Waldstätte

Waldstätte ("forested sites", singular Waldstatt) is a term, which has been used since the early thirteenth to refer to the Stätte (singular: Statt, "sites"), or later Ort (plural: Orte, "lieu") or Stand (plural: Stände, "estate") of the early confederate allies of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden in Central Switzerland.

From 13th to 19th centuries, the term Waldstätte also synoptically referred to the nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden; later, the term was gradually replaced by the term Urschweiz.

The term Wald ("forest; woods") is to be understood in contrast to Forst, the former in Middle High German terminology referring to cultivated land of alternating pastures, fields and woods, while the latter referred to deep, uncultivated forests (silva invia et inculta).

The Middle High German terms Waldstette or Stette is used alongside Stett (in the sense of "town") and Lender (in the sense of rural countrysides) in reference to the individual confederate allies into the first half of 15th century and became gradually replaced by the term Ort ("lieu") or Stand ("state"), which stayed prominent in German-speaking Switzerland until Helvetic Republic; the term canton was still unknown for the German-speaking allies until 1650.

The first recorded use of the term specifically as referring to the wooded valleys of Central Switzerland is in a document dated 1289, mentioning ze Swiz in der waltstat (i.e. "in Schwyz, in the wooded site").

In 1323, Glarus is named a Waldstatt alongside Schwyz. The application to the allies of the early Swiss Confederacy dates to 1309. In 1310, Duke Frederick the Fair complains about the king impeding his rights to the civitatibus Silvanis.

With the establishment of the Confederacy in the 1310s, the term is adopted as an exonym, and in the pacts which expanded the Confederacy, with Lucerne in 1332 and with Berne in 1353.

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