While the Burgundian Palatinate thus kept its history as an unit in European geography, the _Lesser Burgundy_ to the south-west of it had a different history. The geography here gets somewhat confused through the fact that this Lesser Burgundy, which in the twelfth century passed under the power of the _Dukes of Zähringen_ in Swabia as _Rectors_, took in some districts which were not parts of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦The eastern part German.♦ The eastern part of the kingdom itself was of German speech, and its frontier towards the German duchy of Alemannia or Swabia was somewhat fluctuating. The Aar may be taken as the boundary of the kingdom, while the Lesser Burgundy, as an administrative division, stretched somewhat further to the East. ♦Cities of the Lesser Burgundy.♦ Thus Basel, as well the foundations of the House of Zähringen at Bern and Freiburg, stood on strictly Burgundian ground, while the city of Luzern and the land of Unterwalden come under the head of the Lesser Burgundy, without forming part of the Burgundian kingdom. These lands long kept up their connexion with the Empire, though the Lesser Burgundy did not long remain as a separate unit. ♦Dukes of Zähringen. | End of their house, 1218.♦ When the House of Zähringen came to an end, the country began to split up into small principalities and free cities which gradually grew into independent commonwealths. ♦Break-up of the duchy. | Savoyard territory.♦ The counts of Savoy, of whom more presently, acquired a large territory on both sides of the Lake of Geneva. ♦Bishops, Counts, and Free Cities.♦ Other considerable princes were the bishops of _Basel_, _Lausanne_, _Geneva_, and _Sitten_, the counts of _Geneva_, _Kyburg_, _Gruyères_, and _Neufchâtel_. ♦The Free Lands.♦ _Basel_, _Solothurn_, and _Bern_ were Imperial cities. The complicated relations between the Bishops and the city of Geneva hindered that city from having a strict right to that title. In Unterwalden and in _Wallis_, notwithstanding the possessions and claims of various spiritual and temporal lords, the most marked feature was the retention of the old rural independence. ♦The Old League of High Germany.♦ Of the cities in this region, Luzern, Bern, Freiburg, Solothurn, and Basel, all gradually became members of the _Old League of High Germany_, the ground-work of the modern Swiss Confederation. ♦Conquests of Bern and Freiburg from Savoy, 1536.♦ The Savoyard lands north of the lake were conquered by Bern and Freiburg in the sixteenth century, a conquest which also secured the independence of Geneva. ♦The Burgundian cantons of Switzerland.♦ All these lands, after going through the intermediate stage of allies or subjects of some or other of the confederate cantons, have in modern times become independent cantons themselves. This process of annexation and liberation will be traced more fully when we come to the history of the Swiss Confederation.