The Imperial free town of Sankt Gallen (Saint Gall) applies for help to the Swiss district of Appenzell when its former suzerain, the Abbey of St. Gall, illegally demands a return to earlier status and assessments on the towns’s extensive textile trade.
Appenzell, itself a feudatory of the abbey, allies itself with Schwyz, another Imperial free town, and defies the abbey.
In 1403, the abbey had dispatched a monastic army against Appenzell, but the towns’ defenders had repulsed the attack.
Two years later, abbey forces—now aided by the oppressive Habsburg Duke Frederick of Austria—attack both the village and Appenzell, but are again defeated.
Rupert, King of Germany orders (with no legal basis for so doing) the rebel polities to return to the control of the abbey, but Appenzell and St. Gall seek help from the Swiss Confederation.
