Italy and a small town north of the Alps was not his concern. It did not last long � in 1255 Murten fell under the protection of Count Peter of Savoy. When Philip I of Savoy refused to give Murten to him, King Rudolph of Habsburg seized it as a royal estate. After Rudolf's death Amadeus V of Savoy, bought the city again in 1291, but lost it to King Albert I of Germany again. The House of Savoy bought the city and surrounding lands again in 1310 for 4,000 marks of silver. This time the city remained under Savoy control. During this time, Murten began to develop alliances and ties with the surrounding Swiss cities. In 1245 they created a treaty with Fribourg, followed in 1335 with Bern.
A fire in 1416 led to rebuilding in stone.
On 22 June 1476, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, laid siege to the place in an action known as the Battle of Murten. The town hung on for 13 days but finally was saved by the Bernese army. The enemy's army was destroyed completely � some 10,000 Burgundians were killed. Since then, Murten celebrates the victory every year on June 22.
From 1484 on, and for 300 years, Murten was ruled by the two cantons � Bern and Fribourg. In 1530, under pressure from Bern, Murten adopted the Protestant Reformation, after the preacher Guillaume Farel began to preach the new faith. Murten's Protestant faith often brought the city into conflicts with the more conservative, Catholic Fribourg.
During the second half of the 17th century the city grew wealthy on trade over the road from Bern to Vaud and along the Broye river toYverdon. Most of the houses in the city were rebuilt with this wealth. Although Bern and Fribourg had already granted Murten permission in 1584 to form guilds, the coopers, carpenters, locksmiths and cabinet makers first formed their guilds in 1731. In the late 17th century a brickyard and a brewery were built outside of town.
Following the 1798 French invasion, under the Helvetic Republic Murten
