three chief knightly associations of Swabia. The new king, Wenceslaus, hoped at first, like his father Charles, to check the federal movement by associating all estates of the realm under his own lead in Landfriedenseinigungen, but such a compact made at Heidelberg in 1384, although renewed at Mergentheim three years later, was a mere makeshift. The struggle between burghers and nobles was precipitated by the inclusion of the urban members of the Swiss confederation in the league in 1385 and the overthrow of Archduke Leopold of Austria by the latter at Sempach in the following year. A quarrel between the duke of Bavaria and the archbishop of Salzburg gave the signal for a general war in Swabia, in which the cities, weakened by their isolation, mutual jealousies and internal conflicts, were defeated by Count Eberhard II. at Döffingen (Aug. 24, 1388), and were severally taken and devastated. Most of them quietly acquiesced when Wenceslaus proclaimed a Landfriede at Eger in 1389 and prohibited all leagues between cities. The professed aims of the cities which had formed this league of 1376 were the maintenance of their imperial status (Reichsunmittelbarkeit) , security against sale or mortgage and against excessive taxation, the protection of property, trade and traffic, and the power to suppress disturbances of the peace. There is no trace of co-operation with the Hanseatic towns. The league necessarily opposed the pretensions of the emperors and the electoral princes, especially as set forth in the Golden Bull, and in accordance with the growing spirit of civil freedom demanded a share in the government, but that there was any widespread conscious desire for a fundamental change in the constitution, for the abolition of aristocratic privilege or for a republic, as certain historians maintain, is improbable (K. Klüpfel, Der schwabische Bund).
For nearly a century there was no great effort at federation among the Swabian cities, attention being diverted to the ecclesiastical controversies of the time, but there were partial and short-lived associations, e.g. the league of twelve Swabian cities in defence of their liberties in 1392, the Marbach league in 1405 against the German king, Rupert, and in 1441 the union of twenty-two cities (in 1446 thirty-one) headed by Ulm and Nuremberg, for the suppression of highway robbery. This latter union in 1449 formed a standing army and waged war on a confederation of princes led by Albert Achilles, afterwards elector of Brandenburg (q.v.).
The growing anarchy in Swabia, where the cities were violently agitated by the constant infringement of their liberties (e.g. the annexation of Regensburg by Bavaria in 1486), induced Frederick III., who required men and money for the Hungarian War, to conciliate the cities by propounding a scheme of pacification and reform. His commissioner, Count Hugo of Werdenberg, met the Swabian estates at Esslingen and laid before them a plan probably drawn up by Bertold, elector of Mainz, and on the 14th of February 1488 the Great Swabian League was constituted. There were four constituent parties, the archduke Sigismund of Austria, Count Eberhard V. (afterwards duke) of Württemberg, who became the first captain of the league, the knightly league of St George, and lastly twenty-two Swabian imperial cities. The league received a formal constitution with a federal council consisting of three colleges of nine councillors each, a captain and a federal court with judicial and executive powers. The armed force which was to police Swabia consisted of 12,000 foot and 1200 horse, each party contributing one-fourth. The league gained strength by the speedy accession of Augsburg and other Swabian cities, the margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Baireuth and Baden, the four Rhenish electors, &c., and in 1490 of Maximilian, king of the Romans, whom the league had helped to rescue from the hands of the Netherlanders in 1488. It did not render him the support he expected in his foreign policy, but it performed its primary work of restoring and maintaining order with energy and efficiency. In 1492 it compelled Duke Albert of Bavaria to renounce Regensburg; in 1519 it expelled the turbulent duke, Ulrich of Württemberg, who had seized Reutlingen, and it sold his duchy to Charles V.; and in 1523 it defeated the Franconian knights who had taken up arms with Franz von Sickingen. In 1525, Truchsess, the league captain, aided by the forces of Trier and the palatinate, overthrew the rebel peasants of Königshofen on the Tauber and at Ingolstadt.
The league, which had been several times renewed, expired on the 2nd of February 1534, its dissolution being due to internal dissensions regarding the reformation. Futile attempts were made to renew it, in 1535 by the Bavarian chancellor, Eck, and in 1547 by Charles V.
See E. Osann, Zur Geschichte des schwäbischen Bundes (Giessen, 1861); K. Klüpfel, “Der schwäbische Bund” (in Hist. Taschenbuch, 1883-1884), Urkunden zur Geschichte des schwäbischen Bundes (Stuttgart, 1846-1853).
SWADLINCOTE, a town in the southern parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 15 m. S.S.W. of Derby, and 4 m. S.E. of Burton-upon-Trent, on the Midland railway. Pop. (1901), urban district of Swadlincote district, 18,014. This includes the civil parishes of Swadlincote, Church Gresley and Stanton and Newhall, which together form a large industrial township, mainly devoted to the manufacture of
earthenware and fireclay goods. There are collieries in the neighbourhood.
SWAFFHAM, a market town in the south-western
parliamentary division of Norfolk, England; 111 m. N.N.E. from
London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district
(1901), 3371. The town lies high, in an open, healthy district.
The church of St Peter and St Paul is Perpendicular, a handsome
cruciform structure with central tower, and has a fine
carved roof of wood. The town, which has a town-hall and
assembly rooms, possesses iron foundries and a considerable
agricultural trade, with cattle fairs. At Castle Acre, 4 m. N.,
are the picturesque ruins of a Cluniac priory, founded shortly
after the Conquest by William de Warren. These comprise
portions of the church, including the fine west front, arcaded,
with three Norman doors and a Perpendicular window, with the
chapter-house, cloisters and conventual buildings. The majority
of the remains are Norman or Perpendicular. The castle of the
same founder has left little but its foundations, but it was erected
within the protection of a remarkable series of earthworks,
which remain in good condition. These are apparently in part
Roman, in part earlier. The site, on which Roman coins,
pottery and other remains have been discovered, was on an
ancient trackway running north and south. It may be noted
that de Warren founded a similar castle and priory at Lewes
in Sussex. The church of St James, Castle Acre, contains good
Early English and Perpendicular work.
SWAHILI (Wa-Swahili, i.e. coast people, from the Arabic
sāhil, coast), a term commonly applied to the inhabitants of
Zanzibar and of the opposite mainland between the parallels
of 2° and 9° S., who speak the Ki-Swahili language. The
Swahili are essentially a mixed people, the result of long crossing
between the negroes of the coast and the Arabs, with an
admixture of slave blood from nearly all the East African tribes.
Among Swahili are found every shade of colour and every type
of physique from the full-blooded negro to the pure Semite.
Usually they are a powerfully built, handsome people, inclined
to stoutness and with Semitic features. They number about
a million. They figured largely in the history of African enterprise
during the 19th century. The energy and intelligence
derived from their Semitic blood have enabled them to take a
leading part in the development of trade and the industries,
as shown in the wide diffusion of their language, which, like
the Hindustani in India and the Guarani in South America,
has become the principal medium of intercommunication in a
large area of Africa south of the equator. During his journey
from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic (1873-1874) Commander
V. Lovett Cameron found that a knowledge of this language
enabled him everywhere to dispense with the aid of an
interpreter, as it was understood by one or more persons in all the
tribes along the route. Owing to this circumstance the Swahili
have been found invaluable assistants in every expedition from
the eastern seaboard to the interior after they began to be
