republic · Germany and Central Europe
Canton of Fribourg
Origins
Duke Berthold IV of Zähringen founded Fribourg in 1157 on a rocky bend of the Saane. It passed to the Kyburgs and the Habsburgs and in 1452 to the Duchy of Savoy. After fighting beside the Swiss in the Burgundian Wars, it was released by Savoy and became a free imperial city in 1478, joining the Confederacy in 1481 together with Solothurn.
Rule and society
A small circle of patrician families ruled the city and its rural territory, which straddled the language border between French and German. Fribourg prospered from cloth and leather in the 15th century. It remained Catholic during the Reformation and became a centre of the Counter-Reformation: Saint Peter Canisius founded the Jesuit college of Saint Michael there in 1582.
Decline and legacy
The patrician regime fell to the French invasion of 1798, and Fribourg became part of the Helvetic Republic. Restored as a canton in 1803, it remains a bilingual Swiss canton.
Lineage
On the connections map
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- Canton of Fribourg was part of Old Swiss Confederacy1481 CE – 1798 CE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Canton of Fribourg. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/canton-of-fribourg
- MLA
- “Canton of Fribourg.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/canton-of-fribourg. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Canton of Fribourg.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/canton-of-fribourg.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Canton of Fribourg’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/canton-of-fribourg (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻