Documents - Part I: Section A – Eyewitnesses

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1.	A Brave Woman Steals the Royal Crown – Helene Kottannerin (c. 1400-after 1458) Helene Kottannerin (c. 1400-after 1458) composed what is possibly the earliest known autobiographical text written in German by a woman. The daughter of a lesser nobleman, she was probably born in....
2.	The Rise of a Burgher – Burkard Zink (1397-1474/75) Born in Memmingen, Burkard Zink (1397-1474/75) spent most of his adult life in Augsburg as a man....
3.	Lineage, War, Family – Michel von Ehenheim (1462/63-1518) Michel von Ehenheim came from a large family of Franconian Imperial knights who had long served the margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach. His work, not an autobiography in the modern sense but rather....
4.	A Nobleman Lives for War, Plunder, and Adventure – Götz von Berlichingen (1480-1562) Götz (= Gottfried) von Berlichingen zu Hornberg (ca. 1480-1562), called “the Knight with the Iron....
5.	A Nobleman Transformed by Education and Travel – Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) Perhaps the most famously atypical Imperial knight of his generation, Ulrich von Hutten attended....
6.	From Alpine Goatherd to Teacher of Greek – Thomas Platter (1499-1582) Thomas Platter’s (1499-1582) account of his life is one of the most famous autobiographical documents....
7.	A Swabian Cobbler-Farmer Survives the Thirty Years War – Hans Heberle (1597-1677) Hans Heberle (1597-1677) had attended school before starting an apprenticeship at the age of fourteen. A cobbler by trade, he worked a small farm a few kilometers north of Ulm. His Zeytregister,....
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