The Inheritance of Looting

At “Schlachtjahrzeiten” [annual battle commemorations], accounts of battle victories and the names of soldiers were read aloud in church, keeping the memory of past triumphs alive for the assembled congregation. At these events, narratives of communal victory were propagated and idealized. The flags hanging from the ceiling were like relics — bloodstained mementos of the ancestors’ hard-won victories that lent proof to the stories being celebrated.

The flags were public symbols that made history tangible and present. When accounts of the battle were read aloud from the pulpit, the assembled congregation could vividly imagine the battle and commemorate it by listening and by looking at the flags. These ceremonies sometimes formed the basis for later illustrated historical works — so-called chronicles written and illustrated by Diebold Schilling and others.

When captured flags were presented in churches and stories told with them, narratives of friend and foe became easier to articulate: ambiguities could be erased in favor of clear definitions and differentiations.

The Burgundian bowl is outfitted with an unusual portrait — an image of the Burgundian duke?

Charles the Bold (Karl der Kühne) was also idealized as a historical figure. His legendary reputation as a magnificently wealthy duke outlived his death. One encounters him in collections of portraits of history’s great rulers. In the 17th century, the Burgundian bowl — already engraved and lavishly reworked by the Strübin family — was outfitted with an additional medallion derived from a frequently reproduced portrait of Charles the Bold that originated during his own reign. Before this, the plain bowl had no visible connection to Burgundy at all. The medallion transforms the bowl into a personal item of the duke. This raised its symbolic value when it later became a trophy goblet.

In the city of Liestal’s possession after 1800, the Burgundian bowl remained a ritual drinking vessel — only now in the spirit of the city as part of the young Swiss nation-state rather than an only individual family. The family had expanded into a national community

The annual communal toast and drink, established by an endowment from Crispianus Strübin, continues to this day. The memory of the Strübin patrician family’s heroic story remained relevant even after the founding of the nation-state in 1848, and contributed to the glorification and idealization of the state. As in many Swiss cities, old ruling families were able to preserve their power and influence. Drinking from the captured bowl — and, later, from a copy — now took on the symbolism of a national history in which the people of Liestal situated themselves as active agents.

In the Bern arsenal, the suit of armor was presented as the steel garment of the city’s mythical founder.

The Bern armory was not merely a storehouse for military supplies, but also a testament to the power of the city, and a site where Bern’s glorious history was staged. Captured trophies and other objects — together with painted wooden mannequins, flags, and paintings — told stories of the emergence of what was, for a time, a very powerful city-state. Berchtold V., the legendary founder of Bern, played an important role in this history.

In the arsenal, the patrician leaders of Bern installed a painted wooden figure of Berchtold and dressed it in the Milanese armor. Such wooden figures stood at various points throughout the arsenal, functioning as small waystations of sorts, where important episodes of the glorious founding narrative were staged with martial pathos.

In the Bern Armory, mannequins clad in ancient armor symbolized the structure of power and notions of virility.

The old Confederates, victorious in battles such as those of the Burgundian Wars, are still regarded by some today as the epitome of the God-fearing, modest, duty-bound Swiss man. Accordingly, the armored mannequins in armory displays like the one in Bern, have always served as visual representations of “righteous,” warlike men. This is evident in the design of their faces. The wooden and clay masks of the warrior figures evolved in line with changing visual ideals of masculinity—from the elegant mustache of the 18th century to the rugged beard of the 19th century.

The warrior figures in the armories must have struck visitors as entertainingly grotesque, yet also somewhat frightening. Visitors described their menacing appearance in the dimly lit halls.

The Armory Master led visitors through the rooms and may have embellished the displays with stories.

Swiss propaganda frequently compared Charles the Bold to the Sultan Mehmed II, drawing on stereotypes of violent exoticism.

Charles the Bold was often described in propaganda as the “Turk of Burgundy”, or a “Turk in the west” who threatens Christendom. This painted an exotic image of the Duke, as a bloodthirsty tyrant, imbued with innuendo of sexual excess, and a greed for power- and jewels. When the Fugger family - who had tried to sell the Habsburgs the looted Burgundian jewels - presented the Austrians with a genealogical history (“Ehrenspiegel des Hauses Österreich”) in 1555, they also compared Charles’ fabulous hat with Suleyman the Magnificent’s bejeweled helmet.

Both objects were dismantled and their precious stones have vanished.

At certain moments in history, renewed interest arose in captured flags — for example, in the 19th century, following the founding of Switzerland in 1848, when they were incorporated into historical pageants promoting a new national cultural heritage.

In the 19th century, lavish historical pageants became an increasingly popular means of cultivating affective historical narratives. Cities, as well as the newly founded nation, staged pompous historical shows with casts of hundreds in front of large audiences to foment a sense of shared cultural values. The Burgundian Wars were a frequent subject of these dramatic performances.

Elaborate costumes, as well as replicas of captured flags, were carried by the participants as a means of making an “authentic” past come to life.

Because flags were easily recognizable even from far away, they allowed a broad public to identify the actors within the historical drama. They also lent a fictional sense of historical credibility.

Even today, flag tossing remains a skill put on display at events like the 32. Swiss Jodeling Festival (Eidgenössische Jodlerfest) which took place in Basel in June 2026. Watching the flag-tossers, one gets a sense of the ways in which flags as objects not only became animated when they moved, but also demanded training to be handled with pizzaz.

Booty bearing the coat of arms of Charles the Bold were especially coveted spoils of war. In the hands of the Confederate victors, the duke’s symbols of power became emblems of their triumph.

The Basel chaplain Johannes Knebel described in his chronicle that the people of Basel returned from the war with Charles the Bold on Wednesday, 14 March 1476. From the battlefield they brought back two large bombards — as Knebel calls the gun barrels — bearing the Burgundian coat of arms to Basel.

One of the great Confederate historical myths is that the booty was divided up fairly. In fact, however, the division processes was highly contested. In his Bern Chronicle, Diebold Schilling the Elder did not hold back his criticism of the plundering after Grandson. He describes the chaos after Murten as well: some of the assembled spoils were even stolen directly from the depot. The supposedly orderly and equal distribution of booty was more of a wishful dream than a reality.