Upper Burgundy

Upper Burgundy, also called Juran or Transjuran Burgundy, was the kingdom of the upper Rhone basin, distinct from Lower Burgundy downstream and from the Duchy of Burgundy west of the Saone. It covered the whole Juran Burgundy on both sides of the Jura, the old Transjuran duchy of the Carolingian empire, which ran from the mountains to the Great St Bernard and answered roughly to western Switzerland, with Geneva, Lausanne and Sion, the cantons of Aargau, Bern and Valais and parts of Haute-Savoie, Ain and the Aosta valley. In 888 the magnates of Upper Burgundy met at the Abbey of St. Maurice, Agaunum, and elected and crowned the Transjuran margrave Rudolph I, of the Welf family, who first tried to recover Lotharingia and was checked by Arnulf of Carinthia. His son Rudolph II attacked Swabia, took Basel in 916, lost Thurgau and the Zurich lands at Winterthur in 919, then turned to Italy, where he beat Berengar at Fiorenzuola in 923 and was crowned Italian king, only to be expelled and lose the Lombard crown to Hugh of Arles in 926. In 933 the two rivals made peace: Rudolph gave up Italy and received Lower Burgundy, so the two Burgundies merged into one Kingdom of Burgundy, ruled after him by Conrad the Peaceful and Rudolph III until the extinction of the line in 1032.