Three Leagues

The Three Leagues were a confederation in the Alpine valleys of what is now the Swiss canton of Graubünden, formed in 1471 by the League of God's House, the Grey League and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions. The oldest, the League of God's House, had been founded in 1367 by the cathedral chapter, the bishop and the communes of Chur to resist the Habsburgs and the bishop's own selling of rights. The Grey League followed in 1395 and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions in 1436, and the three swore a common oath in 1471. Their members were associates of the Old Swiss Confederacy, and the leagues fought alongside the Swiss in the Burgundian and Swabian wars. The federation was republican in character: communes and noble lords negotiated through assemblies, and the bishop of Chur retained a privileged but contested position. After the Thirty Years' War the Three Leagues gained formal recognition of their liberties in the Peace of Westphalia, and the Free State of the Three Leagues existed until 1798, when Napoleonic troops dissolved it and it was later absorbed into the Helvetic Republic. The region became the Swiss canton of Grisons in 1803.