William Tell

William Tell (German Wilhelm Tell, French Guillaume Tell) was a legendary hero of disputed historical authenticity who is said to have lived in the Canton of Uri in Switzerland in the early 14th century.

The history of the legend

The legend of William Tell appears first in the 15th century, in two different versions. One version, found e.g. in a popular ballad from around 1470 and then in the chronicles of Melchior Russ from Lucerne (written 1482 to 1488) portrays Tell as the main actor of the independence struggles of the founding cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy; the other, found in the Weisse Buch von Sarnen of 1470, sees Tell as a minor character in a complot against the Habsburgs led by others. Aegidius Tschudi, a catholic conservative historian, merged these two earlier accounts into the myth summarized above in 1570.

Related Topics:
15th century - 1470 - Melchior Russ - Lucerne - 1482 - 1488 - Old Swiss Confederacy - Aegidius Tschudi - 1570

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The story of a hero successfully shooting a small object from his child's head and then killing the tyrant who forced him to do it, however, is an archetype present in several germanic myths. The motif also appears in other stories from Denmark, England, and Holstein. François Guillimann, a statesman of Fribourg and later historian and advisor of the Habsburg emperor Rudolph II, wrote to Melchior Goldast in 1607: "I followed popular belief by reporting certain details in my Swiss antiquities , but when I examine them closely the whole story seems to me to be pure fable." (http://www.coe.int/T/e/cultural_co-operation/education/Teacher_training/Publications/Reports_of_seminars/Seminars_Offered_by_Member_States/198_DECS_SE_BS_SEM_91_5.asp) In 1760, Simeon Uriel Freudenberger from Berne anonymously published a tract arguing that the legend of Tell in all likelihood was based on the Danish saga of Palnatoke. (A French edition of his book, written by Gottlieb Emmanuel von Haller, was burnt in Altdorf.)

Related Topics:
Denmark - England - Holstein - François Guillimann - Fribourg - Rudolph II - Melchior Goldast - 1607 - 1760 - Simeon Uriel Freudenberger - Berne - Palnatoke - Gottlieb Emmanuel von Haller - Altdorf

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This view remained very unpopular, however. Friedrich von Schiller used Tschudi's version as the basis for his play William Tell in 1804, interpreting Tell as a glorified patriot assassin. This interpretation became very popular especially in Switzerland, where the Tell figure was instrumentalized in the early 19th century as a "national hero" and identification figure in the new Helvetic Republic and also later on in the beginnings of the Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, the modern democratic federal state that developed then. When the historian Joseph Eutych Kopp in the 1830s dared to question the reality of the legend, an effigy of him was burnt on the Rütli, the meadow above Lake Lucerne where—according to the legend—the oath was sworn that concluded the original alliance between the founding cantons of the Swiss confederacy.

Related Topics:
Friedrich von Schiller - 1804 - 19th century - Helvetic Republic - Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft - Joseph Eutych Kopp - 1830s - Effigy - Lake Lucerne

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Historians continued to argue over the saga until well into the 20th century. Wilhelm Öchsli published in 1891 a scientific account of the founding of the confederacy (commissioned by the government for the celebration of the first National holiday of Switzerland on August 1, 1891), and clearly dismissed the story as a saga. Yet 50 years later, in 1941, a time where Tell again had become national identification figure, the historian Karl Meyer tried to connect the events of the saga with known places and events. Modern historians generally consider the saga just that, as neither Tell's nor Gessler's existence can be proven. The legend also tells of the Burgenbruch, a coordinated uprising including the slighting of many forts; however, archeological evidence shows that many of these forts were abandoned and destroyed already long before 1307/08.

Related Topics:
1891 - National holiday - August 1 - 1941 - Slighting

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In popular culture, William Tell lives on as a "real" hero, though. He is still a powerful identification figure, and according to a recent survey, 60% of the Swiss believe that he really lived.

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A possible historical nucleus of the legend was suggested in 1986 by

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Arnold Claudio Schärer, (Und es gab Tell doch, published in Lucerne, ISBN 3-85725-106-2). He identified one Wilhelm Gorkeit of Tellikon (modern Dällikon in the Canton of Zurich). "Gorkeit" is explained as a version of the surname Armbruster (crossbow maker). Historians were not convinced by Schärer's claims, but it is still referred to by the nationalistic right sometimes, denouncing academic rejection of the hypothesis as an "internationalist conspiracy" http://www.schweizer-demokraten.ch/Schweiz/Aktuell/1_august-rede.htm.

Related Topics:
Lucerne - Dällikon - Canton of Zurich - Crossbow

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