The Prince and the Factions: Rebellion and Political Propaganda in Sixteenth-Century Geneva*

The Prince and the Factions: Rebellion and Political Propaganda in Sixteenth-Century Geneva* Mathieu Caesar During the first decades of the sixteenth century, political life in Geneva was marked by the growth of two rival factions.1 On one side were the Eidguenots, who desired an alliance with the Swiss cities of Fribourg, Bern and Solothurn; on the other were the Mammelus, who opposed this initiative. In this context, the Eidguenots negotiated two alliance treaties called bourgeoisie or combourgeoisie with Fribourg, in 1519, and with Bern and Fribourg in 1526. This rap- prochement provoked an intervention from both the bishop and the duke of Savoy, Charles ii, who considered the combourgeoisies to be illegal and the Eidguenots to be rebels. From an urban perspective, the rivalry between the Eidguenots and Mammelus was a factional struggle similar to those experienced by many other cities. But, seen from the bishop’s and the duke of Savoy’s perspective, this conflict was sedition by one of the parties, a rebellion against the legitimate authority. The Eidguenots’ actions were certainly not a classical armed upris- ing. Violence and street fighting were part of Geneva’s political life, but its political struggles also took the form of a protracted conflict fought through legal argument, diplomatic negotiations, treaties and propaganda. This paper aims to analyse the political beliefs of the two factions involved in this conflict, as well as how each party explained its position, and the way the princely powers responded to them. * Abbreviations: aeg: Archives d’État de Genève; asto: Archivio di Stato di Torino; aeg, pc: Procès criminels, series 1 à 3; ea: Amtliche Sammlung der ältern eidgenössischen Abschiede 1245–1798, 22 vols. (Luzern, 1839–1890); dhs: Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (online: http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/); rc: Registres du Conseil de Genève (1409–1536), 13 vols. (Geneva, 1900–1940); sdge: Émile Rivoire and Victor Van Berchem, eds., Les sources du droit du canton de Genève, 2 vols. (Aarau, 1927–1934). 1 For a brief overview of this period, see Mathieu Caesar, Histoire de Genève. La cité des évêques (Neuchâtel, 2014), 128–147 and William Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (New York, 1967), 64–93. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi �0.��63/9789004345348_007 <UN> The Prince and the Factions 105 1 Turning Swiss: The Combourgeoisie with Bern and Fribourg (1519–1526) The possibility of an alliance with Fribourg became a matter of public political debate at the beginning of 1519. On 7 January, as a first step towards an alliance, eighty-five Genevans were admitted (individually) as burghers of Fribourg.2 One month later, Besançon Hugues, one of the leaders of the Eidguenots, pre- sented a draft of the treaty before the city’s General Council for approval, ex- plaining that Fribourg wished to grant the bourgeoisie to the entire Commune, not only to specific individuals. No text of this draft is conserved. At that stage, negotiations were still ongoing; we know their general substance only through the minutes of the Genevan General Council on 6 February which reported Hugues’s speech to the council.3 In this speech, he defined the alliance as a “friendship and bourgeoisie”. Hugues explained that the treaty reserved the bishop’s rights and his jurisdiction, the city’s franchises, and finally, that no tribute was necessary to conclude the alliance.4 Although some members opposed the combourgeoisie, the majority of the council accepted Fribourg’s offer. In a letter sent to Fribourg’s authori- ties, the Genevans affirmed their willingness to be “good burghers and true friends”.5 The letter also suggested that the alliance could be extended to the city of Solothurn.6 However, the reaction of the bishop and the duke effec- tively scuttled the agreement. The duke entered Geneva with his army, and during the month of April, he forced the General Council to renounce the 2 List in rc 8, 690, n.1. 3 rc 8, 289–91. The Council gathered in order to elect new mayors, and the speech given by Besançon Hugues, who had been one of the mayors in 1518, was given in the normal course of the Council’s business. 4 The short-lived alliance with Fribourg in 1519 as well as the combourgeoisie of 1526 consti- tuted a very common type of treaty formed in the southern part of the Empire. The terms “friendship” or “combourgeoisie” were commonly used to define an urban alliance involving two or more cities. For a more detailed description of the Swiss context, see Andreas Wurgler, ‘Combourgeoisie’, in dhs, url: http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F9829.php, version of 03/08/2005 and Claude Cuendet, Les traités de combourgeoisie en pays romands, et entre ceux- ci et les villes de Berne et Fribourg: (XIIIe au XVIe siècle) (Lausanne, 1979). For another broader perspective, see Laurence Buchholzer, Olivier Richard, eds., Ligues urbaines et espace à la fin du Moyen Âge. Städtebünde und Raum im Spätmittelalter (Strasbourg, 2012). 5 rc 8, 291–93: “bons borgois [sic] et vrays amys”. 6 Solothurn’s role during these years has not been studied. The fact that the combourgeoisie of 1526 was concluded only with Bern and Fribourg has partially obscured Solothurn’s position in the Genevan affair. <UN>.

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