TheTreaty of Basel of 22 September 1499 was an armistice following theBattle of Dornach, concluding theSwabian War, fought between theSwabian League and theOld Swiss Confederacy.[1]
 Negotiations for the Treaty of Basel in 1499 at the end of theSwabian War. TheMilanese envoyGaleazzo Visconti presents his peace proposals to the delegation ofHoly Roman Emperor Maximilian I at the city hall ofBasel. A delegate fromLucerne (front left, in the blue-white dress) translates. | |
| Signed | 22 September 1499 (1499-09-22) |
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| Location | Basel,Swiss Confederacy |
| Parties | Swiss Confederacy Swabian League |
Though the war had concluded in multiple Swiss victories, both Switzerland and the Swabian League were exhausted, and the leaders of both sides desired peace. The two sides would meet in Basel to agree to terms of peace.
The treaty restored thestatus quo ante territorially. Eight out of the ten members in theLeague of the Ten Jurisdictions were confirmed as nominally subject to theHabsburgs, but their membership in the league and their alliance with the Swiss Confederacy was to remain in place.
The Swiss were also absolved from Austrian imperial taxes and imperial jurisdiction. Thus, the Swiss Confederacy wasde facto independent and not made to join anImperial Circle. The Habsburgs were forced to relinquish their dynastic claims in Switzerland.[2]
Jurisdiction overThurgau, previously anImperial loan to the city ofConstance, was to pass to the Swiss Confederacy. Theimperial ban and all embargoes against the Swiss cantons were to be discontinued.
In 19th-centurySwiss historiography, the treaty was presented as an important step towardsde facto independence of the Swiss Confederacy from the Holy Roman Empire. In the words ofWilhelm Oechsli (1890), the treaty represented "the recognition of Swiss independence by Germany".This view has come to be viewed as untenable in 20th-century literature (Sigrist 1949, Mommsen 1958), as there is no indication that the leaders of the Confederacy at the time had any desire to distance themselves from the Empire. Nevertheless, the Confederacy was substantially strengthened as a polity within the Empire by the treaty, and an immediate consequence of this was the accession ofBasel andSchaffhausen in 1501, as part of the expansion (1481–1513) from the late medievalEight Cantons to the early modernThirteen Cantons.[3]
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