The Counts of Gruyère

While the high mountainous regions of eastern Switzerland were early scaled and settled by the Germanic tribes, the western were still earlier inhabited by the ancient Celtic-He...

Twenty lords of Gruyere made up the line which maintained a singularly kindly and paternal rule over the differing people of their pastoral kingdom; all of one race, and all but...

In the middle of the thirteenth century the counts of Gruyere--who had so long been oppressed by the grasping prelates of the Church--came within the orbit of another power, tha...

Rodolphe IV, eldest son of Count Pierre, although sole inheritor of the title and authority of count, had two younger brothers Pierre and Jean, who perpetuated the strongly cont...

The inheritance of the estates Count Antoine had so diminished by his improvident generosity was bitterly contested by the husbands of his two sisters, but the duke of Savoy did...

Among the many benefits with which Count Francois' ability and sagacity had enriched his inherited estates were the acquisition of the seigneuries of Grandcour and Aigremont, an...

In view of the tender age and delicate health of his only son, Count Louis, having long enjoyed a formal alliance with Fribourg, thought it wise to make a like treaty with Berne...

The death of Count Jean in the beginning of the 16th century left to his son Jean II the task of upholding the old ideals of the Gruyere house against the continually growing de...

The three sons of Count Jean II not strangely reflected the conditions of their birth and the widely differing characters of their mothers. Francois, only son of his second marr...

Nearly four hundred years have passed since the fall of its counts, but the merciless march of democracy, although changing the government of Gruyere has left the people strange...