Aegidius Tschudi

[1] Tschudi later attended a boarding school in Basel run by Heinrich Glarean, with whom he maintained a lifelong correspondence.

[1] Beginning his political career, Tschudi served as bailiff of Sargans from 1530 to 1532, of Rorschach (on behalf of the Prince-Abbot of St. Gall) from 1532 to 1533, and of the County of Baden from 1533 to 1535 and from 1549 to 1551, where he had his first contact with Roman antiquities on the site of Vindonissa.

[1] He played an increasingly important role in the canton of Glarus in the 1550s, as councillor, vice-landamman, and finally as chief magistrate or landamann from 1558 to 1560.

[2] This book was designed practically as an introduction to his magnum opus, the Chronicon Helveticum, part of which (from 1001 to 1470) was published by J. R. Iselin in two stately folios (1734–1736); the rest consists only of rough materials.

[2] Tschudi worked from both documents and legends to portray the ancient traditions of the Swiss defence of liberty, giving roles not only to William Tell but to the heroic moment of the foundation of the Confederacy, when Werner Stauffacher representing Schwyz, Walter Fürst of Uri and Arnold of Melchtal for Unterwalden meet at the Rutli, a meadow above Lake Lucerne, and take an oath to defend Swiss freedom.

His statements and documents relating to Roman times and the early history of Glarus and his own family had long roused suspicion.

Detailed examination has proved that he not merely claimed to have copied Roman inscriptions that had never existed, and amended others in an arbitrary fashion, but that he deliberately forged documents to push back the origin of his family to the 10th century.