Three Leagues
After about 1471 the three separate Leagues were allied together as the Three Leagues. The "Bundesbrief" of September 23, 1524 created a constitution for the Three Leagues that would remain until the Napoleonic dissolution of the League. However the League was not a unified state in the modern sense. The Three Leagues worked together as a federation of three states and virtually all affairs of the League were settled by referendum. The Three Leagues were also unique in early modern Europe for practicing a form of communalism, in which each League was founded, governed and defended through collective decisions.