History of Valais

[3] Due to the extension of Lake Geneva, whose surface was at 405 m, which at that time filled the Rhône plain as far as the Saint-Maurice cluse, it seems that reindeer, and hence the Magdalenian culture, did not penetrate the Valais,[4] although a settlement is attested in the Chablais vaudois at Villeneuve.

[5] The lowering of Lake Geneva's water level during the Epipaleolithic period enabled Azilian culture to spread into the Chablais region, but less probably upstream of the Saint-Maurice cluse.

By the end of the Late Neolithic, local metallurgy was very primitive.As early as the xxi century BC, traces of the Bronze Age were discovered throughout the upper Rhône valley.

During the Gallic War, Julius Caesar, with the help of the Thunderbolt Twelfth Legion (Legio XII Fulminata) under the command of Servius Galba, attempted to occupy Martigny, the key to the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass (Summus Poenus), but the Romans withdrew after their hard-fought victory at the Battle of Octodurus in autumn 57 BC.

The organization of the province seems classical, with several epitaphs referring to duoviri iuri dicundo, indicating the presence of two judges, probably elected for annual terms as elsewhere in the empire.

To facilitate troop mobility in anticipation of the invasion of the British Isles in 49, the Romans may have made the strategic Mont-Joux pass road passable, but this hypothesis is debated.

But as soon as imperial power in Gaul came to an end (454), foreshadowing its definitive fall in 476, the Valais was rapidly incorporated into the Kingdom of Burgundy: society was governed by the Gombette law as soon as it was promulgated by Gundobad in 502, and the future king Sigismund (in 515) founded the abbey of Saint-Maurice.

Shortly afterwards, around 585, probably to protect it from looting and perhaps following an assassination attempt on the bishop by monks from Saint-Maurice, the episcopal see was moved from Octodure to Sion, which had meanwhile become the region's principal city.

[54] Saracens, moving up the Rhone valley from the Mediterranean, sacked and occupied Saint-Maurice in 940; they were expelled from the kingdom of Arles in 974 by a popular uprising, marked by the battle of Tourtour (973), shortly after taking the abbot Maïeul de Cluny hostage in July 972 on the road from the Grand-Saint-Bernard to Orsières, at the Château du Châtelard.

[56] Surprisingly, the boundaries of the commitatis vallensis were not clearly defined; it wasn't until the 11th century that the border was fixed near the Dranse at Martigny, at the place known as Croix d'Ottans, a hamlet that no longer exists today.

With the disappearance of the great secular seigneuries, the limited power of ecclesiastics other than the bishop, and the grouping of communes into dizains, the council evolved in the 14th century into a body that met on request - but at least once, then twice a year - to deal with the affairs of the country.

After the disappearance of the great secular estates, the nobility no longer participated as a special body, but they retained their influence in the dizains, and their delegates were often chosen from among their descendants.Similarly, the seigneuries and communes of the Savoy-dominated Lower Valais were regularly represented in the States of Savoy in the 14th century.

The Prince-Bishop continued to fight against the last great feudal lords of the Upper Valais: the Rarogne family was defeated at the Battle of Ulrichen during the Raron affair (1410-1419).

On January 28, 1446, the Articles of Naters, wrested from the bishop, gave legislative power to the Diet; they were annulled on February 7, 1451, by his newly elected successor, Henri Asperlin.

The conflict resumed with Walter Supersaxo's successor, Jost von Silenen.At the end of the Ossola Wars between 1484 and 1495, unsuccessful attempts (as at the Battle of Crevola in 1487) to annex the eponymous valley belonging to the Duchy of Milan, the Bishop of Sion, Jost von Silenen, allied with France, signed a peace treaty with Milan in 1495: the southern slopes of the Simplon as far as Gondo were incorporated into the Valais.

Although the presence of Protestants in Valais was attested to as early as September 1524, the choice of religion was a means of exerting pressure on the bishop, as a major conversion could lead to the secularization of episcopal property.

Under the impetus of Michel Mageran, a Protestant notary from Leuk, who converted to Catholicism in 1624 to take up political office, power was concentrated in the hands of the Diet and Councils.

In 1640, Gaspard Jodoc Stockalper organized a mail service between Milan and Geneva via the Simplon Pass, and financed a canal between Vouvry and Collombey to lower the cost of transporting salt, for which he had a monopoly.

The executive power was completely separate: it consists of a three-member Council of State appointed by the Diet; its president bears the title of Grand Bailiff.

Moreover, as soon as France promulgated a law on May 30, 1806, prohibiting the import and transit of goods from England, the legislative transposition of Napoleon's continental blockade, the problem of contraband arose.

He ordered the raising of a defensive troop, and despite the council's refusal, the deputies of the Haut réunis reluctantly granted him 400 men and appointed a delegation to represent Valais to the Prince of Schwarzenberg, commander of the army of occupation.

This structure, whose composition varied according to local diets and Simbschen's decisions, was dissolved on January 24 after it refused to raise 466 additional men to create a battalion to serve Austria.

[84] Napoleon I abdicated and left Fontainebleau on April 20, 1814; two days later, a French officer arrived at the Great St Bernard Pass from Ivrea with a request for an armistice, which was ignored by the provisional government.

Mediation took place with representatives from the United Kingdom, Stratford Canning and Henry Unwin Addington, Austria, Franz-Alban von Schraut, and Russia, Ioannis Kapodistrias and Paul de Krüdner.

With the start of the Hundred Days, a government of union, with military powers, was set up and, after some procrastination, the Lower Valais agreed to take part.

Finally, the transit of goods via the Simplon was declining: the Kingdom of Sardinia imposed heavy taxes on it, and traffic tended to shift to Mont Cenis.

On November 30, 2,000 Valais citizens gathered on the Place de la Planta in Sion to dismiss the government; they also introduced laws designed to reduce the influence of Catholic prelates in politics.

[89] Relations between Church and State gradually normalized with the accession of Alexis Allet to the cantonal government, then with the appointment of Bishop Adrien VI Jardinier in 1875: a definitive arrangement was finally signed in 1879.

In 1907, a new cantonal constitution came into force.In 1910, Géo Chavez became the first aviator to cross the Alps by air, flying from Brig to Domodossola over the Simplon Pass, but dying just a few metres from his landing point.

During World War II, the Valais became a strategic location within the reduced national territory, particularly under Italian pressure in the south and German troops at Le Bouveret.