Die Welt der Ritter - Die letzten ihrer Art

ÖZET

After the knighthood dominated medieval armies over half a millennium, their end dawned by the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, under whose generals the main part went to the rising artillery, many types of which he developed for specific purposes, combined with 'Landknechte', cheap infantry lifted from the peasantry, even commoner cavalrymen. Maximilian also championed the love for romanticized chivalry, presiding over and participating in grand joists (with participants from all Europe), but gradually adopting specially designed, 'disarmed' hobby warrior weapons, even write a chivalrous epic, while knightly armory became a decorative prestige business, increasingly flaunted by wealthy bourgeois, the rising urban class. Maximilian extended the church-imposed 'divine armistice' periods into a permanent rule of law enforced by state justice, outlawing constant abuse by' Raubritter' (robber knights) like Götz von Berlichingen, whom Max however repeatedly pardoned for extortion, commission to enforce denied justice and worse under the cover of 'ancient customs', finally even accepting the lead of a peasant revolt 'to prevent worse', to resume his role as military commander, knights and nobility were recycled in courtly and other (post-)feudal functions rather then quasi-lawless petty fief-rulers.