Organizations, places or other things founded or established in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1350s
The following 14 pages are in this category, out of 14 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
1. Holy Roman Empire – The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
2. Bern – The city of Bern or Berne is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to by the Swiss as their Bundesstadt, or federal city. With a population of 141,762, Bern is the fourth-most populous city in Switzerland, the Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000, Bern is also the capital of the canton of Bern, the second-most populous of Switzerlands cantons. The official language in Bern is German, but the language is an Alemannic Swiss German dialect. In 1983, the old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bern is ranked among the top ten cities for the best quality of life. The etymology of the name Bern is uncertain and it has long been considered likely that the city was named after the Italian city of Verona, which at the time was known as Bern in Middle High German. As a result of the find of the Bern zinc tablet in the 1980s, it is now common to assume that the city was named after a pre-existing toponym of Celtic origin. The bear was the animal of the seal and coat of arms of Bern from at least the 1220s. The earliest reference to the keeping of bears in the Bärengraben dates to the 1440s. No archaeological evidence that indicates a settlement on the site of city centre prior to the 12th century has been found so far. In antiquity, a Celtic oppidum stood on the Engehalbinsel north of Bern, fortified since the second century BC, during the Roman era, a Gallo-Roman vicus was on the same site. The Bern zinc tablet has the name Brenodor, in the Early Middle Ages, a settlement in Bümpliz, now a city district of Bern, was some 4 km from the medieval city. The medieval city is a foundation of the Zähringer ruling family, according to 14th-century historiography, Bern was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen. In 1218, after Berthold died without an heir, Bern was made an imperial city by the Goldene Handfeste of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. In 1353, Bern joined the Swiss Confederacy, becoming one of the eight cantons of the period of 1353 to 1481. The city grew out towards the west of the boundaries of the peninsula formed by the river Aare, the Zytglogge tower marked the western boundary of the city from 1191 until 1256, when the Käfigturm took over this role until 1345. It was, in turn, succeeded by the Christoffelturm until 1622, during the time of the Thirty Years War, two new fortifications – the so-called big and small Schanze – were built to protect the whole area of the peninsula
3. Biel/Bienne – Biel/Bienne is a town and a municipality in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Biel/Bienne is on the boundary between the French-speaking and German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and is throughout bilingual. Biel is the German name for the town, Bienne its French counterpart, the town is often referred to in both languages simultaneously. Since January 1,2005, the name has been Biel/Bienne. Until then, the city was officially named Biel, Neuchâtel, Solothurn, and Bern lie west, east and southeast of Biel/Bienne. They all can be reached in about 30 minutes, either by train or by car, the city has about 55,000 inhabitants and in 2014 the agglomeration had almost 106,000. The shoreline of Lake Biel has been inhabited since at least the neolithic, the remains of two neolithic settlements were found at Vingelz in 1874. The remains of the settlements became the Vingelz / Hafen archaeological site, east of the Vingelz site, a late Bronze Age settlement was also discovered. After the Roman conquest, the region was part of Germania Superior, during the Roman era the Roman road from Petinesca to Pierre Pertuis or Salodurum passed through the village of Mett, which is now part of Biel/Bienne. The foundations of buildings and a 4th-century cemetery in Mett come from a late Roman or a medieval military guard station. A theory holds that the toponym is derived from the name of Belenus, however, no surviving records or inscriptions confirm this theory. Another theory states that the town grew up around a late Roman fortress, while no trace of the fortress has been found, the foundations of several Roman buildings have been found east of the medieval town. The town is mentioned in 1142 as apud belnam, which is taken as evidence for its derivation from Belenus, in popular etymology, the name has been connected with the German name for axe, reflected in the two crossed axes in the citys coat of arms. In the 5th century, the area was invaded by the Burgundians, during the 6th or 7th century, the Germanic speaking Alamanni moved into the area around Lake Biel, creating the language boundary that exists today. By the 8th century, the German-speaking population became the majority on the east end of the lake, in 999 Rudolph III of Burgundy granted lands around Lake Biel to the Bishopric of Basel, during the formative period of the Holy Roman Empire. Through the Bishop of Basel, the Counts of Neuchâtel and later the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau began to exercise their power in the foothills of the Jura Mountains. In 1140 the counts built Nidau Castle in the village of Nidau to help secure their land on the eastern end of the lake. The town was built by the Bishop of Basel, Heinrich II von Thun
4. Canton of Glarus – The Canton of Glarus is a canton in east central Switzerland. The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German, the majority of the population identifies as Christian, about evenly split between the Protestant and Catholic denominations. From the 9th century, the area around Glarus was owned by Säckingen Abbey, the Alemanni began to settle in the valley from the early 8th century. The Alemannic German language took hold only gradually, and was dominant by the 11th century, by 1288, the Habsburgs had claimed all the abbeys rights. Glarus joined the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1352 as one of the eight cantons of the period of 1353–1481. The first recorded Landsgemeinde of Glarus took place in 1387, habsburgian attempts to reconquer the valley were repelled in the Battle of Näfels of 1388. A banner depicting Saint Fridolin was used to rally the people of Glarus at that battle, the County of Werdenberg was annexed to Glarus in 1517. Between 1506 and 1516 the later reformer Huldrych Zwingli was priest in Glarus, but Glarus remained Catholic and this, however, did not end the struggles between the Protestants and the Catholics in the area. To secure peace it was decided that each party should have its own assembly in 1623, between 1798 and 1803 Glarus was part of the Canton of Linth as established by Napoleon. In 1836 the constitution was adapted to unite the assemblies and establish a single Landsgemeinde, in the early 1840s, after several years of failed crops and as food became scarce, much of the canton found itself deep in poverty. With more workers than available jobs, emigration to the United States of America was seen as a solution, the Glarus Emigration Society was established in 1844, which offered loans to help residents purchase land in the New World. Many of the emigrants went to the state of Wisconsin. On May 6,2007 Glarus became the first Swiss canton to lower the age to 16. The canton of Glarus is dominated by the valley of the Linth River. Most of the area is mountainous, the highest peak in the Glarus Alps is the Tödi at 3,614 meters Other mountains include the Hausstock and the Glärnisch. The canton contains part of a thrust fault that was declared a geologic UNESCO world heritage site, under the name Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, famous outcrops in the Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona include those at Lochsite near Glarus and in a mountain cliff called Tschingelhörner between Elm and Flims. There is also a lake called Walensee on the north. The total area of the canton of Glarus is 685 square kilometers, forestry is an important branch of industry in the canton
5. Zug – Zug, is an affluent municipality and town in Switzerland. The name Zug originates from fishing vocabulary, in the Middle Ages it referred to the right to pull up fishing nets, the town of Zug is located in the canton of Zug and is the cantons capital. As of 31 December 2015 it had a population of 29,256 inhabitants. The official language of Zug is German, but the spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect. The oldest human traces date back to the time of around 14,000 BC, there have been Paleolithic finds on the north bank of Lake Zug, which come from nomadic hunters and gatherers. Archaeologists have also been able to prove the existence of over forty lake-shore settlements, on the shores of Lake Zug, the peak in these lake-shore village settlements was in the period between 3800 and 2450 BC. For the same epoch, the first pre-alpine land use has proven in Menzingen. The well-known, historically-researched and interesting lake-shore village, ‘Sumpf’, dated from the late Bronze Age and these rich finds result in a quite differentiated picture of life in former times, attractively represented in the Zug Museum for Prehistory. In addition, many traces from the Iron Age and the Roman and Celtic-Roman time have been discovered, in around AD600, Alemannic families and tribes immigrated to the area of present-day canton Zug. The name Blickensdorf, and place names with ‘- ikon’ endings, the churches of Baar and Risch also date back to the early Middle Ages. The first written document on the area originates from the year 858, in the course of the high medieval town construction, the settlement of Zug also received a town wall at some point after 1200. The town founders were probably the counts of Kyburg, the town, first mentioned in AD1240, was called an oppidum in 1242 and a castrum in 1255. In 1273, it was bought by Rudolph of Habsburg from Anna, through this purchase it passed into the control of the Habsburgs and was placed under a Habsburg bailiff. The Aeusser Amt or Outer District consisted of the villages and towns surrounding Zug, which each had their own Landsgemeinden but were ruled by a single Habsburg bailiff. About 1364, the town and the Aeusser Amt were recovered for the league by the men of Schwyz, in 1400 Wenceslaus gave all criminal jurisdiction to the town only. The Aeusser Amt, in 1404, then claimed that the banner, the matter was finally settled in 1412 by arbitration, and the banner was to be kept in the town. Finally in 1415, the right of electing their landammann was given to Zug by the Confederation, the alliance of the four forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Lucerne with the city of Zürich in 1351 set much in motion. The town of Zug was seen as having Habsburg ties with the cities of Zürich and Lucerne and it is likely that this was more for political than economic reasons, the Lucerne market was very important for central Switzerland, but also strongly dependent on the city of Zürich
6. Duchy of Luxemburg – The Duchy of Luxemburg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire, the ancestral homeland of the noble House of Luxembourg. The House of Luxembourg, now Duke of Limburg, became one of the most important political forces in the 14th century, in 1411, Sigismund of Luxembourg lost the duchy to his niece Elisabeth because he defaulted on a loan. Elizabeth later sold the duchy to the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good of the House of Valois-Burgundy, who paid her off in 1444. The male line of the dukes of Burgundy died out in 1477 when Philips son Charles the Bold died at the Battle of Nancy, leaving Mary of Burgundy, his only child, as his heiress. After his death, Mary married Archduke Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg, the Burgundian Netherlands then came under the rule of the House of Habsburg, beginning the period of the Habsburg Netherlands. With the abdication in 1555 of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, during this time, the remaining southern provinces were referred to as the Spanish Netherlands. The area remained under Austrian rule until the French Revolution, when it was taken over by France in 1795, Luxembourg lost a small amount of its territory to Prussia in 1813. The resulting personal union between Luxembourgs throne and the Dutch throne continued until 1890, unlike the Netherlands, however, Luxembourg was part of the German Confederation established in 1815, and a garrison of the Kingdom of Prussia was stationed there. The first known reference to the territory was made by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, the historical region of Luxembourg belonged to the Roman province of Belgica Prima. After the invasion of the Germanic tribes from the East, Luxembourg became part of the Frankish Empire, by the 843 Treaty of Verdun, it became part of the Lotharingian province of Middle Francia. According to the Treaty of Ribemont in 880, it had fallen to East Francia. By the 959 partition of Lotharingia, the Luxembourg region had passed to Duke Frederick I of Upper Lorraine of the Ardennes-Verdun dynasty, in 963, Count Siegfried, probably a younger brother of Duke Frederick I, purchased some land from Abbot Wikerus of Saint Maximins in Trier. This land was centered on a fort by the Old High German name of Lucilinburhuc. In the following years, Count Siegfried had a new castle built on the site of these ruins and this castle dominated a stretch of the old Roman road linking Reims, Arlon, and Trier, and opened some prospects for trade and taxation. Despite this new construction, it seems that Siegfried and his successors did not make the castle their primary residence. The history of Luxembourg proper began with the construction of this castle, in the following years, a small town and market grew around the new castle. The first inhabitants were probably servants of Count Siegfried and clergy of Saint Michaels church and this settlement soon received additional protection by the construction of a first, partial city wall and moat. In addition to the town near Bock Fiels and the Roman road
7. Canton of Zug – The canton of Zug is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland. It is located in central Switzerland and its capital is Zug, at 239 km2 the canton is one of the smallest of the cantons in terms of area. It is not subdivided into districts, but eleven municipalities, the earlier history of the canton is practically identical with that of its capital Zug. From 1728 to 1738 it was distracted by violent disputes about the distribution of the French pensions, in 1798 its inhabitants opposed the French. The canton formed part of the Tellgau and was later a district of the canton of the Waldstätten in the Helvetic Republic. The canton of Waldstätten also included what are today the cantons of Schwyz, Lucerne, Unterwalden, in 1803, under the Act of Mediation, the canton of Zug regained its independence as a separate canton. The constitution of 1814 abolished public assemblies, which had existed in the canton since 1376, in 1845 the canton of Zug became a member of the Sonderbund and participated in the war of 1847 which was lost to the Swiss confederation. In 1848 the remaining functions of the Landsgemeinde were abolished, both in 1848 and in 1874 the canton voted against the federal constitutions. The constitution of 1876 was amended in 1881, and replaced by a new one in 1894, near the southern shore of the lake of Ägeri is the site of the Battle of Morgarten, won by the Swiss in 1315. In this battle the powerful Habsburgs were defeated, the hamlet of Morgarten borders the Canton of Schwyz and is home to the Morgarten Battle Monument. The actual battle ground is just across the border in the hamlet of Schornen in the Canton of Schwyz, the canton of Zug is located in central Switzerland and covers an area of 239 square kilometres. The cantons of Lucerne and Aargau lie to its west, to the north, the canton is bounded by the canton of Zurich, whereas to the east and south lies the canton of Schwyz. Most of the land is considered productive, the Lake of Zug and Lake Ägeri make up a considerable part of the cantons area. Lake Ägeri is wholly within the canton, whereas the Zugersee is shared with the cantons of Lucerne, the canton is located on a hilly plateau. The Höhronen is the highest elevation in the east of the canton, the Zugerberg in the south is another notable elevation. It connects in the south with the Rossberg massif which rises to the Wildspitz east of the Zugersee and this massif separates the Zugersee from the basin and Ägerisee. It also separates the district of Menzingen from the Zugersee. The river Lorze is the drainage in the canton
