Black Company
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The Black Company or the Black Troops was a unit of Franconian mercenaries during the Peasant's Revolt in 1520's during the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
The original German name of the Black Company is "Schwarzer Haufen", where "Schwarz" (black) points out the ideological distance to the large peasant army at that time, which called itself the "Heller Haufen" with "Hell" meaning "lighted". The German word "Haufen" was the common military description by the peasants for their armies. It was never used again in history for an army, possibly because the word "Haufen" means "heap" in German.
The Black Company was formed in 1525 in Rothenburg out of local home guard - maybe 600 farmers - and a company of mercenary knights.
The at least nominal leader of the Black Company was a nobleman Florian Geyer. He managed to make Black Company something like a company of soldiers instead of just armed rabble. Some of the knights were probably his vassals.
When the company had taken over the area around Rothenburg, they proceeded to Swabia to destroy fortified monasteries and castles to prevent them from becoming strongholds for the Swabian League. All those who didn't attack the Black Company were not harmed during these actions. But in Sweinsburg, Swabia, another company, lead by the peasant leader Jaecklein Rohrbach, executed about 50 local knights after those had opened fire on two negotiators. Geyer disapproved of this slaughtering and moved his troops back to Franconia but continued to fight. But Rohrbach's action had sealed the fate of captured peasants and of Geyers Black Company. From this day the Truchsess of Waldburg, commander of the Swabian League, showed little mercy for them and hunted them down ruthlessly through Swabia.
In the battle of Ingolstadt in May 1525, Black Company found itself alone against the forces of the Swabian League when their allies were destroyed. Black Company fought its way back to Ingolstadt and occupied the ruins of the castle, the main buildings of which they themselves had burned down some months before. The troops of the League encircled the castle and started their attack. The occupants fought off two assaults, but were killed during the third which followed shortly after the League's heavy artillery had breached the massive walls.
Geyer himself wasn't there during the last battle. He waited for an escort in Rothenburg, but was banned from the city before it arrived. Geyer traveled North and was robbed and killed by two servants of his brother-in-law Wilhelm von Grumbach. He died in the night between June 9 and June 10 in the forest near Rimpar.
The Black Company remains very popular until today, also the rulers in Swabia did everything to destroy their fame in the years after the uprising by publishing a lot of "facts" about the crimes the peasants had committed. The song "Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen" (We are the Geyers Black Company) is still found in many German songbooks today.
External link
- German Wikipedia site about the knight Florian Geyer in German (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Geyer)