He would be forgotten had he not been immortalised by a sentence: “He can lick my arse”! To avoid becoming poor like many of his peers, Götz von Berlichingen (1480–1562) turned feuds, robbery and blackmail into a lucrative business. This enraged Emperor Maximilian (1459-1519). Known as “the last knight”, Maximilian loved the myth of the noble knight; he fought in jousting tournaments and composed chivalric stories in which he played the main part. But as a military commander, Maximilian realised that the era of the knights and their castles was over. Introducing new weapons and tactics, and changing administrative and legal systems, Maximilian was instrumental in making knights a relic of the past.
