Robber baron

As a robber baron is called those members of the knightly class, the enriched themselves by highway robbery and plundering. This development is said to have used in the late Middle Ages and have been primarily a result of the displacement of the natural economy through the money economy. More recent historical works, however, plead for avoiding the ideologically loaded term robber barons in the scientific conversation altogether.

Term

The term robber baron is not from that time itself, but is a new creation, which was used until the late 18th century - eg in the announcement of 1799, published in Vienna Knights novel: The robber barons with the steel arms, or the circle of stars; a ghost story. in the Wiener Zeitung on 29 September 1798. 2007 Klaus Graf was an earlier proof of robber barons in a translation from Spanish to locate, 1781.

Unlike the robber barons mischief the discharge of feuds had always been part of the chivalrous life and the weapons eligible population was assured legally even a long time in large parts of medieval Europe (since Barbarossa but only on Mondays to Wednesdays ). Only since the peace of 1495 feuds were banned altogether. Often in Raubritter raids enemy lands were, as in feuds looted.

Aristocratic societies

Some companies nobility in the 14th century ( for example, Martin birds, Sterner waistband, From the old Minne, Bengler, from Horne and lions Confederation) were characterized among other things by a hostile urban policy. Some members of the Knights frets are often referred to as robber barons. The cities were partly warlike against the robber barons before and destroyed their castles (such as Tannenberg castle, Burg Wildenstein ). So were the counties Reifenberg and Kronberg, two sworn enemies of Frankfurt, one of the founding members.