were non-Swiss, the Russians (475 in number) forming the
majority of the foreign students. Geneva is well supplied with
charitable institutions, hospitals, &c. Among other remarkable
sights of the city may be mentioned the great hydraulic establishment
(built 1882–1899) of the Forces Motrices du Rhône (turbines),
the singular monument set up to the memory of the late duke of
Brunswick who left his fortune to the city in 1873, and the Île
Jean-Jacques Rousseau now connected with the Pont des Bergues.
The house occupied by Rousseau is No. 40 in the Grand’ Rue,
while No. 13 in the same street is on the site of Calvin’s house,
though not the actual dwelling inhabited by him.
The real name of the city is Genava, that being the form under which it appears in almost all the known documents up to the 7th century, A.D., the variation Genua (which has led to great confusion with Genoa) being also found in the 6th century. But Geneva and Gebenna History.are of later date. The first mention of the city is made by Caesar (Bell. Galli. i. 6-7) who tells us that it was the last oppidum of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the territory of the Helvetii, with which it was connected by a bridge that, for military reasons, he was forced to destroy. Inscriptions of later date state that it was only a vicus of the Viennese province, while mentioning the fact that a gild of boatmen flourished there. But the many Roman remains found on the original site (in the region of the cathedral) of the city show that it must have been of some importance, and that it possessed a considerable commerce. About 400 the Notitia Galliarum calls it a civitas (so that it then had a municipal administration of its own), and reckons it as first among those of the Viennese. Probably this rise in dignity was connected with the establishment of a bishop’s see there, the first bishop certainly known, Isaac, being heard of about 400 in a letter addressed by St Eucherius to Salvius, while, in 450, a letter of St Leo states that the see was then a suffragan of the archbishopric of Vienne. It is possible that there may be some ground for the local tradition that Christianity was introduced into this region by Dionysius and Paracodus, who successively occupied the see of Vienne, but another tradition that the first bishop was named St Nazarius rests on a confusion, as that saint belongs to Genoa and not to Geneva.
About the middle of the 5th century A.D. it came into the possession of the Burgundians, who held it as late as 527 (thus leaving no room for any occupation by the Ostrogoths), and in 534 passed into the hands of the Franks. The Burgundian kings seem to have made Geneva one of their principal residences, and the Notitia (above named) tells us that the city was restaurata by King Gundibald (d. 516) which is generally supposed to mean that he first surrounded it with a wall, the city then comprising little more than the hill on which the present cathedral stands. That building is of course of much later date, but it seems certain that when (c. 513–516) Sigismund, son of King Gundibald, built a stone church on the site, it took the place of an earlier wooden church, constructed on Roman foundations, all three layers being clearly visible at the present day. We know that St Avitus, archbishop of Vienne (d. 518), preached a sermon (preserved to us) at the dedication of a church at Geneva which had been built on the site of one burnt by the enemy, and the bits of half-burnt wood found in the second of the two layers mentioned above, seem to make it probable that the reference is to Sigismund’s church. But Geneva was in no sense one of the great cities of the region, though it is mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary and in the Peutinger Table (both 4th century A.D.), no doubt owing to its important position on the bank of the Rhone, which then rose to the foot of the hill on which the original city stood. This is no doubt the reason why, apart from some passing allusions (for instance, Charles the Great held a council of war there in 773, on his first journey to Italy), we hear very little about it.
In 1032, with the rest of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles, it reverted to the emperor Conrad II., who was crowned king at Payerne in 1033, and in 1034 was recognized as such at Geneva by a great assembly of nobles from Germany, Burgundy and Italy, this rather unwilling surrender signifying the union of those 3 kingdoms. It is said that Conrad granted the temporal sovereignty of the city to the bishop, who, in 1162, was raised to the rank of a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, being elected, from 1215, by the chapter, but, after 1418, named directly by the pope himself.
Like many other prince-bishops, the ruler of Geneva had to defend his rights: without against powerful neighbours, and within against the rising power of the citizens. These struggles constitute the entire political history of Geneva up to about 1535, when a new epoch of unrest opens with the adoption of Protestantism. The first foe without was the family of the counts of the Genevois (the region south of the city and in the neighbourhood of Annecy), who were also “protectors” (advocati) of the church of Geneva, and are first heard of in the 11th and 12th centuries. Their influence was probably never stronger than during the rule as bishop (1118–1119) of Guy, the brother of the reigning count. But his successor, Humbert de Grammont, resumed the grants made to the count, and in 1125 by the Accord of Seyssel, the count fully acknowledged the suzerainty of the bishop. A fresh struggle under Bishop Ardutius (1135–1185) ended in the confirmation by Frederick Barbarossa, as emperor, of the position of the bishop as subject to no one but himself (1153), this declaration being strengthened by the elevation of the bishop and his successors to the rank of princes of the empire (1162).
In 1250 the counts of Savoy first appear in connexion with Geneva, being mortgagees of the Genevois family, and, in 1263, practically their heirs as “protectors” of the city. It was thus natural that the citizens should invoke the aid of Savoy against their bishop, Robert of the Genevois (1276–1287). But Count Amadeus of Savoy not merely seized (1287) the castle built by the bishops (about 1219) on the Île, but also (1288) the office of vicedominus [vidomne], the official through whom the bishop exercised his minor judicial rights. The new bishop, William of Conflans (1287–1295) could recover neither, and in 1290 had to formally recognize the position of Savoy (which was thus legalized) in his own cathedral city. It was during this struggle that about 1287 (these privileges were finally sanctioned by the bishop in 1309) the citizens organized themselves into a commune or corporation, elected 4 syndics, and showed their independent position by causing a seal for the city to be prepared. The bishop was thus threatened on two sides by foes of whom the influence was rising, and against whom his struggles were of no avail. In 1365 the count obtained from the emperor the office of imperial vicar over Geneva, but the next bishop William of Marcossay (1366–1377: he began the construction of a new wall round the greatly extended city, a process not completed till 1428) secured the withdrawal of this usurpation (1366–1367), which the count finally renounced (1371). One of that bishop’s successors, Adhémar Fabri (1385–1388) codified and confirmed all the franchises, rights and privileges of the citizens (1387), this grant being the Magna Carta of the city of Geneva. In 1401 Amadeus VIII. of Savoy bought the county of the Genevois, as the dynasty of its rulers had become extinct. Geneva was now surrounded on all sides by the dominions of the house of Savoy.
Amadeus did homage, in 1405, to the bishop for those of the newly acquired lands which he held from the bishop. But, after his power had been strengthened by his elevation (1417) by the emperor to the rank of a duke, and by his succession to the principality of Piedmont (1418, long held by a cadet branch of his house), Amadeus tried to purchase Geneva from its bishop, John of Pierre-Scisé or Rochetaillée (1418–1422). This offer was refused both by the bishop and by the citizens, while in 1420 the emperor Sigismund declared that he alone was the suzerain of the city, and forbade any one to attack it or harm it in any fashion. Oddly enough Amadeus did in the end get hold of the city, for, having been elected pope under the name of Felix V., he named himself to the vacant see of Geneva (1444), and kept it, after his resignation of the Papacy in 1449, till his death in 1451. For the most part of this period he resided in Geneva. From 1451 to 1522 the see was almost continuously held by a cadet of the house of Savoy, which thus treated it as a kind of appange.
