Rudolf Brun
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Brun was the leader of the Zürich guilds
Zünfte of Zürich
There are fourteen historical Zünfte of Zurich, under the system established in 1336 with the "guild revolution" of Rudolf Brun...

' revolution of 1336, and the city's first independent mayor.

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
Fraumünster
The Fraumünster abbey in Zurich was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zurich, Uri, and the Albis forest, and granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority.- History :In 1045, King Henry III...

.

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
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

hood. The remaining 13 councillors were the guild masters of the city's 13 guilds (Zünfte
Zünfte of Zürich
There are fourteen historical Zünfte of Zurich, under the system established in 1336 with the "guild revolution" of Rudolf Brun...

). 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
Rapperswil-Jona is a municipality in the Wahlkreis of See-Gaster in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.Besides Rapperswil and Jona, which were separate municipalities until 2006, the municipality includes Bollingen, Busskirch, Curtiberg, Kempraten-Lenggis, Wagen, and Wurmsbach.-Today:On...

, at the battle of Grinau. 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
Rapperswil Castle
Rapperswil Castle is a castle in the city of Rapperswil. It is located on the eastern shore of the Lake Zurich and belongs to the municipality of Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland...

 were destroyed by Brun. Zürich under Brun joined the Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....

 in 1351.

A result of Brun's revolution was a decrease of the influence of the city's two monasteries, the Grossmünster
Grossmünster
The Grossmünster is a Romanesque-style church in Zurich, Switzerland. It is one of the three major churches in the city . The core of the present building near the banks of the Limmat River was constructed on the site of a Carolingian church, which was, according to legend, originally commissioned...

 and the Fraumünster
Fraumünster
The Fraumünster abbey in Zurich was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zurich, Uri, and the Albis forest, and granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority.- History :In 1045, King Henry III...

, 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 Zwingli
Ulrich Zwingli was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly centre of humanism...

's reformation
Reformation in Switzerland
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate and population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss...

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

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