Battle of Seckenheim

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Elector Friedrich I of the Palatinate (painting by Albrecht Altdorfer )

The Battle of Seckenheim on June 30, 1462 was a decisive battle in the Badisch-Palatinate War .

prehistory

When the elector Ludwig IV (the meek) died in Worms in 1449 at the age of 25, his brother Friedrich (the victorious) took over the guardianship of his one-year-old son Philip . Friedrich expanded the territory during his reign and made the Palatinate the most powerful and then most modern state in the west of the empire. According to the Golden Bull , Friedrich, as a brother, could only be the steward until his nephew Philip came of age. To get around this, he adopted Philipp in 1451 and decided not to marry (but later concluded a secret morganatic marriage with Clara Dett (or Tott), see also Lutz Schott von Schottenstein ) in order not to endanger the normal inheritance. From this he derived the right to be elector himself. This right was confirmed by the Pope and the princes, but not by the Emperor. Since Emperor Friedrich III. politically, however, could not prevail against Frederick I of the Palatinate, he several times declared the imperial war against him and encouraged neighboring princes to enforce the imperial ban against him.

The war

Emperor Friedrich III.

As early as 1460, the emperor succeeded in a first attempt by allied princes and bishops to wage a war against Friedrich, which Friedrich won on July 4th with the battle of Pfeddersheim and gained territorial advantage from it. There was also talk of an enormous amount of booty on the battlefield. Finally, there was a dispute among the princes when Pope Pius II filled the Mainz bishop's seat, which enabled the emperor to win additional new executors of the imperial ban against Friedrich. In addition to Count Palatinate Ludwig, he won the new Archbishop of Mainz Adolf von Nassau and Margrave Karl von Baden , his brother Bishop Georg von Metz and Count Ulrich von Württemberg for an alliance against the Palatinate.

The battle

The allies intended to invade the Palatinate from the south and gathered an army of 10,000 men near Pforzheim. On June 27, 1462 they besieged the city of Heidelsheim . In St. Leon a military camp was built to Swiss mercenaries to wait. In the meantime, the surrounding Palatinate villages and fields were burned down by mounted princes and knights and the inhabitants were gutted to harm the enemy.

However, unnoticed by his opponents, Friedrich was able to gather his troops in Leimen and on the night of June 30th, with about 300 horsemen and other foot troops, he went through the Schwetzingen Forest to the “Frohnholz” (today's Dossenwald) in the south of Seckenheim , which served the imperial troops wanted to burn down the following day. The Palatinate troops were reinforced with about 300 more horsemen and additional foot troops through the contingents of Archbishop of Mainz Diether von Isenburg and Count Philipps von Katzenelnbogen .

When the imperial attackers approached Seckenheim the next morning with 700 to 800 horsemen, the riders of the Palatinate party faced them completely unexpectedly from the south, followed by 2,000 infantry, beyond the then larger Schwetzingen Forest with the battle cry of Count Palatine Hut paltzgraff and never mee! (Today Palatine count or never again) . So the war band of the imperial attackers was divided and the way back to the camp was cut off for the horsemen. The Count Palatine personally took part in the battle.

The decision

Representation of the victory over Count Ulrich von Württemberg by knight Hans (den Kecken) von Gemmingen in Gemmingen's Stamm- u. Tournament book with wrong date
Memorial to the battle of Seckenheim in Mannheim-Friedrichsfeld

The fight was very fierce, and for a long time it was impossible to predict who would emerge victorious. Finally, the infantry, consisting of citizens and farmers from Heidelberg and the surrounding area, brought the decision in favor of the Palatinate. They used the Swiss Landsknecht tactics, hit the skulls of the horses with morning stars , tore the horses' throats, flanks and bellies with spears and pulled down the heavily armored knights with the hooks of the halberds , who then mostly unarmed, stunned and wounded fell to the ground and surrendered. About 400 prisoners were taken, including the Bishop of Metz. This is said to have been brought to Eichelsheim Castle and held captive in the same room as the antipope John XXIII.

Only the enemy general Count Ulrich V von Württemberg - 49 years old at the time of the battle - did not want to admit the defeat for a long time and fought furiously until the 31-year-old knight Hans (the Kecke) von Gemmingen took him to a duel in full armor demanded with the words: I will try my salvation on your grace!

Ultimately, Ulrich von Württemberg surrendered, delivered the glove and his weapons, and Hans von Gemmingen took him prisoner. The Seckenheim battle and the Baden-Palatinate war were over and won for the Palatinate.

The rest of them fled in panic into the forest and killed the defenseless knight boys ( noble squires ) who stood there with fresh horses for the Palatinate people. A few of them were able to reach the camp in St. Leon, reported on the catastrophe and caused a panic escape.

It was not until 1504 that these events were repeated during the War of the Bavarian-Palatinate Succession , but with a less fortunate outcome for the Palatinate.

In his ballad Das Mahl zu Heidelberg , Gustav Schwab dealt with the battle and its consequences.

Elector Friedrich had a memorial cross erected on the battlefield, which is no longer preserved, of which illustrations have survived and of which the Mannheim Antiquities Association owned a copy that was lost in World War II. Today there, in the Mannheim-Friedrichsfeld district , is a monument from 1890. The name of the village Friedrichsfeld, founded in 1682, goes back to this battle or the winner.

literature

Web links

Commons : Battle of Seckenheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the inscription on the memorial on the day “St. Pauli Memorial ”, June 30, 1462
  2. ↑ Franz Albert Lissignolo, Friedrich field or the Battle of Seckenheim on July 30, 1462 Mannheim 1835, page 14, available at Bayerische StaatBbibliothek digitally .
  3. ^ Hansjörg Probst , Seckenheim: History of a Kurpfälzer Dorfes - Mannheim, 1981, page 22, available in Heidelberg historical holdings - digital Heidelberg University Library.
  4. ↑ Rieger, JG Historisch-topographisch-statistic description of Mannheim (1824), pp. 9/10, available under Heidelberg historical holdings - digital , Heidelberg University Library.
  5. ^ The meal in Heidelberg at Wikisource
  6. ↑ To the copy of the cross from the battlefield
  7. ↑ MARCHIVUM : Chronicle star . June 30, 1462, Retrieved September 27, 2018 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 26 ′ 47 "  N , 8 ° 34 ′ 36"  E