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Franz von Sickingen Biography

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SICKINGEN, FRANZ VON (1481-1523). A celebrated German knight, born near Kreuznach. Very early in life he began his military career and speedily became recognized as a champion of the oppressed. He participated in the War of the Swabian League against Ulrich of Württemberg, and when Stuttgart was taken in 1519 he protected the great scholar Reuchlin. Through the influence of Ulrich von Hutten, whose protector he was, Sickingen became an ardent adherent of Luther and sought to found a league of the lesser nobility and the cities to reorganize religious and political affairs in Germany. In 1522 he began war against the Archbishop of Treves, but failed in his attack on the city. He was besieged in his own castle and mortally wounded in May, 1523, dying five days later. Sickingen has become a favorite figure in German legend and literature and is one of the chief characters in Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen and in Hauff's Lichtenstern. Consult Ulmann, Franz von Sickingen (Leipzig, 1872).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 70.