Map - Gersau (Bezirk Gersau)

Gersau is a municipality and district in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland, sitting on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Gersau was for many centuries an independent micro-state in permanent alliance with the Swiss Confederation.

Gersau is first mentioned in 1064 as Gersouwe. The estates of Gersau gradually came into the hands of the Habsburgs, but in 1333, under dukes Albert II and Otto IV the Merry of Austria, the jurisdiction and rights over Gersau fell into the hands of Lucerne nobility. On 1359, Gersau allied with the Old Swiss Confederacy as a protectorate of the Confederacy, for its protection and to gain arms from the confederates. On 9 July 1386, the citizens of Gersau fought with the Swiss for the first time, on the battlefield of Sempach, where the banner of Count Rudolf of Hohenzollern was captured.

Republic of Gersau

The Republic of Gersau (called "altfrye Republik Gersau", literal "old-free Republik Gersau", in early modern times) was an independent small state in the area of today's Canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. It was created in 1390 when the residents of the village of Gersau bought themselves free from the rule by bailiffs from Lucerne and from then on exercised their rights themselves. In 1433 they were officially granted the status of a direct imperial free state in the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Sigismund. After that, Gersau took care of its internal affairs for over three and a half centuries. Within the Confederation, the republic was a place that turned towards it and was under the protection and patronage of the four forest sites (Luzern, Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden).

With the French invasion of 1798, the republic fell and was assigned to the canton of Waldstätten during the time of the Helvetic Republic. The mediation constitution decreed by Napoleon Bonaparte attached the village to the canton of Schwyz. After the end of Napoleon's rule, the inhabitants again proclaimed the Republic of Gersau in 1814, which was recognized by the old umbrella towns. Based on the provisions of the Congress of Vienna and the Federal Treaty of 1815, the canton of Schwyz strove to incorporate the 23.7 square kilometer republic located between the southern slope of the Rigi and the northern shore of Lake Lucerne. This was achieved in 1817 with the approval of the Diet. On January 1, 1818, the republic was dissolved; their area today forms the Gersau district.

Gersau purchased its liberty from the counts of Habsburg in 1390 for the sum of 690 Pfunds in pfennigs. The fate of the Vogtei and whether or not the municipality pledged to the Confederacy was then in the hands of Lucerners John, Peter and Agnes von Moos; as a result, the jurisdiction, Vogtei and tax rights went to the courtiers of Gersau, allowing a free municipality without being mortgaged to some other power. In Basel, in 1433, Gersau received original confirmation of the ancient freedoms, rights and privileges from Emperor Sigismund, thus becoming a Reichsunmittelbar municipality under the direct protection of the Holy Roman Emperor, with its own courts, covering an area of 24 km2.

During the French Revolutionary Wars Gersau was annexed into the Helvetic Republic, becoming a district of the canton of Waldstätten. After the Act of Mediation and the collapse of the Helvetic Republic, Gersau became a district of the canton of Schwyz until 1814, when it regained its independence, with Schwyzer approval, centred on the 1745 Rathaus, containing council chambers and a courtroom (now a museum).

In 1817, the Tagsatzung decided, on the basis of the Congress of Vienna and the first article of the Federal Treaty that Gersau should be united with the canton of Schwyz, which took effect the following year, against its wishes, becoming the sixth and last district of the canton of Schwyz.