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Florian Geyer | |
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| Known for | Leading theBlack Company during theGerman Peasants' War |
| Born | c. 1490 Giebelstadt |
| Died | 10 June 1525 (aged 34–35) Würzburg |
Florian Geyer von Giebelstadt (also spelledGeier;c. 1490 – 10 June 1525) was a Germannobleman, diplomat, andknight. He became widely known for leading peasants during theGerman Peasants' War.
Florian Geyer was born around 1490 at Geyer Castle inGiebelstadt,Lower Franconia. After the deaths of his father Dietrich (in 1492) and of his two older brothers, Florian Geyer inherited the family castle and fortune. In 1512 and 1513, he was a guest at the court of KingHenry VIII inEngland, where he may have been exposed to the reformist ideas ofJohn Wycliffe and theLollards. In 1517, after refusing to pay 350-year-old interest claims from Neumünster Collegiate Church, Geyer was excommunicated.
In 1519, Geyer served underCasimir Margrave of Brandeburg-Kulmbach in the army of theSwabian League againstUlrich Duke of Württemberg andGötz von Berlichingen inMöckmühl. Later that year Brandeburg-Kulmbach sent Geyer to his brotherAlbrecht Duke of Brandenburg-Prussia, then Grand Master of theTeutonic Order, to support him in thePolish-Teutonic War (1519–1521). Geyer negotiated the truce which ended it. He remained inBrandenburg-Prussia's service until 1523, travelling to various European courts on diplomatic missions.
In 1523, Geyer accompaniedMartin Luther on a visit toWittenberg in Brandenburg-Prussia. If not already sympathetic to theProtestant Reformation, Geyer was probably won over to Luther's ideals at this meeting.
When theGerman Peasants' War broke out in 1524, Florian Geyer, together with a handful of low-ranking knights and several hundred hastily trained peasant militiamen, established theBlack Company (often called the Black Host or Black Band), which was possibly the onlyheavy cavalry division in European history to fight on the side of a peasant revolution. By checking Imperial and Protestant knights on the battlefield, the Black Company allowed preacherThomas Müntzer and his infantry to score a string of victories in Thuringia. Geyer is reputed to have had the words "Nulla crux, nulla corona" (No cross, no crown) scratched on the blade of his sword.[1] All sides credited him with the wanton destruction of cathedrals and castles, andsummary executions of the lords and priests contained therein. These destructions played a part in causing Martin Luther to side with the princes, calling on them to slaughter the rebellious peasants.
As the Peasants' War dragged on, many of the rebel peasants returned home, and most of the knights who, alongside Geyer, had joined Müntzer deserted or defected. Müntzer himself was defeated at theBattle of Frankenhausen and executed shortly afterwards.
Conflicting accounts place Geyer with the company, or alone inRothingen in the aftermath of the Battle of Frankenhausen. The Black Company was falsely informed of victory atFrankenhausen, and ambushed outside ofIngolstadt. They managed to regroup, retreat, and fortify the town's castle and cathedral. The cathedral was burned with no survivors, and the castle was taken after three assaults. A portion of the Black Company broke free, only to be encircled again in nearby woodlands. If Geyer had been leading the Black Company through theBattle of Ingolstadt, he barely escaped with his life. Geyer may, however, have been stranded at Rothingen the entire time while waiting for an escort from the Black Company, which was only to be barred from entering the town. The later attempts to stamp out memory of the uprising have obscured these details.
Whether or not Geyer was at Ingolstadt, he was one of the last survivors. In the night from 9 to 10 June 1525 he was contacted inWürzburg by two servants of his brother-in-lawWilhelm von Grumbach, who had stated their intention of helping him rekindle the Peasants' War. While traveling together, they stabbed Geyer to death in the Gramschatz Forest near Würzburg. The location of his remains is unknown.
The family of Florian Geyer died out in the early 18th century and their castle in Giebelstadt passed into other hands, but is still the site of the annual "Florian Geyer Festspiele".
Geyer was heralded as a communist revolutionary inFriedrich Engels'The Peasant War in Germany (1850). In this work, Engels asserts that the war was primarily a class struggle over control of farms and mines, which subverted the Biblical language and metaphors commonly understood by peasants. In this spirit, a regiment of theBorder Troops of the German Democratic Republic, Grenzregiment 3Florian Geyer, was named after him.
Geyer was also the hero of one ofGerhart Hauptmann's major plays, the historical dramaFlorian Geyer (1896), and the inspiration for the German folk song, "Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen" ("We are Geyer's Black Company"), with a strong anti-clerical and anti-noble theme. The song has been popularised as a union-song,[2] and is noted for its inclusion in the official songbooks of both theNazi Germany and theGerman Democratic Republic.[3]
Geyer was appropriated as a patriotic figure byAdolf Hitler and theNazi Party. The8th SS Cavalry DivisionFlorian Geyer was named after him in March 1944, duringWorld War II.
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