Sundgau, Landgraviate of

The Landgraviate of Sundgau (also known as Landgraviate of Upper Alsace), the successor of the Carolingian county, has been administered by the counts of Habsburg since 1135.

They had owned the adjacent County of Sundgau even earlier.

The Habsburgs enlarge their possessions in the area with numerous acquisitions in the following centuries, until by the mid-fourteenth century almost all of the former Carolingian county is in the possession of Habsburg.

Their consolidated territories in the area become known simply as the Sundgau, and belong to the Austrian Circle of the Empire after 1512.

The Habsburgian Sundgau is administered from Ensisheim by a bailli (bailiff or seneschal) and divided into four bailiwicks (Landser, Thann, Altkirch and Ferrette).

Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy tries unsuccessfully to claim the Sundgau during the Gugler War of 1375.As of 1500, the Austrian Sundgau encompasses most of the southern Alsace and is bordered by the following states (from the north, clockwise): Imperial City of Colmar, County of Württemberg, the Austrian Breisgau, the Margraviate of Baden, the Imperial City of Basel, the Bishopric of Basel, the County of Württemberg (County of Montbéliard), the Duchy of Lorraine, the Abbacy of Murbach, and the Bishopric of Strasbourg (the Mundat).

The Imperial City of Mulhouse forms an enclave surrounded by the Sundgau.The Reformation does not trouble Sundgau, despite the proximity of Basle and Mulhouse.

The country maintains its fidelity to the religion of the Habsburgs, Catholicism.Commencing in 1632, the Thirty Years' War breaks upon Sundgau, with a violence unprecedented in the history of the region.

The Swedish, supported by France, invade the country, pillaging and burning all in their path.

In reaction, the inhabitants of the countryside revolt.

The rebellion is subdued, however, and the Swedes hang the ringleaders from roadside trees.

From 1634, the Swedes cede their fortresses to the French, and in 1648 the war ends with the Treaty of Westphalia.

The butcher's bill is disastrous—some parts of Sundgau have lost up to eighty percent of their population.

The country becomes French, and in 1659, the counthood of Ferrette will be granted to Cardinal Mazarin (nominally by the then twenty-one-year-old Louis XIV).

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