. The responses received from the communes on the matters subjected to referendum show a surprising degree of civic maturity and sound judgement.
Impetus for Switzerland’s direct democracy
The old Graubünden referendum was undoubtedly a precursor to the modern referendum in Switzerland. From 1830 it was repeatedly held up as an example and inspiration for direct democratic instruments at cantonal level. In this sense, we can argue that the canton of Graubünden was a ‘laboratory’ for promoting political participation and developing democracy in Switzerland from the Late Middle Ages and early modern era. The old Graubünden referendum as a federal popular vote was therefore a central reference point and model for the constitution of the legal veto and the referendum in the 19th century, in other words Switzerland’s modern direct democracy.
The canton of Graubünden’s history shows how the principles of modern democracy emerged. The Helvetic Republic made the Free State into the canton of Raetia from 1799 to 1803, and subsequently into an equal canton of the Confederation, and one which brought a great understanding of democracy.
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