Yes, von Hutten is an interesting character. University educated Humanist, and clearly a gifted writer as you can see. He was involved in the Reuchlin affair, ridiculing the anti-semites who wanted to ban the study of Hebrew with biting, scatalogical and often hilarious satire called the "
Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum" But in that letter, he is describing a situation here that was changing and coming to a head.
Being the time and place that it was, it's complicated. But I'll try to summarize the circumstances that tie him specifically to the phenomenon of Robber Knights and bandits.
This was a time of major change and rapidly increasing tensions between all the estates in Central Europe: the Church, the princes, the Emperor, the towns and the gentry, and the peasants too. Emperor Maximillian I had banned private feuds (in theory) in his
Ewiger Landfriede "
Everlasting Landfrieden" of 1495, considered one of the early attempts at state building in the HRE. The lower nobility, (many of whom had non-noble origins as
ministerials) correctly saw this as an attack on their rights and a power grab by the princes. But others (also correctly) saw it as an attempt to establish peace and law and order within the HRE.
From that point on all disputes were supposed to be settled in the
Reichstag, the diet or sort of the proto-parliament, of the whole HRE. But the lower ranking nobles, especially the
Lehnsmannen or vassal knights like von Hutten, felt that only the princes and prince-electors had representation there. The feud (
fehde) was their one last resort if the (princely) courts unfairly sided against them. The towns, though they struggled against the robber knights, were also very wary of the princes. The
Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum reflected an already deep seated distrust and dislike of the Church which had been prevalent in Central and Northern Europe at least a Century before Luther. The Emperor and the prince-electors however mostly sided with the Church and saw the spread of Lutheranism and it's many variations as a threat to their power, and to public order.
Tension escalated sharply after Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Worms Cathedral. Most of the gentry, peasants and burghers north of the Alps, and quite a few princes too, were sympathetic to the reform ideas of Luther, or even if they didn't understand them in detail, were in favor of a reform. Ulrich was later allied with Franz von Sickingen in the so-called "
Poor Baron's uprising" or "Knights Revolt" of 1523, which itself was really just a feud between Sickingen and some other knights against the Archbishop of Trier, with religious sectarian overtones. Sickingen, who had been one of the most formidable captains of
Charles V, failed in his revolt. He was unable to get support from the burghers of Trier and ran out of gunpowder. His (once thought impregnable) castle was destroyed by cannon in a week and he died. Von Hutten, suffering badly from syphilis (the sudden and devastating onset of which was definitely affecting the religious-political climate) died in the Swiss Confederation a few months later.
Shortly after the "Poor Baron's Uprising" in the Rhineland, over to the eastern side of the HRE in Franconia more trouble flared up. Nuremberg went on the warpath. Under escalating pressure from violent robber knights instigated by the (Hohenzollern) Prince-Elector / Margrave of Brandenburg, and especially enraged by a certain Thomas von Absberg, who liked to cut off the hands of his kidnapping victims including Nuremberg town councilors, they invoked the Swabian League's
Landfrieden and instigated the
Franconian War I mentioned earlier. Nuremberg militia along with the forces of 20 other towns and a half dozen princes, systematically besieged and burned 23 "
Raubritter" castles, all of knights whose names were in their feud book. They had a painter with them, Hans Wandereisen, who has been called an Early Modern 'War Correspondant', as he painted portraits of every castle they burned.
[ Linked Image ]
This is the castle of von Absberg, the forces on the bottom right are Nuremberg militia (red and white striped flag).
You can see the other 23 castles here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandereisen-Holzschnitte_von_1523
These two events taken together were a heavy blow against the lower nobility or knightly estates, signaling their decline though not their end by any means, and feuding (with associated banditry) was a major cause. The next year, 1524, the series of peasant uprisings which we call the "German Peasants War" began, and as many here may be aware, none other a notorious feuder and occasional robber knight as the
Free Imperial Knight Götz von Berlichignen was briefly one of their generals.
Ulrich von Hutten seems like a sympathetic character, (his satirical writing is worth looking for) but in his eloquent letter describing the perils of being a
Lehnsmann and the misery of going fishing in your armor, he lets slip the link between the knights and regular bandits or brigands:
"
Knights and retainers go to and fro, among them thieves and highway robbers, for our houses are open to all, and how can we tell one armed man from another?"
It's also interesting to note how he contrasts his own precarious circumstances in a rural castle with the relative peace and safety of the towns. This is notably in contrast to the conditions of the rural gentry in other parts of Europe, such as say, England.
And it was their failure to act with discipline as an estate, and gray area between just regular banditry and feuding, which ultimately cost the lower nobility so dearly. There were attempts at this, including interesting experiments in collective enterprises like the so called
ganerbenburg, but ultimately they couldn't unify and probably more important, couldn't make effective alliances across the boundaries of the estates, except on a small scale and locally. The towns had a similar problem in reverse, though more of them were able to weather the storms of the 16th Century, if not without some damage.
The circumstances in the 1520s however were rather extreme, and religious sectarian conflict would increasingly define a lot of the events in Central Europe from that point onward. It is around here where the turning point between late medieval and Early Modern begins to really pivot, arguably. So you should just keep in mind that conditions were a little different in the medieval context.
J
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