319] INTRODUCTION 21 



they introduced and continued their system of communal 

 self-government with its popular deliberations and decisions 

 of public affairs of importance until the growth of feudal- 

 ism centered the right and power of making and administer- 

 ing the law in the hands of the feudal lords, the lesser 

 nobles and the clergy.^* But with the first signs of reaction 

 against this feudal overlordship, "the communal organism 

 and the municipal spirit were revived and gradually de- 

 veloped in those same localities where they had flourished 

 previous to the feudal period."^° The progress of this de- 

 velopment was, to quote Cherbuliez, " for certain reasons 

 retarded in the western parts and accelerated in the eastern 

 sections of Switzerland, but finally, it led everywhere to 

 the same result. . . . The entire community assembles in 

 order to decide questions of weight, in particular in order 

 to sanction all transactions enacted in its name, with in- 

 dividuals or with foreign states. . . ." 



In some of the rural communities of Uri, Schwyz, Un- 

 terwalden, Appenzell, Zug and Glarus, "the people have 

 never ceased to legislate for themselves and vote their own 

 taxes from the thirteenth century downwards. They met 

 together, at least once a year, for the purpose in solemn 

 conclave, called the Landsgemeinde."^^ The first Lands- 

 gemeinde of which we have a record is that held in the 

 canton of Schwyz in the year 1294." 



While in practice the ancient principle of popular self- 

 determination in matters of internal politics disappeared 

 from the life of the nations except in isolated counties of 

 Switzerland, in theory the shibboleth of the sovereignty of 

 the people remained alive through the Middle Ages and 

 was transmitted to modern times in the teachings and writ- 



" Vincent, pp. 4-6; A. E. Cherbuliez, De la dcmocratie en Suisse, 

 Paris, 1843, vol. i, pp. 13-17. 



"■^ Cherbuliez, vol. i, p. 30. 



*" S. DcploiRe, Tile RefiTendiiin in Switzerland, translated into 

 EnRlisIi by C. P. Trevelyaii, Loiuldii, New ^'ork, iSyS, pp. 3-4. 



8^ J. J. Blumer, Slaats uiid KeclitsKe.schichte der schweizerischen 

 Demokratien, St. Gallen, 1850-1859, vol. i, p. 135. 



