An appreciable body of this persuasion still remains in the country, together with a number of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Romanists, but the large majority of the people belong to two Greek Catholic churches.
{146} CHAPTER III SWITZERLAND SECTION 1.

ZWINGLI [Sidenote: The Swiss Confederation] Amid the snow-clad Alps and azure lakes of Switzerland there grew up a race of Germans which, though still nominally a part of the Empire, had, at the period now considered, long gone on its own distinct path of development.

Politically, the Confederacy arose in a popular revolt against the House of Austria.

The federal union of the three forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, first entered into in 1291 and made permanent in 1315, was strengthened by the admission of Lucerne (1332), Zug (1352), Glarus (1351) and of the Imperial Cities of Zurich (1351) and Berne (1353).

By the admission of Freiburg and Solothurn (1481), Basle (1501), Schaffhausen (1501) and Appenzell (1513) the Confederacy reached the number of thirteen cantons at which it remained for many years.