around AD 1000 shown in gold yellow including (present-day)
Alsace, the southern part of
Baden-Württemberg,
Bavarian Swabia,
Vorarlberg in Austria,
Liechtenstein, eastern Switzerland and small parts of northern Italy. In green: Upper Burgundy.
Early history Like all of
Southern Germany, what is now Swabia was part of the
La Tène culture; as such, it has a
Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the
Raetia province. The name
Suebia is derived from that of the
Suebi. It is used already by
Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls the
Baltic Sea the
Mare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after the
Suiones, and ends his description of the Suiones and
Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" (
Hic Suebiae finis). By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the
Alamanni, who expanded towards the
Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia. In the
migration period, the Suebi (Alamanni)
crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established the
Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts of
Pannonia, after the
Huns were defeated in 454 in the
Battle of Nedao. The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell under
Frankish domination in the 6th (
Battle of Tolbiac 496). By the late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended to
Alsace and the
Swiss Plateau, bordering on the
Bavarii to the east, the
Franks to the north, the remnants of
Roman Gaul to the west, and the
Lombards and
Goths, united in the
Kingdom of Odoacer, to the south. The name
Alamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century,
Suebia was occasionally used for
Alamannia, while
Alamannia was increasingly used to refer to
Alsace specifically. By the 12th century,
Suebia rather than
Alamannia was used consistently for the territory of the
Duchy of Swabia.
Duchy of Swabia Swabia was one of the original
stem duchies of
East Francia, the later
Holy Roman Empire, as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of
St. Gallen and
Reichenau, Swabia became an important center of
Old High German literary culture during this period. In the later
Carolingian period, Swabia became once again de facto independent, by the early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the
Hunfriding counts in
Raetia Curiensis and the
Ahalolfings ruling the
Baar estates around the upper
Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding
Burchard II at the
Battle of Winterthur (919). Burchard's rule as duke was acknowledged as such by the newly elected king
Henry the Fowler, and in the 960s the duchy under
Burchard III was incorporated in the
Holy Roman Empire under
Otto I. The
Hohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled the
Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution of
Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during the
Great Interregnum. In the following years, the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units.
Rudolf I of Habsburg, elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of the cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to be
Free Imperial Cities, and the more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys. The rural regions were merged into the
Imperial Shrievalty (
Reichslandvogtei) of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke
Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to
Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, in 1473/1486. He took the title of a "Prince of Swabia" and integrated the Shrievalty of Swabia in the realm of
Further Austria.
Later medieval period The
Swabian League of Cities was first formed on 20 November 1331, when twenty-two
imperial cities of the former Duchy of Swabia banded together in support of the
Emperor Louis IV, who in return promised not to mortgage any of them to any imperial
vassal. Among the founding cities were
Augsburg,
Heilbronn,
Reutlingen, and
Ulm. The counts of
Württemberg,
Oettingen, and
Hohenberg were induced to join in 1340. The defeat of the city league by Count
Eberhard II of Württemberg in 1372 led to the formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376. The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an "
imperial war" against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle of
Reutlingen on 14 May 1377. Burgrave
Frederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated the league in 1388 at
Döffingen. The next year the city league disbanded according to the resolutions of the
Reichstag at
Eger. The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were the
Habsburgs and the
Hohenzollerns, who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes of
Württemberg and the
margraves of
Baden. The
Welf family went on to rule in
Bavaria and
Hanover, and are ancestral to the
British royal family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the
Montforts and
Hohenems lived until modern times, and the
Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous
free cities, ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser
counts and
knights.
Early modern history A new
Swabian League (
Schwäbischer Bund) was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionist
Bavarian dukes from the
House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the
Swiss. In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it to
Charles V after its duke
Ulrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress the
Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance of
robber barons in the
Franconian War. The
Reformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to the
Swabian Circle established in 1512. The
Old Swiss Confederacy was
de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the
Swabian War, while the
Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since the twelfth century. Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the
Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling the
Duke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by the
Reformation, and the Duke of Württemberg was soon restored. The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of
Baden-Durlach, as well as most of the Free Cities, became
Protestant, the ecclesiastical territories (including the
bishoprics of
Augsburg,
Konstanz and the numerous
Imperial abbeys) remained
Catholic, as did the territories belonging to the Habsburgs (
Further Austria), the
Sigmaringen branch of the
House of Hohenzollern, and the Margrave of
Baden-Baden.
Modern history In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were
mediatized, leaving only the
Kingdom of Württemberg, the
Grand Duchy of Baden, and the Principality of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of
Bavaria, forming what is now the
Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. The
Kings of Bavaria assumed the title
Duke in Swabia, with the
in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other title
Duke of Franconia which made clear that the whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom. In contemporary usage,
Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in the term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves as
Alemanni (versus the
Swabians). ==Geography==