Swabian

The Swabians speak the Swabian dialects of Alemannic Upper German in the upper Neckar and Danube. Their forebears, the Suebi, formed the core of the Alemannic confederation in the 200s and crossed the Rhine in 406; after the Frankish victory at Tolbiac in 496 their country became the stem duchy of Swabia, whose Saint Gall and Reichenau abbeys led Old High German letters.

Swabia's Hohenstaufen dukes wore the imperial crown until Conradin was executed in 1268; the duchy then shattered into free cities, counties and church lands. These small states formed the Swabian League of 1488, which conquered Württemberg in 1519, helped crush the Peasants' Revolt of 1524–1526 and broke up over the Reformation in 1534. The Swiss Confederacy effectively split away after the Swabian War of 1499.

The 1803 imperial reorganization mediatized most free cities and lordships, leaving Württemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; eastern Swabia went to Bavaria. The Swabian vernacular persisted in town and village, finding literary voice in Sebastian Sailer of the 1700s.