Landsberger Bund
The Landsberger Bund existed from 1556 to 1599 as an alliance of some imperial estates to ensure peace . It is named after the town of Landsberg am Lech .
history
After the difficulties of maintaining peace in the country, as had been shown above all on the occasion of the Margravial War, the Landsberger Bund was founded on June 1, 1556 as a regional defensive alliance of various southern German imperial estates. The first military leader was Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach .
The actual architects of the alliance project were the later Reich Vice Chancellor Johann Ulrich Zasius and the Bavarian councilor Wiguleus Hund . The specific background was the imminent dissolution of the Heidelberg Confederation and the concern about new Landfriedbreak actions by Albrecht Alkibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach . Although the new Imperial Execution Order had been passed in 1555 , the protagonists of the Confederation feared that it was not yet sustainable.
In particular, Zasius and Hund pursued further goals. They knew about the fragility of the Augsburg religious peace and the military strength of the Protestant estates. Therefore, the federal government should also serve to stabilize the Catholic position in the empire. In order not to challenge the establishment of a Protestant unity from the outset, the federation had to be at least nominally non-denominational. This denominational background did not play a role in the official documents.
This included Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria , King Ferdinand in his role as Archduke of Austria , the Archbishopric of Salzburg and the imperial city of Augsburg . The alliance was initially limited to seven years. A year later, an alliance of the monasteries Bamberg and Würzburg as well as the imperial city of Nuremberg , formed in 1552 against Albrecht Alkibiades, was added. Ferdinand I in particular pushed for an expansion regardless of the denomination of the members. However, it did not succeed in expanding the federal government to include Württemberg , the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main and the Count of Wetterau .
At the top was a federal colonel. In the beginning, this office was filled annually between Austria and Bavaria . The colonels were responsible for calling the Bundestag meetings and were in command in the event of war . The members appointed a council of war to lead the troops. The common troop should consist of 200 horsemen and 800 foot soldiers . Regular payments by members financed the expenses.
The federation should only take action if the imperial circles or the emperor were unable to maintain peace in the country. In this respect, the federation was a supplement to the imperial peace order and was not in competition with the imperial institutions.
The federal government rarely became really active. This was shown in 1558 and 1563 during the raids by Wilhelm von Grumbach ( Grumbachsche Handel ) in Franconia . During the attack itself, the federal government was not active because of the speed of the advance and retreat. Afterwards a standing troop of riders was set up to protect the Franconian territories. The federal government also played a modest role when mercenary troops marched in Alsace in 1569 . These were 40,000 strong, which far exceeded the military capabilities of the federal government.
Against the background of this weakness, the Bavarian Duke Albrecht V made an attempt in 1569 to massively enlarge the league. Negotiations took place with all the electors except Brandenburg . On December 17, 1569, Jakob von Eltz , Archbishop of Trier , joined the alliance. Even the Spanish Netherlands should be included. If it had been successful, this would have meant expansion into a Landfriedensbund active throughout the empire. Ultimately, however, these efforts failed because of the denominational differences, but also because of Maximilian II's rejection of enlargement .
The federation broke up after disputes between Bavaria and Salzburg in 1599. Instead of the officially non-denominational federation, Bavaria endeavored to form a purely Catholic alliance, which came into being with the Catholic League in 1609 .
literature
- Walter Goetz (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of Duke Albrechts V and the Landsberger Bund 1556 - 1598 (= letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century, part 5), Munich 1898.
- Maximilian Lanzinner : The Landsberger Bund and its predecessors. In: Volker Press (Ed.): Alternatives to the Imperial Constitution in the Early Modern Age? Munich, 1995 pp. 65-74
- Horst Rabe : Empire and split in faith. Germany 1500-1600. Munich, 1989 p. 302
- Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 714.
Individual evidence
- ↑ LHA Ko Order 1A No. 9658