Religious Tensions among Swiss Cantons (1570s)

Timeline

1. 1571–1574Lucerne · Canton of LucerneIn the early 1570s, Catholic cantons such as Lucerne, Uri, and Schwyz and Protestant power cantons such as Zurich and Bern argued endlessly in the Federal Diet over foreign military alliances and internal judicial jurisdiction, with sectarian lines increasingly hardening into the watershed of political alliances.
2. 1575–1577Bern · Canton of BernThe Protestant cantons pushed to restrict the provision of mercenaries to Catholic states and attempted to intervene in the management of church property in mixed-confession regions; the Catholic cantons viewed this as an infringement of their freedom of worship and financial interests, and the Confederacy's internal compromise mechanisms repeatedly broke down.
3. 1578–1580St. Gallen · Canton of St. GallenAfter the city of St. Gallen converted to Protestantism in 1578, jurisdictional conflict erupted with the still-Catholic abbey; both sides mobilized armed forces for a standoff, and civil war was averted through Federal Diet mediation, but the sectarian divide further solidified.