Bear society
The Bear Society or Society in the Bear was a Franconian aristocratic society that regularly held elaborate knight tournaments . Their catchment area also extended into the neighboring regions of Thuringia, Bavaria and Swabia.
It was brought into being in 1481 as an amalgamation of 153 lower nobility from 53 noble families ( see also: List of Franconian knight families , List of Thuringian knight families , List of Bavarian noble families , List of Swabian noble families ).
Like other tournament societies of this time, this society also basically fulfilled the need of the knightly class to distinguish itself from other classes, including the up-and-coming bourgeois families of the cities, the so-called patriciate . The strict acceptance criteria, which not even every noble family could meet, included proof of knightly ancestors and proof of tournament experience of the previous parental generation. On the other hand, this togetherness should be strengthened by cultivating knightly virtues.
The bear society was founded by Margrave Albrecht Achilles as a lobbyist counterweight to the unicorn society , whereby many namesake from families of the unicorn society can also be found in the bear society. This was basically a larger area than the catchment area and also addressed the noble families of the neighboring regions.
The company belonged u. a. the Sparneck family .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Braun: Order affiliations of the Lords of Sparneck . In: Yearbook 2004 of the BDOS - German Society for Ordenskunde eV 2004.
literature
- Klaus Rupprecht: Chivalric rule in Franconia. Degener, Neustadt a. d. Aisch 1994, ISBN 3-7686-9134-9 , pp. 371-377.
- Cord Ulrichs: From Lehnhof to Imperial Knighthood. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-07109-1 , p. 144 ff.