Switzerland In Focus - Discover Switzerland: Experience the Best of Switzerland - page 564

Clans & Castles: Swiss Roots
Modern Swiss history might start in 1291 but that is not to say that the thousands of years
leading up to Switzerland's birth are not significant - this was the period that gave
Switzerland the best of its fairytale châteaux and schlösser (castles).
The earliest inhabitants were Celtic tribes, including the Helvetii of the Jura and the
Mittelland Plain, and the Rhaetians near Graubünden. Their homelands were first invaded
by the Romans, who had gained a foothold under Julius Caesar by 58 BC and established
Aventicum (now Avenches) as the capital of Helvetia (Roman Switzerland). Switzerland's
largest Roman ruins are at Augusta Raurica. By AD 400, Germanic Alemanni tribes ar-
rived to drive out the Romans.
The Alemanni groups settled in eastern
Switzerland and were later joined by another
Germanic tribe, the Burgundians, in the western
part of the country. The latter adopted Christian-
ity and the Latin language, laying the seeds for
the division between French- and German-
speaking Switzerland. The Franks conquered
both tribes in the 6th century, but the two areas
were torn apart again when Charlemagne's em-
pire was partitioned in 870.
When it was reunited under the pan-
European Holy Roman Empire in 1032,
Switzerland was initially left to its own devices.
Local nobles wielded the most influence: the
Zähringen family, who founded Fribourg, Bern
and Murten, and built a fairytale castle with
soaring towers and red turrets in Thun in the
Bernese Oberland; and the Savoy clan, who es-
tablished a ring of castles around Lake Geneva,
most notably Château de Morges and magnifi-
cent Château de Chillon, right on the water's
edge near Montreux.
When the Habsburg ruler Rudolph I became
Holy Roman Emperor in 1273, he sent in
heavy-handed bailiffs to collect more taxes and
tighten the administrative screws. Swiss resentment grew quickly.

Castles

1 CHÂTEAU DE MORGES, MORGES

2 SCHLOSS THUN, THUN

3 MEDIEVAL CASTLES, BELLINZONA

4 BURG HOHENKLINGEN, STEIN AM
RHEIN

5 CHÂTEAU DE GRUYÈRES, GRUYÈRES