Knights' Revolt - Brotherly Convention of Knights

Brotherly Convention of Knights

Franz von Sickingen, often called the ‘Last Knight’, lived most of his life along the Rhine. After spending some time in the service of the Emperor Maximillian against Venice, he spent many years terrorizing cities and Princes up and down the Rhine, which made him a very rich man. When the election of 1519 took place, he had accepted heavy bribes from Francis I of France, but had eventually led his troops to Frankfurt where their presence helped to ensure the victory of Charles V. After this, Von Sickingen had mounted an invasion of French Picardy for Charles.

Sickingen became acquainted with Ulrich von Hutten, a humanist Knight. Together, Hutten and Sickingen formulated a series of suggested reforms calling for the abolition of all independent principalities, for the unification of all German-speaking lands under one national government, the secularization of all church principalities and estates and establishment of a "noblemens democracy headed by a monarch." Hutten and Sickingen hoped that this program would be sufficient to encourage the peasantry to enthusiatically join the knights in bringing about reform.

Under Hutten's influence, Sickingen's castle of Ebernburg became a centre of Humanist and later Lutheran thinking, with many pamphlets emanating from the castle. Sickingen helped Johann Reuchlin escape from the Dominicans of Cologne, and sheltered other reformers such as Martin Bucer and Johannes Oecolampadius. He had even offered shelter to Martin Luther after the diet of Worms, but he had chosen to stay with Frederick of Saxony instead.

In 1522, while the Emperor was in Spain, Sickingen convened a ‘Brotherly Convention’ of Knights. The Convention elected him as their leader, and resolved to take by force that which the Knights had been unable to obtain through their poor representation in the Reichstag. The target chosen by the Knights to start their revolt was Richard Greiffenklau, Archbishop of Trier, a staunch opponent of Luther and his supporters. The excuse used for the attack was an unpaid ransom by two city councillors to another knight who had captured them some years ago. Sickingen’s declaration of war was full of religious rhetoric designed to encourage the people of the city to surrender and overthrow their Archbishop, and so save the Knights the trouble of a siege.