Georg von Frundsberg

Georg von Frundsberg (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. An early modern proponent of infantry tactics, he established his reputation in active service during the Italian Wars under Emperor Maximilian I and his successor Charles V. Even in his lifetime, he was referred to as "Vater der Landsknechte" (Father of the Landsknechte) and legends about him as the patriarchal figure of the Landsknechte or his incredible physical strength surfaced. Early life Frundsberg was born to Ulrich von Frundsberg, a captain of the Swabian League forces, and his wife Barbara von Rechberg at Mindelheim, into an old line of Tyrolean knights who had settled in Upper Swabia. He was the youngest of nine sons and thus had no chance of inheriting the paternal dominion. Even as an infant, he was prepared for a warrior's career. He grew up at the castle in Mindelheim, which his father had bought from Georg's maternal uncle Ber (Bero) II of Rechberg. Career 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. As Albert gave in, the expedition was cancelled. Frundsberg fought for the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I against the Swiss Confederacy in the Swabian War of 1499, where he had to realize that the era of the heavy armoured knights was well and truly over. In the same year he was among the Imperial troops sent to the aid of Ludovico Sforza, who had been deposed as Duke of Milan by King Louis XII of France. When Maximilian appointed him Tyrolean military captain, he recruited a powerful army of pike square infantry formations following the Swiss example.