Being a Mercenary

In the 16 century the term of „being mercenary“ was in no way ostracised as it is in our days. In those days mercenary military service was the mormal case, a mass phenomenon at a time which knew neither regular armies as in the Baroque period nor a general draft as in the modern system of state in the 19th and 20th centuries.

His life was not only ruled by war and mercenary work. With much circumspection he administered his sizable land properties: the town and dominion of Mindelheim, the judical lord-ship of St. Petersberg in the Inn valley and Straßberg-Sterzing in the Wipp valley, both situated in Austria, as well as various smaller properties in northern and southern Tyrol in addition to his personal fief, the fortified castle of Runkelstein near Bozen.