Georg von Frundsberg

Georg von Frundsberg[a] (24 September 1473 – 20 August 1528) was a German military and Landsknecht leader in the service of the Holy Roman Empire and Imperial House of Habsburg.

[3] In 1492, he followed his father in the campaign of the Hohenzollern margrave Frederick I of Brandenburg-Ansbach, authorized to execute the Imperial ban against Duke Albert IV of Bavaria.

In 1509, he was appointed "Highest Field Captain" of the Landsknecht Regiment (occupation force) and participated in the War of the League of Cambrai against the Republic of Venice, achieving a reputation for himself and his men when defending Verona against many attacks.

Peace being made, he returned to Germany, and at the head of the infantry of the Swabian League assisted in driving Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, from his duchy in 1519.

At the Diet of Worms in 1521, he allegedly spoke words of encouragement to the "little monk" Martin Luther,[5] and during the Italian War of 1521–26, Frundsberg helped lead the Imperial Army into Picardy.

When King Francis I of France appeared on the battlefield with a force of approximately 40,000 men, the clever withdrawal of Emperor Charles V's army saved its existence.

The emperor's victory at Bicocca allowed the return of the previous rulers of the oligarchic Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Milan and brought the greater part of Lombardy under the influence of Charles V. In 1525, after a brief stop in Mindelheim as the "Highest Field Captain" of the entire German Nation (with a force consisting of 12,000 men and twenty-nine flag bearers), Frundsberg moved again towards upper Italy to relieve Pavia and to save the Empire's Duchy of Milan.

Despite an additional 6,000 men, of whom some were Spanish, in battle against an enemy that was strongest, Frundsberg won his most famous victory at Pavia, with the capture of the French king.

During his occupation of Mindelheim, Frundsberg borrowed money and sold off his silver table settings and his wife's jewelry, in order to acquire the remaining funds to raise the army.

An early contributor to this Mythos was the first biographer of the captain – the writer and mystic Adam Reißner, who was for a time Frundsberg's secretary and as such, witness to many of the events he described.