Landsknecht Soldier 1486-1560

The first documented mention of the Landsknechts (Landsknecht means servant of the country) was in 1486, when the council of the Helvetic Confederation was dealing with a diatribe by Konrad Gachuff, who had dared to suggest that, 'he would prefer to arm and train the Swabian or other Landsknecht, because one of them is worth two of us*. In 1487 Maximilian's commander, Graf Eitelfritz von Hohenzollern, was training these first units of Landsknechts in the streets of Bruges. By 1488 the 'Black Guard', formed in Friesland, apparently by Maximilian to defend his Low Country possessions, could almost be described as 'elite', doing sterling (if somewhat brutal) service for nearly 12 years in the territories around the North Sea, and in Sweden and in Denmark, before their total defeat at the hands of the Dithmarsch peasant army at Hemmingstedt (17 February 1500), In 1490 Maximilian was able to raise a strong Landsknecht force for the Hungarian Wars; but having regained his inherited territories to the east and successfully stormed the fortress of Stuhlweissenburg in Bohemia, his Landsknecht army promptly refused to continue the march on Budapest because of lack of pay and turned homewards, heavily laden with booty.
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