This is likely the reason that the relief force sent to Laupen was not led by the Bernese Schultheiss, Johann II von Bubenberg, who would have remained in the city preparing for a possible siege.

Rather than attempt an attack on the Freiburger siege lines, they drew up their army on a hill called the Bramberg, some 3 km east-northeast of Laupen Castle, as a challenge to their enemies to come and fight.

An unknown number of troops were left in the siege camp, to protect the equipment and prevent a sally by the 600 strong Bernese garrison.

The Bernese threw forward a screen of crossbowmen and stone-throwers to harass this advance but these quickly fell back as the Freiburgers closed.

This seems to have caused a panic in the rear ranks of the Bernese army and a large number (up to 2,000) men fled into the forest behind the Bramberg.

Despite their numerical advantage, the Freiburgers were quickly broken and fled away towards Laupen, the flight being led by the feudal contingent from Vaud.

[13] Showing great control, a part of the Bernese army reordered itself and marched to relieve the Forest Cantons, who were still surrounded by the Freiburger's cavalry.

[15] The evening was now drawing on, which limited pursuit, but the Bernese forces marched into Laupen, where celebrations and services of thanksgiving for the victory were held.

[16] The Habsburg force in the east could not reach Laupen in time for joining the battle and dispersed upon receiving news of the defeat.

The victory of the Bernese/Swiss against all odds, outnumbered two-to-one by an army containing such a force of mounted chivalry, came as a surprise, and chroniclers record that comments like "God himself must have become a Bernese citizen" were heard among the retreating Habsburg troops.

Fribourg acquired substantial territories in the vicinity of Bern, but these were all lost again in the wake of the Battle of Sempach, with the 1389 peace treaty between Habsburg and the Swiss Confederacy.

This permitted the rise of Bern as the most powerful city republic north of the alps by the early modern period, and paved the way for the accession of Fribourg as an associate of the Swiss Confederacy by 1454 and as a full member in 1481.

The battle is also the first occasion for which use of the Swiss cross as a badge to identify confederate troops is attested;[17] it was shown on combatants' clothing as two stripes of textile.

[18] It was the continued conflict with Albert II of Habsburg that prompted the accession of Zürich, Glarus, Zug and Bern to the confederacy, forming the Eight Cantons.

After a brief Habsburg-Confederate alliance against an external threat in the so-called Gugler war of 1375, the conflict re-emerged in the 1380s, culminating in the Habsburg defeat in the Battle of Sempach in 1386.