surges in Switzerland between 1500 and 1640, accounting for 31 plague years, and since 1580, smallpox outbreaks with an especially high mortality rate (80–90%) amongst children under the age of five occurred every four to five years. Nevertheless, the population in Switzerland grew in the 16th century from about 800,000 to roughly 1.1 million, i.e. by more than 35%. Absolutism on the rise This population growth caused significant changes in a pre-industrial society that could no longer significantly expand its territory. The dependence of the confederation on imports increased, and prices soared. In the countryside, settlements of estates increasingly lead to small and smallest properties insufficient to sustain a family, and a new class of daytalers (Tauner) grew disproportionally. In the cities, too, the number of poor rose. At the same time, rural subject territories became more and more (financially) dependent on the cities. The political power was concentrated in a few rich families, that over time came to consider their offices as hereditary and tried to limit them to their own exclusive circle. This solicited the response of both peasants and free citizens, who resented such curtailing of their democratic rights, and around 1523/25, also fuelled by the reformatory spirit, revolts broke out in many cantons, both rural and urban. The main objective of the insurgents was the restitution of common rights of old, not the institution of a new order. Although commonly called the Peasants' War, the movement also included the free citizens, who saw their rights restricted in the cities, too. Contrary to the development in the Holy Roman Empire, where the hostilities escalated and the rebellion was put down by force, there were only isolated armed conflicts in the confederation. The authorities, already involved in reformatory or counter-reformatory activities, managed to subdue these uprisings only by granting concessions. Yet the absolutist tendencies kept slowly transforming the democrat cantons into oligarchies. By 1650, the absolutist order was firmly established and would prevail for another 150 years as the Ancien Régime. Persecution of heretics The generally widespread intolerance of the time, as witnessed by the Inquisition, amplified by the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, left no place for dissenters. Anabaptists, who took the idea of deriving new societal rules from the direct study of Biblical sources even further than the Protestant reformers only into conflict not only with the established Churches over the question of baptism but also