Rütli Oath

Timeline

1. 1291Forest Cantons at the northern foot of the Alps · SwitzerlandAfter Rudolf I of Habsburg died on 15 July 1291, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden drew up a Latin pact providing for mutual defense, excluding foreign judges, and settling criminal jurisdiction. Radiocarbon dating places the parchment in the late 13th to early 14th century. This is a verifiable political alliance, not a record of an oral oath on the Rütli meadow.
2. c. 1470–1570Rütli meadow · Canton of UriThe Rütli oath episode first appears in 15th-century historiography, commonly naming Stauffacher, Fürst, and Arnold of Melchtal as oath-takers. William Tell is entangled with the story in still later narratives and Schiller's play, but was neither a signatory of the 1291 document nor a contemporary witness. Fixing the oath to 1 August 1291 is a modern national-holiday construction, not a medieval record.