House of Sax
They owned estates and castles on both sides of the Alps in the modern cantons of St. Gallen, Graubünden and Ticino.
[4] After the decline of the imperial Hohenstaufen family the Sax-Misox lost the Blenio Valley, Monte Dongo and Clanx Castle.
Caspar and Elizabeth's son, Johann von Sax-Misox (1390–1427) was initially in service to the Visconti family who were the Dukes of Milan.
In 1406 Albert of Sax was murdered by a distant cousin at the Torre Fiorenzana near Grono, possibly to gain favor with the Dukes of Milan.
[6] In 1413 Johann and another brother, Donat (mentioned 1400–23), supported Emperor Sigismund during his campaigns against the Venetians in Italy and were rewarded with the title of count and the right to mint coins.
On 16 March 1424, the leaders, including Johann of Sax-Misox, of the alliance met under a legendary maple tree in Trun to reaffirm and expand it into the Grey League.
After Frederick's death in 1436, the Sax-Misox family was one of the claimants to the Toggenburg lands, which led to the Old Zürich War in 1440.
Johann's son Count Heinrich of Sax-Misox (around 1418–last mention 1479) fought to receive the Toggenburg inheritance of his mother Catherine.
He was part of the Confederate army which attacked the Golden Ambrosian Republic in Milan and was decisively defeated at the Battle of Castione on 6 June 1449.
In 1458, when he was preparing to conclude an alliance with Milan, there was an uprising in the Grey League, which was settled amicably thanks to the mediation of the abbot of Disentis.
As Milan the still occupied the Misox valley, he sold it in 1480 to the Milanese commander Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.
The Appenzell Wars (1401–29) allowed Ulrich Eberhard the Younger (mentioned 1384–1414) and his wife Elizabeth of Werdenberg-Sargans to gain independence from the Habsburgs.
The son of Albert and Ursula, Ulrich of Hohensax (1463–1538) consolidated the family lands in the Rhine valley and the Thurgau and was the mayor of Zurich.
At the same time, in 1503, he represented the Confederation in the negotiations that lead to the Treaty of Arona which helped fix the Swiss southern border.
Johann Albrecht (1545–1597) killed Governor Georg Trösch of Sargans in a brawl[13] and fled to Spain, spending over 15 years in Spanish military service.
During his travels, he acquired the Codex Manesse, the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German Minnesang poetry, written and illustrated between ca.
He got into a dispute over inheritance with his brother Johann Albrecht, whose son Georg Ulrich 1596 mortally wounded him in Salez.
