German Imperial Knights

Noble Misfits between Princely Authority and the Crown, 1479–1648

Richard J. Ninness

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000285048
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

The German imperial knights were branded disobedient, criminal, or treasonous, but instead of finding themselves on the wrong side of history, they resisted marginalization and adapted through a combination of conservative and progressive strategies. The knights tried to turn the elite world on its head through their constant challenges to the princes in the realms of both culture and governance. They held their own chivalric tournaments from 1479-1487, and defied the emperor and powerful princes in refusing to obey laws that violated custom. But their resistance led to a series of disasters in the 1520s: their leaders were hunted down and their castles destroyed. Having failed on their own, they turned to Emperor Charles V in the 1540s and the imperial knighthood was formed. This new status stabilized their position and provided them with important rights, including the choice between Lutheranism and Catholicism. During the Reformation era (1517-1648), no other German group embraced diversity in religion like the imperial knights. Despite the popularity of Protestantism in the group, they stood up to their princely adversaries, now Protestant, becoming champions of the Catholic Church and proved themselves just as staunch defenders of the Church as the Habsburg and Wittelsbach dynasties.

1Free Knights’ Dilemma

Stubbornly independent, dedicated to family and their noble knightly community, the free knights stood up to the princes of the great houses of Habsburg (Austria), Hesse, Hohenzollern (Brandenburg, Ansbach/Kulmbach), Wettin (Saxony), Wittelsbach (Bavaria and Palatine Electorate), Württemberg, and Baden. The rivalry and resulting disagreements among princes provided the knights with room to maneuver, and through multiple ties to princes as vassals and officials, they performed a diplomatic dance to outwit vastly more powerful opponents. Because of that, and the patchwork world of territories and often conflicting rights that was the Holy Roman Empire, they could hold the princes at bay even with violence if necessary, but they occupied a dangerous space as outsiders when viewed by the larger power structure that questioned their independence and barred them from participating in the Empire’s governance.

The example of the Guttenberg family will help clarify the issues at stake for the free knights.¹ In 1482, Philip von Guttenberg started building a new home next to the family castle Altguttenberg. Located in Franconia, the Guttenbergs’ estates bordered the lands of two princes: the prince-bishop of Bamberg as well as the Hohenzollern margrave. Built in 1315, the Guttenbergs were the sole owners of the castle. As allodial property, it was owned outright by the Guttenberg family, making it independent of princely authority, and as such, a symbol of knightly freedom. Part of castle Altguttenberg had burned down years before, but Philip built on the ruins. He probably had permission from the other members of the family because work continued for many years without incident until his new home began to take on the form of a real castle. This addition became a matter of concern for the neighboring prince Margrave Frederick von Hohenzollern. The margrave, however, did have a few ways he could pressure the family. Christoph, a cousin of Philip, also lived in Altguttenberg. He was an important official for Frederick, first as his counselor and later, after he fell in with the margrave against Philip, he became master of the court, one of his most important officials in the margraviate. The margrave also had a right of entrance to Altguttenberg from the fourteenth century. This was an agreement that in times of war allowed the Hohenzollerns to have access to the castle, which in 1489, the margrave tried to use to gain entrance to the castle Altguttenberg. While we don’t know what the margrave’s intentions were at that time, we do know that the Guttenbergs found this request alarming and refused to let him come in the castle.

Christoph, who owned a third of Altguttenberg, began to quarrel with Philip over the castle’s construction, because it took too much of the family’s common land, as well as other grievances. With emotions flaring and no resolution of the disagreements, Christoph gave over his part of the castle as a fief to Margrave Frederick. As a result of this exchange, Christoph became a vassal of the margrave. One-third of the castle became Frederick’s property. Although he transferred it back to his vassal Christoph, the margrave was now lord over part of the castle with the responsibility to provide protection; more ominously for the Guttenbergs, this resulted in Frederick’s ability to interfere in their affairs. Therefore, converting an allodial possession into a fief was a drastic step. Christoph’s action required the other family members to respond to this threat and seek protection from a prince, especially Philip. Philip gave over his part of Altguttenberg and his newly built castle Neuguttenberg to the Wittelsbach duke George of Bavaria-Landshut, and entered his service as an official. This was a smart move on Philip’s part because the Wittelsbach prince had butted heads with the Hohenzollerns in the past. This transaction was exactly what Margrave Frederick wanted to avoid: the Bavarian duke challenging the Hohenzollerns by expanding deeper into Franconia. Philip continued the construction on the castle.

Once again problems arose in 1494, when Frederick opposed the castle, but Duke George supported Philip, and that ended the matter for a time since there are no records or sources from 1494 to 1497. In 1497, however, Philip permitted the Wittelsbach duke to station troops in Neuguttenberg. He was also building a moat for a drawbridge. In response, Frederick declared a feud against the Guttenbergs. After delivering a letter announcing the feud, the margrave arrived at the head of an army and massed it before Altguttenberg, but Philip refused to yield and shouted that the Hohenzollerns “would have to strangle them first,” which enraged Frederick to the point that he wanted to challenge Philip to a duel.² Instead, the margrave had cannons brought in, the Guttenbergs fled, and he was able to seize Altguttenberg without violence while Bavarian troops looked on from Neuguttenberg. At this time, Philip’s cousin Moritz also began fighting against the Hohenzollerns. In retaliation for taking Altguttenberg, Moritz burned down a Hohenzollern counting house in Castel after allowing an official to take the tax rolls to safety. In July 1498, Frederick with 2,500 troops and cannons marched on a castle in Wittelsbach territory where Philip was holed up and captured him.

The Franconian knighthood tried for years to intervene and reach a settlement between the parties to no avail. In 1498, the princes George and Frederick met and attempted to reach a compromise. In the end, these efforts failed, and in 1500, Philip died in his prison cell amid rumors of harsh conditions, unleashing a new round of violence. Moritz rode through the margraviate taking Hohenzollern subjects prisoners, pillaging, and burning property. Margrave Frederick had an advantage as a result of his excellent relationship with the ruler Maximilian and used his contacts and status as a prince to have Moritz declared under the imperial ban making him an outlaw.³ Moritz justified his actions to the Franconian knighthood by publishing an apologia in 1500, making an impassioned plea for justice. He argued, since the margrave illegally seized his family’s castle, he had a right to defend himself. The feud ended in 1502 with both parties losing. The margrave had failed to achieve his goals of the destruction of the new castle and the submission of Altguttenberg. The Guttenbergs had gone from a strong independent position to granting their allodial property to three different princes: the prince-bishop of Bamberg, the Hohenzollern margrave, and the Bavarian duke. The Hohenzollerns now had to confront the Bavarians, their competitors, with an outpost deep in Franconia, and the Guttenberg family now had three new liege lords.

This Guttenberg example raises many of the issues that make the imperial knights complicated subjects to study because they are difficult to categorize. They are commonly referred to by historians as imperial knights throughout the late Middle Ages and early modern period, but this moniker is deceiving, because they don’t become the emperor’s knights until 1544. Before then, they were free knights and the emperor didn’t figure much in their lives and, if anything, was on the side of the princes. That would gradually change in the course of the sixteenth century. As free knights and independent lords, they competed against neighboring princes. As we saw before, the margrave did not want an increase in the power of the Guttenbergs through a new castle. Both the Guttenbergs and the Hohenzollerns justified their actions based on mutually contradicting premises. Knights saw themselves as equal to the princes, both subject to the same laws, but princes disagreed and wanted knights to subordinate themselves to their vision of princely authority.⁴

For the knights, the difference in power was a matter of degree, and they could nullify the advantages of a prince through the feud—a form of asymmetrical warfare at which the knights excelled.⁵ Through the feud, they defended their independence and demonstrated their unique way of life as Free Franks and Free Swabians. Feuds functioned as managed violence. They had to be declared and needed a reason to be deemed legitimate. For the free knights, the feud was a fundamental instrument for defending right versus wrong, their freedom, and furthering their interests. They engaged in feuds for honor, to safeguard their rights, for gain, and to assist princes in proxy wars.⁶ This small-scale violence typically never solved the problem at hand but was a step toward conflict resolution by forcing the parties to negotiate a settlement. Based on landholding, office, and wealth, the most successful knights participated in feuds because higher placed knights could more easily afford the expense and risk of a feud.⁷

Despite their disagreements, free knights and princes both needed each other. But free knights existed inside and outside of a princely territory. They had fiefs from princes, were their vassals, served princes as officials, and fought for the princes in their wars. But they also had their own independent lordships, castles, and subjects, and to defend their homes became embroiled in feuds. There was a balancing act between having a prince protect and help them while also maintaining autonomy in competition with princes and presenting themselves as free lords.⁸ The way to maintai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Free Knights’ Dilemma
• 2 Marginality and Subversion
• 3 Institutionalization of a Peculiar Status in the Midst of the Reformation
• 4 Grumbach’s Attempt at a Nobles’ Revolution, Its Failure, and a New Status Quo
• 5 Imperial Knights and Imperial Church: Their Strategies in the Reformation Era
• 6 Imperial Knighthood, Multiconfessionalism, and the Counter-Reformation
• Conclusion: Imperial Knights as Noble Misfits
• Bibliography
• Index