Rudolf Brun (1290s – 17 September 1360) was the leader of the Zürich guilds' revolution of 1336, and the city's first independent mayor.

Biography

Since 1234, Zürich had been governed by an aristocratic council. One third of the council's members were representatives of the nobility, and two-thirds were drawn from the city's patriciate, consisting mainly of influential merchants. The city's mayor was appointed from among these by the abbess of the influential

Fraumünster The Fraumünster (; lit. in ) is a church in Zürich which was built on the remains of a former abbey for aristocratic women which was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the l ...

. Rudolf was the son of Jakob Brun, a member of the city council, and of Mechthild. He was married to Margaretha Fütschi, daughter of Ulrich, another councillor. Rudolf was himself a member of the council from 1332 to 1336. Brun overthrew the former city council with the help of the city's craftsmen in June 1336. According to the new constitution, the council was now composed of 26 members, of whom 13 were of the ''Konstaffel'', consisting of the former patriciate; at least seven of these were required to hold

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

hood. The remaining 13 councillors were the guild masters of the city's 13 guilds ('' Zünfte''). In this sense, Brun's reform was not so much a revolution as the creation of a balance of power between the patriciate and the guilds. Brun reserved for himself the title of mayor for life, and he dominated the council until his death in 1360. In 1337, Brun defeated his political opponents, who had retreated to

Rapperswil Rapperswil (Swiss German: or ;Andres Kristol, ''Rapperswil SG (See)'' in: ''Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses – Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen – Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri (DTS, LSG)'', Centre de dial ...

, at the Battle of Grynau. In 1349, Brun led a massacre of the Jewish community of Zurich, seizing many of the spoils for himself. An attempted coup by the aristocratic opposition was forcefully put down in 1350, Count Johann II of Rapperswil, the opposition's leader, was arrested, and the town walls of Rapperswil and Rapperswil Castle were destroyed by Brun. Zürich under Brun joined the

Swiss Confederacy The Old Swiss Confederacy, also known as Switzerland or the Swiss Confederacy, was a loose confederation of independent small states (, German or ), initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerlan ...

in 1351. A result of Brun's revolution was a decrease of the influence of the city's two monasteries, the

Grossmünster The Grossmünster (; "great minster") is a Romanesque-style Protestant church in Zürich, Switzerland. It is one of the four major churches in the city (the others being the Fraumünster, Predigerkirche, and St. Peterskirche). Its congregation ...

and the

, which had dominated Zürich throughout the Middle Ages. The Fraumünster abbesses, traditionally women of the highest nobility, did retain considerable political influence, however, and the process was only completed with

Huldrych Zwingli Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a Swiss Christian theologian, musician, and leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swis ...

reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

in the 1520s, in the course of which the monasteries were shut down.

References

* A. Largiadèr, ''Bürgermeister R. Brun und die Zürcher Revolution von 1336'' (1936)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brun, Rudolf 1290s births 1360 deaths Mayors of Zurich 14th-century Swiss people