The Reformation in Geneva began as a political revolution, quickly followed by a religious revolution, both directed against the power of a prince-bishop. For centuries Geneva had been ruled by a prince-bishop as the headquarters of a large diocese extending over much of what is now south-western France. He had ruled this diocese in close collaboration with the duchy of Savoy. Many bishops had come from the ducal family. A concrete symbol of the Savoyard role in the city was the office of vidomne, an agent of Savoy sent into the city to regulate the administration of justice. Much of the strictly internal government of the city had been granted by earlier bishops to the local inhabitants, organized into a hierarchy of councils and represented before the bishop by agents called syndics.

There had been an important shift in the economy of Geneva late in the fifteenth century, away from trade in good part with Italy to trade increasingly with Germany and the Germanic areas making up the Swiss Confederation. This helped lead to a political alliance between the local government of Geneva and the Swiss governments of Fribourg and Bern. That alliance made possible the revolution against the prince-bishop and Savoy, although it was the militarily powerful republic of Bern alone that supported Geneva in the final climactic stages of revolution. Change was accomplished in a number of steps. One of the first was the creation of a new council, called the Council of Two Hundred, in imitation of a similar council in Bern, to increase local participation in government.