Sickingen's decision favoring Karl
followed the basic national desire for a German
ruler over Germany, and
was actually contrary to the original majority vote of the Cure princes.
He also resisted lucrative bribes from the other throne applicant, Franz
of France. At this juncture in his life, and because of his support for
the Habsburger emperor, Franz feels free of consequences for his feudal
behaviors, which is evidenced by his later actions. These actions followed
the methods of his previous successes, mainly the overturning of other
castle lords and seizure of their assets. This was more than likely caused
by financial difficulties and disagreement due to the costly and
unreimbursed
investment of backing the Habsburg imperial house. In addition to being
cited for breaking the lands peace, he loses his command of the imperial
forces after a disappointingly risky failed military campaign in northern
France, which he lead in the service of the Habsburg emperor as an
"undefeatable" army leader. When Sickingen falls into disgrace with the
Habsburgers, he ironically takes up service with the king of France.
The last three years of Sickingens life
are defined by three closely linked and intertwined situations: Franz's
relationship to the reformation, his leadership position within the
South German
knight's order, and at the end, the "Trier feud".
In 1519, Franz has an decisive encounter
with Ulrich von Hutten, whose utopian spirit and idealism contributed
substantially to induce the situation that lead to his downfall. Hutten
convinces his friend Franz into the world philosophy of human governance
shaped by nationalism, which is of course a decided opponent of the Holy
Roman hierarchy. Among the circle of
intellectualism around Hutten, the
heavily sword wielding, swashbuckling Sickingen learns the principals and
reasoning behind the Reformation, which for some time had been desired by
many Germans of the church, both heads and members.
It is therefore natural that by 1521/22
we find a set of the "church office of dismissed clergymen" (Martin
Butzer, Kaspar Aquila, Johannes Oekolampad, Johannes Schwebel) admitted
and supported within the protection of Sickingen's lands. His castles
Ebernburg and Nanstein had for some time been centers for reformatonal
promotion in the southwest of the realm. In all openness about his
relationship with the newly developing protestant church being
questionable, it probably did not permit the flamboyant personality of Sickingen to
find an internal relationship of
influence in the ecumenical problems of
church renewal. The reason for this was that like most of his
contemporaries, Knight Franz could hardly understand the internal soul/God
wrestling of monk Martin Luther. He stayed out of it's decisions and
simply served as a protector and supporter of the early reformation. To
designate Sickingen as either a Protestant or Catholic here would be
historically inaccurate. In 1522/23 only few were convinced totally of the
need for a separation, and most Germans wished instead for a reformation
of the existing church.
By 1521 the successful Sickingen is an
idol of the lower aristocracy. They were looking for a leader who could
help restore the slipping power of the lower aristocracy after what they
felt was a betrayal by emperor Maximilians. Many of these
lower nobles were in the stranglehold of the developing cities and their
territorial rulers, which were blossoming under the money economy and who
were interested in pure power politics. Power and wealth which was
increasingly being wrested from them.
In
Landau, the German Knight's Order meets and selects Sickingen, who is
still in imperial service, as their
captain. The knight Franz is stated by some historians to be the future
leader of this order in an aristocracy revolt, but since in the later
crucial battles the number of knights of this order that actually arrived
and joined forces with him was actually quite small, this is not
absolutely the case.
Castle Nanstein part III
