The Free State of the Three Leagues and its contribution to direct democracy in Switzerland

From the late Middle Ages onwards, the “Free State of the Three Leagues”, i.e. the area of the present-day canton Grisons including the now Italian valleys of Valtellina, Chiavenna and Bormio, had seen a special development in the Alpine region. This was characterised by a complex democratic structure. All important political decisions were legitimised by the will of the people in the municipalities. The Free State thus occupied an exceptional position in Europe at the time and, like other cantons, contributed significantly to the democratisation and development of direct democracy in Switzerland. In 2024, the canton Grisons will celebrate 500 years of the “Free State of the Three Leagues” under the motto “Three Leagues for Life”. Exactly 500 years ago, the Free State adopted its first constitution with a federal charter.

Pre-modern democracy in the Grisons

The Free State is characterised by a strong natural division of its mountains and highlands. The approximately 150 valleys resulted in the division of the settlement areas into valley communities. This allowed regional traditions to develop from the early Middle Ages onwards, as well as external influences that characterised medieval society. In such a small-scale environment predetermined by nature, the inhabitants were dependent on solving the problems that arose themselves in small and very small villages and communities. The importance of co-operatives was therefore paramount, whether on the valleys or in the mountains.
  The commons as a common property were omnipresent and ensured that the alps, forests, water and pastures remained the property of the communities. Usually, it was a village master who supervised the work, based on village rules that could be determined by each neighbourhood (community) itself. Parishes were also formed on this co-operative basis, which is why we can speak of a development from “parish subjects to parishioners” from the 14^th century onwards. This trend towards the formation of autonomous parishes soon led to the containment of episcopal rule. Over time, the neighbourhood-based parishes achieved a greater influence and became involved in the election of priests.
  In general, it can be said that in the course of such developments, territorial formation in the late Middle Ages was determined by communal movements, which laid the foundations for political communities and later democratisation. In this context, an important socio-political structural change took place from the 13^th/14^th century onwards: As the communities succeeded in acquiring more and more land-lordly rights, feudal rule over land and people was broken. The aristocratic territorial lords increasingly had to give way.
  The main characteristics of the subsequent development were the rapid takeover of aristocratic territorial rule by new social and political ruling classes as well as the independent action of municipalities (communities with their own jurisdiction) and their amalgamation into early state organisations. Over time, the parishes and municipalities formed a system of alliances that was characterised by strong decentralisation. In the 14t^h/15^th century, three alliances were formed that were based on common values such as independence and democratic structures and were not defined by genealogy. In many cases, the local nobility was not completely ousted, but formed alliances with the free peasants and citizens.
  In this way, the “Free State of the Three Leagues” was created on the present-day territory of the Grisons. The “Gotteshausbund” (League of God’s House) was founded in 1367. The alliance was directed against the incumbent bishop in order to avert imminent dangers such as the sale of fundamental rights to Austria. The cathedral chapter, the valley communities, the citizens of Chur and the servants thus joined together to form a kind of emergency community and gained considerable influence over the administration of the diocese of Chur. The alliance expressly included the right of the valley communities to have a say, and these communities subsequently emerged more and more clearly as the holders of political power while increasingly undermining the power of the bishop. In the “Upper” or “Grey League” of 1395, which was reorganised in 1424, 600 years ago, the Abbot of Disentis, the Baron of Rhäzüns and the Count of Sax-Misox joined forces with the valley communities to secure the peace of the land, the transport routes and thus economic prosperity. The communities of the Grey League thus gained a considerable say over the three main lords mentioned above. The “Zehngerichtenbund” (League of Ten Jurisdictions), founded in 1436, was based on the league of ten municipalities (i.e., communities that were themselves made up of several neighbourhoods/communities). The league united the Rhaetian provinces from the Toggenburg inheritance, which vowed to support each other in order to better counter arbitrary treatment by various heirs.
  As a result, the Free State consisted of a very loose state structure, and each of the three confederations, which, as shown, differed in terms of origin, language and religion, was just as loose a confederation as the Free State as a whole.
  It therefore happened time and again that not everyone pulled in the same direction, especially during the “Bündner Wirren” (Graubünden disturbances or Revolt of the Leagues) in the 17^th century. However, as in the rest of the Confederation since the first Federal Charter of 1291, in the Free State, too, the necessary balance was always achieved. To this end, duties of assistance were defined, and arbitration courts and statutes for the conduct of war were created. The state organisation that emerged in this way can be described as a pre-modern democracy. Although aristocratic tendencies existed, there was no clan formation with isolationist tendencies.
  In order to strengthen cohesion in the Free State, so-called “Bundstage” (federal diets) were introduced, which were comparable to the Tagsatzungen at federal level (Federal Diet of Switzerland). From 1524 to 1797, the Free State was an aligned place of the Confederation, endowed with a pay treaty with France. Additionally, from 1512 to 1797, the Valtellina and the counties of Chiavenna and Bormio belonged to the State of the Three Leagues as subject territories.

Municipalities and the Bundstag –
Free state instead of feudal rule

In the Free State of the Three Leagues from the 16^th to the 18^th century, the “Gerichtsgemeinden” (municipalities) were sovereign state entities. They emerged from the original manorial court districts of lower jurisdiction. In concrete terms, this meant that the rights of the feudal nobility and later high jurisdiction were transferred to the common people as part of the communalisation process, meaning that feudal society was feudal society was reorganised from the bottom up.
  The proper municipalities consisted of several neighbourhoods (communities), which in turn represented autonomous economic co-operatives and were often identical to the parishes. As a rule, the parishes with jurisdiction met as a rural community. The large geographical extent of the Free State prevented a common Landsgemeinde (cantonal assembly). The institution of the Landsgemeinde, which had existed since the 13^th/14^th century in the original cantons of Zug, Glarus and the two Appenzells, served as a model, was adapted, but the principle was the same for the municipalities: a sovereign assembly of men capable of voting carried out all elections and passed the most important resolutions. Legislation in the Free State was largely left to the municipalities. All attempts to standardise civil and criminal law failed.
  The modern separation of powers did not yet exist. In the Free State of the 16^th century, there were around 50 municipalities. The number of parishes with jurisdiction did not remain stable during the centuries in which the Triple Alliance state existed. If two or more municipalities had a dispute among themselves, they had to turn to another municipality not beeing involved in the dispute. That municipality had then to act as arbitrator.
  The loose confederation of the Free State as a whole had no common authorities, no common jurisdiction and no common treasury. Only war and peace, foreign policy and the administration of the subject lands were left to the Bundstag, the supreme authority of the Free State.
  However, the municipalities always had a say in these matters through the referendum, i.e., on the start and end of a war, on the deployment of troops to guard the borders and on the number of troops to be mobilised. The municipalities also participated in the conclusion of state treaties.
  The term “Bundstag” first appeared at the beginning of the 16^th century. On the one hand, there were confederations of the individual leagues and, on the other, the general confederation of all three leagues. Sovereignty was not vested in the people of the state as such, but rather in the entirety of the municipalities. The majority of communal votes decided. Confederation days were held once or twice a year. The meeting places were Ilanz, Chur and Davos as the “capitals” of the three leagues according to a certain rotation.

Ilanz as a political
and religious hotspot

Important decisions of the Free State were made in Ilanz from 1524 to 1526. On 4 April 1524, a Federal Council of the Three Leagues adopted the “First Ilanz Articles”, i.e. the first national law adopted by all three leagues. The political disempowerment of secular and clerical feudal lords was thus continued and democratic structures were strengthened. This development was emphasised even more radically with the “Second Articles of Ilanz” of 1526.
  The adoption of the First Articles of Ilanz meant that on 23 September 1524, 500 years ago, the League of the Three adopted their first common constitution in the form of a federal charter at a federal convention in Ilanz. This first federal charter is the actual anniversary occasion today. The aim and purpose of the Federal Charter was the oath demanded of everyone that they would maintain “peace, protection and tranquillity” in the Free State. The process of internal cohesion and statehood as a sovereign republican state was thus decisively strengthened. With these radical interventions in the existing order, the Triple Alliance state was given a form that it retained until the Helvetic period in 1798 (and beyond that in a modified form until 1854).

Municipal referendum
(“old Grisons referendum”)

Every decision of the Federal Assembly that went beyond the implementation of existing norms and directives of the municipalities was subject to a municipal referendum. The “old Grisons referendum” was a federal, mandatory communal referendum in which the individual constituent states, i.e., the municipalities, were involved in forming the opinion of the state as a whole. As already mentioned, it was the votes of the municipalities that counted and not the votes of individuals. In principle, every male citizen over the age of 14 or 16 was entitled to vote. There were no legal privileges for families, although richer and more prestigious families were able to influence the elections. However, there was no aristocratisation or oligarchisation as in other parts of the Confederation.
  In terms of content, the referendums dealt with important state fundamentals as well as trivial matters. However, the central point was that the foreign policy of the Free State was fundamentally a matter for the state as a whole and was therefore subject to a referendum, i.e. the participation of the municipalities. Internal affairs of state, such as general legislation, were usually dealt with by the municipalities on their own within the framework of a rural community, while the individual neighbourhoods (communes) conducted their business by means of a communal assembly.
  The result of a communal referendum was estimated in the context of a municipality or a federal convention, i.e., it was not counted individually. The authority that estimated or “multiplied” the result was the “Landammann” (chief magistrate) for the individual municipalities and “The three Heads” of the League of the Three for a federal convention. This may have happened with the addition of other people. The so-called “multiplication” of the Three Heads was a difficult act, as the parish vote was often already an “estimated majority”. A fundamental problem – an additional peculiarity in this political process – was that many of the responses from the court communities did not simply say yes or no, but wrote longer or shorter “expert opinions”. It was possible to approve a bill only conditionally or to reject it only conditionally, for example by amending individual articles. Such a right to propose amendments to the bill existed explicitly, so one can already speak of a kind of right of initiative on the part of the municipalities. It was ultimately up to the “chiefs” to sort through these diverse opinions in an act of majority voting and to determine the “will of the majority” on this basis. The execution of the decisions was the responsibility of the court communities, the Free State itself had no means of enforcing the decisions.
  The old Grisons referendum gave the municipalities and their inhabitants a shared responsibility for the common good. This extensive participation of the people in all public affairs was a political educational tool of the first order. Overall, it can be said that decisions of great importance and complexity were discussed at communal assemblies and at the “Landsgemeinden”. People thus acquired basic political and legal knowledge on the basis of shared values, despite gaps in their school education. The responses still received from the communes to enquiries that were made testify a surprising certainty and maturity of judgement.

Impulses for
direct democracy in Switzerland

The old Grisons communal referendum was undoubtedly a forerunner of the modern referendum in Switzerland. From 1830 onwards, it is repeatedly cited in various contemporary sources as a model and inspiration for direct democratic instruments at cantonal level. In this sense, it can be said that the canton of Graubünden has been a “laboratory” for the promotion of political participation and the development of democracy in Switzerland since the late Middle Ages and early modern times. The “old Grisons referendum” as a federal referendum was a central point of reference and model for the constitution of the legislative veto and the referendum in the 19^th century, i.e., the modern direct democracy in Switzerland.
  The history of the canton of Grison is an impressive example of how the co-operative principle was successfully developed. From 1799 to 1803, the Helvetic Republic turned the free state into the canton of Rhaetia, which finally became an equal canton of the Swiss Confederation in 1803 and was able to contribute a great deal of democratic knowledge. •