In 1414 met the famous Council convoked by the Emperor Sigismund to remedy the evils which galled the Church, that Council which by a strange irony of fate sentenced to death by fire John Huss, the staunch opponent of the very abuses which the Council was called to redress. The Council proved fatal to the Habsburg interests in Swiss lands. Frederick IV. of Austria--the enemy of Appenzell--refused his homage to the German monarch, and for material reasons espoused the cause of John XXIII., one of the three deposed popes. John gave a tournament to cover his departure, and during the spectacle fled in a shabby postillion's dress to the Austrian town, Schaffhausen, whither Frederick followed. Excommunicated and outlawed--within a few days no fewer than four hundred nobles sent challenges to him--Duke Friedel, as he was familiarly called by his faithful Tyrolese peasantry, who alone stood by him, was driven from his lands and from his people. On all sides German contingents fell upon his provinces. Sigismund called on the Eidgenossen in the name of the empire to march on Aargau, his ancestral land, promising them the province for themselves. As they had just renewed their peace with Austria, the Eidgenossen were unwilling to break it, but it was urged by the emperor that their promise to Frederick was not binding. Bern, ever bent on self-aggrandisement, and determined to secure the lion's share if possible, threw away her scruples, and within seventeen days took as many towns and castles.[35] Zurich, consulting with the Eidgenossen, followed suit and seized Knonau. Lucerne took some fragment, and the Forest did likewise. Aargau, the retreat of the Habsburg nobles, offered no serious resistance; but Baden, which was seized by the Eidgenossen conjointly, the castle of Stein, the royal residence of the Habsburgs, was being stormed, when Sigismund tried to stop the siege; for Frederick in despair had in the meantime made an abject submission, and most of the confiscated lands were restored to him. However, the Eidgenossen were unwilling, because of the emperor's wavering policy, to relinquish so good a chance of adding to their territory. Matters were settled by their paying over a sum of money to Sigismund, who was ever in financial straits. Henceforth Friedel was nicknamed "With-the-empty-pocket."[36] Aargau was divided amongst the Eidgenossen as subject land, what they had seized separately becoming cantonal, and what conjointly federal, property. Baden and some other places became federal domains _(gemeine Herrschaften)_, over which each of the eight states in turn set a governor for two years. With this precedent we enter upon the curious period in which the Swiss cantons split into two sets, the governing and the governed.